I am a great fan of dragons.  To me they are a symbol of power, especially women’s power, that has been much maligned by story overlays over the last couple thousand of years.

The first dragon was Tiamat, a Mesopotamian goddess from whose body the heavens and the earth were created – she is associated with the sea and chaos.

And we all know the chinese character for chaos combines the symbols for calamity and possibility.

Because of my great affinity for dragons, I always feel called to defend them when they are written off as “the enemy.”  I got to

thinking about that this morning after reading one of my favorite subscription blogs, Creative Juices Arts, where dragon is predictably guarding all the creative sparklies and not sharing.

Jean Houston says that “chaos is a movement toward consciousness, which is also a movement into conscious creation, conscious genesis and conscious loving.”

Dragons are creatures of the imagination.  Perhaps even guardians who push us to prove that we indeed do want to go there (wherever “there” may be and wherever that may take us).  Dragons help us move toward higher levels of consciousness and out of our comfort zone.

In their book, This Bridge Called My Back, authors Moraga and Anzaldua notes that “change requires a lot of heat.  It requires both the alchemist and the welder, the magician and the laborer, the witch and the warrior, the

myth-smasher and the myth maker.  Hand in Hand.”  Dragons create heat – the heat of change.  When the hair rises on the back of our neck as the flames start dancing, we have to choose:  walk in and through or run away.

May Sarton notes that “Sooner or later…the creative person, the person who moves from an irrational source of power, has to face the fact that this power antagonizes.  Under all the superficial priase of the ‘creative’ is the desire to kill.”  Dragons teach us to be brave in the face of our fear.

Like most of the creatures of creation, we humans go through a periodic molt, except that our molt is an invisible one and because of the invisibility of the transformation, necessitates a particular form of courage, a courage we are never sure we have in our possession.  Shedding the carapace we have been building

so assiduously on the surface, we must by definition give up exactly what we thought was necessary to protet us from further harm.  David Whyte

Dragons help us burn away the “protective” shells we have cultivated so that we can grow to our true size.  Dragons bump us up against our self-created restrictions.

Annie Dillard says that you can’t test courage cautiously.  There is nothing timid or cautious about facing your dragons – and befriending them so that they are around the next time you need a little help out of your current skin.

Think about it:  maybe it’s time to rewrite the mythology that dragons are evil, bad, scarey creatures that we need a Knight to slay so that we will be forever safe (and inactive).  Safety never did anything for growth or creativity.  Take back your own lovely chaotic, imaginative, creative self.  Rewrite this story.

Perhaps the Dragon is only yourself that you don’t yet recognize.  Take on her power.  Take on her fierceness.  Take on her willingness to protect that which she loves – the things that sparkle and shine and make her life beautiful.

You can to it!  I believe in you!  Come – take my claw.

Wylde Women’s Widsom: I have been woman/for a long time/beware my smile/I am treacherous with old magic/and the moon’s new fury…”  Audre Lorde

p.s.  I like Unicorns too!  but that’s a different story for another day.