Learning to Dance with the Dragonfly: Healing Lessons of Nature
Author: Holly N Fordyc
On a beautiful spring day Holly N. Fordyce received devastating news: A recent biopsy revealed she had breast cancer. Her physical healing began almost immediately with the usual medical treatment and alternative medicines, but fixing the spiritual damage to her soul and dealing with the ensuing anger, hurt, and fear was more complex.
Fordyce, a clinical social worker in private practice, discovered the only way to claim her life and stand in her own truth in the present was to journey past the darkness. Through writing, photography, and her passion for nature, Fordyce was able to come to terms with a life-threatening illness and begin the healing process. She writes about her self-exploration in a heart-felt new book, Learning to Dance With the Dragonfly: Healing Lessons of Nature. In this collection of journal entries, essays, and poems-highlighted with dazzling, color photographs-Fordyce shares her innermost thoughts, hopes, and fears.
"On this bright Tuesday afternoon when the light was so blue it hurt your eyes to look at it, I no longer felt comfortable in my own skin," she says of the day she discovered she had a life-threatening illness. "My body had betrayed me and now felt alien and threatening. The tenuous sense of control I'd once known dropped off like an old coat. This magical month when I live in my garden and dig in the earth, loving its moist raw fragrance, when I plant seeds filled with surprise for the months to come, when I'm surrounded by birdsong wild as a symphony, became a backdrop to terror."
The titles of the essays and poems themselves-such as "A Transformation Begins," "I Am," "Coming to Terms," and "When I Don't Feel So Much Like Me"-offer insight into the author's journey and inspiration for others trying to cope with life-threatening situations. She writes extensively about self-acceptance and the fragility of her connection to life. With honesty and openness, the author adds an eloquent voice to those who have conquered their own difficulties and become stronger for them.
Her poems, exuberant photographs, and gentle warmth invite the reader into that deeply centered place where each of us can experience passion, the power of healing, and the strength to move with the relentless unknowns of life.
Fordyce shares her writings and photographs in this 198 page hardcover book as a way to say to others you are not alone: "I hope my experience with the healing qualities of nature can be of help to others."
Learning to Dance with the Dragonfly is a highly passionate read as well as a cogent reminder of the lessons to be learned on the path to healing.
THE MIDDLESEX BEAT - Elizabeth Renomeron
When Holly N. Fordyce was diagnosed with breast cancer in 1993, it was a rude jolt from a comfortable life. After treatment succeeded and she was declared cancer free, the fear that the tumor might come back took over her thoughts. Stifled by this constant worry and angered by the betrayal of her body, she felt lost over how to continue with daily life. As she remembers, "I was terrified, and I didn't know what to do with that." Her journey on the road to emotional recovery began on a particularly bad day a few years later when, while searching for some way to escape her nagging fears, she noticed a group of cardinals congregating by her window. It was a sight that provided her with the first stepping stone - the recognition of a bigger world that extended beyond the realm of cancer: nature. This recognition led to a flurry of journaling and creativity, as she explored her brush with mortality through journal entries, essays, poems, and photography.
Fordyce, who works as a clinical social worker in private practice, had previously only considered these creative outlets to be occasional hobbies. Now, she was driven by the need to express herself. Her creativity was fed by her connection with nature. On walks with her golden retriever Rosie along the cranberry bog near her home in Carlisle, Fordyce took new notice of such simple things as the flow of wind through flowers and the flight of herons across a frozen meadow. She came to realize that "We're connected with everything, with all the little creatures out there, and somehow that's comforting to know."
Fordyce chronicles her journey in her book, Learning to Dance with the Dragonfly: Healing Lessons of Nature (Dancing Dragonfly Press). The book is a compilation of journal entries that cover one year, as the reader follows the writer's thoughts through the seasons. Interspersed are essays and poems inspired by the nature scenes that she details in her journal. After noting the caress of a light breeze on an unusually warm March day, Fordyce ponders, in the essay "Thoughts on the Wind," the duality of the wind: how it can be destructive in the form of tornadoes, yet comforting. She explains, "When the first gentle wind of spring whispers confidences in my ear and riffles my hair like a lover, my heart skips and I fly with the bellsong of a bobolink on its invisible currents." This essay is followed by the poem "Wind in the Leaves," in which a child ponders the movement of trees.
Color photographs bring to life the moments Fordyce describes, from dragonflies precariously perched on flowers to the palpable shiver of a bird resting on a snow-covered tree. These varied components are combined to fully express her coming to terms with her condition. She says that, "It wasn't an epiphany, but over time, connect-ing with nature and getting involved with the photography, the writing, and dealing with my feelings, but also getting outside myself, had a transforming effect." Fordyce's connection with nature is best exemplified in her description of dragonflies. As she struggled to adapt to the new life that the diagnosis had forced upon her, she recognized that dragonflies possessed two qualities that were essential to her healing process: "Transformation. Dragonflies go through several stages of development that can take years. The other is the notion of adaptability . . . They've adapted to all different kinds of environments, and they still do," she explains. "So the ability to make change and to adapt to change was important to me." From nature, she learned about the struggle to survive, a challenge which all creatures face, and about the unflagging persistence of the spirit, whether it be of man or beast.
Although dealing with a cancer diagnosis can be an emotional rollercoaster that may be difficult to share with others, Fordyce feels that relating her experience may help those who are struggling with illness or with life in general. She says that although it's not a how-to book on survival, the lessons she learned from nature may help others to forget their nagging thoughts by living in the moment, whether by watching a humming-bird navigate a safe landing or by celebrating a friend's birthday. The book is the product of what her diagnosis led her to realize: life is short. We should listen to what Fordyce describes in one of her poems as the wisdom passed on to her while she was "Dancing With the Dragonfly": "The dragonfly said dance. She lit on my finger/ Breathe the earth's blue air and dance."
Midwest Book Review
Written by breast cancer survivor and professional social worker Holly Fordyce, Learning To Dance With The Dragonfly: Healing Lessons Of Nature is a contemplative and inspirational collection of essays, spiritual meditations, brilliant color photographs, and profound day-by-day insights into the wonder and beauty of the natural world. A moving and immersive reading experience, Learning To Dance With The Dragonfly is a original and unique reading experience that will linger in the mind long after the book is finished and placed back upon the shelf.
Library Journal
A clinical social worker, Fordyce was stung by her breast cancer diagnosis at age 53. Though her treatment went well, she remained bitter, angry, and fearful. And years of "readjustment" ("I'm a slow learner") still hadn't brought her peace or understanding of where life had taken her. Then her love of nature became a focus for "the search for my spirit." As in Heather Remoff's February Light, a seasonal journey through ovarian cancer, Fordyce's book features essays, poems, and a monthly journal, along with her beautiful four-color photographs of the landscape and creatures comprising her world. Among her observations of dragonfly and dune, bird and bog, she discusses her breast cancer as various anniversaries are noted. She is no Pollyanna: "I'm to think of breast cancer as a chronic, life-threatening illness, and this knowledge fuels black moods . Hope and fear coexist and are mixed with a teaspoon of denial, a pinch of panic and an insistent voice commanding me to make my days meaningful." Fordyce's observations are enticingly written, her vision intoxicating. Highly recommended for anyone who needs to regain a footing in life. Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information.
Go to: 23rd Precinct or The Nature and Origins of Mass Opinion
Diet-Step 20 Grams/20 Minutes for Women Only!: The Doctor's Easy 2-Step Quick Weight Loss and Fitness Plan
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