Background to the 2011 tour

The Chinese first started drawing symbols for dragons 6000 years ago, so we know that that culture had a sense of what the energy of “dragon” entails in symbology, and of course the Celts were in Asia 4000 years ago to learn that knowledge and take it to the West, where it would have been joined with indigenous practices already in place. In the West, the dragon did less well because our culture began to distrust its raw elemental energy, especially after the eventual impact of the Christian era on pagan beliefs. That has all been written about before and you can have fun on Google finding some of that out.

Meanwhile here we are in the 21st century, in a time of great upheaval, needing to call upon large energies again in order to sustain us and to be in touch with that elemental energy of that dragon that is in our own nature. The dragon awakens us and we realize we can be at one with its elemental energies if we open our hearts enough to allow its tenderness and rawness to reside within.

One of the Four Dignities in Buddhism is the dragon, the inscrutable, the wise. On our 2011 Reclaiming the Dragon Path tour, we were on a pilgrimage to awaken that that wisdom within ourselves. Our practice was shamanism on the move and we followed the wisdom of all pilgrims who have gone before us. We know that our bodies have energy centres (chakras) and believe that the earth has places where we can share her energies most, which are often sites identified by those who have preceded us as places of power.

As we went to the sacred sites, empowering ourselves by being there, we also went in alignment with moon, sun and stars. Within the seasons is the further practice of connecting to the dream and knowledge in the land. We retrieve this knowledge with what is called analeptic memory. The research and intuition that went into this trip told us the places to work with the Western dragon were on lands that were held by people who knew how to work in harmony with them in the times before written history, when shamanic practice was the root of all spiritual practice. We wanted not only to access the western beliefs but to reweave the Eastern root awareness back together with it as One.

We chose the element of water in our dragon work because it brings the blending and unifying of all energies, symbolized by the wells feeding land and rivers going into the ocean. The Eastern zodiac sign for new year for 2012 is the Water Dragon, which is characterized not only by the usual wisdom and creativity of the dragon, but a dragon that is willing to cooperate with other points of view and to “soften” the effects of the impact of powerful changes that we have been experiencing and anticipating. It is necessary that the earth go through a kind of dismemberment to re-form herself and rebirth, water is the element related to birth. I have attended two water births and can say that the support for the process of coming into this world is compassionate and gentle.

The process of birth is so explosive and creative and the water softens it.

We have a creative regrouping to do if we are going to rebalance our relationship with beings on earth and Earth herself. If we can address the inherent purity of water and carry that in our hearts as we experience the changes, we will have transitioned well.