A dragonfly in my corridor and a long post

This morning I was going upstairs from my office to open our jewelry workshop when I saw this beautiful dragonfly resting on the corridor's wall. It's a pity I'm not a good photographer and can't deal with the camera at its best, but I think you can well see its delicate friezed wings and the green little head. I seldom see one of those here in Copa, and I immediately thought about its symbology, and about my mother.

What the heck does is have to do with your mother, some would say?

Thing is that minutes before I called mom to know how it was her visit last afternoon to a shaman with her best friend.

Ok, let's go from the begining:

Sonia, mom's best friend, has a daughter who lived for some years in Mexico, and last month she visited the place again with her husband and little daughter. When coming back, she brought with them an old Mexican shaman, her husband's old friend, for spending some time here in Brazil (seems like he always wanted to know our country). Once here, he started "doing exams", for the lack of a better word. He started analysing Sonia's daughter, and made a ritual for helping her in some problem she was goin through. Then it was her husband's turn, then a friend, then Sonia herself. I wouldn't expect anything different from him, he has been a shaman in Mexico for more than fifty years, so naturally it doesn't matter where he is, he's still a shaman, right? And it's just natural to feel the energy around him and analyse it.

This brings to my mother. Since my sister died, she's suffering so much it breaks our hearts to see. She is a very brave, wonderful woman who is trying to deal with her pain the best she can, but after following up her oldest daugther's fight & suffering so closely, she is wrecked. And we, her five "kids", were all devastated for not being able to help her, though she insisted saying she was really ok, as if... Sonia, being the sweet friend she is, decided a drastic step, and last afternoon she took mom to visit this shaman. Note: mom is a very catholic lady on her own way, who loves going to the church when she feels like it - meaning not every Sunday, but when she feels the need. She prays at home to her saints, observes the holy days... summoning up, she has never been to a shaman or anything of he sort.

But there she went, because, in her own words, she felt it wouldn't hurt - but I could feel she wasn't believing in any results. So this morning I called her, anxious to kow how things were. And to start, her voice was so changed... She had the voice I used to hear all my life and that in the past year it was lost. A strong, firm, positive voice. She said it was amazing. An experience that she never expected to live. The old man was really serious - ah... this was her fear - and after walking around her passing his hands over her laid body without touching her, he started talking and talking, and everything that he was talking about her was right - at the same time, literally spitting black little stones that accrding to im, symbolized what was making her feel bad inside. He talked about Dedê's death, dad's death, grandma's death, loneliness, back aches, headaches, - mom hasn't mention anything - but he went straight to the point.

She left the place feeling completely renewed, and this coming from my mother is astonishing. She's feeling just like before, the deep sadness she was carrying inside is different now, she feels herself lighter. We all know that psychologically she could feel better after this, but I truly believe something happened between yesterday and today. Mom is not the kind of person who is easily convinced of anything - actually she was the one who taught us to always seek the truth, the logic before believing in something odd. Something happened, no matter what it was, and seems like she refound her balance. And I'm happy for her.

As for the dragonfly's symbology, it has to do with transformation and life's ever-constant process of change. It makes sense to me.

Above is mom with her three "kids", my older brothers Evaldo, Delcio and Arnaldo, on a photo taken in the begining of 2007. This is the smile I was missing.