Fire breathing
A vivid scene infiltrated my imagination this week. I could not let this vision pass me by before opening it up to see if it carried a message. I want to share the scene with you. I’m curious if you find any of your own message or meaning in it. Will you imagine this with me?
A young girl is standing in the presence of a dragon. They encounter each other on the upper rim of a canyon landscape. It feels like an uncharted edge of the world. The dark sky merges with the barren land around them. The girl is frail and windswept. She fights with herself to keep her stance fierce and unwavering. The dragon is so massive that there is no way to even tell the separation between its long back and the vast night sky.
Their eyes lock on each other. A mutual reverence pulses between them.
The dragon pulls in a deep inhale. The girl knows what she must do. She trembles but doesn’t let the dragon know it. The dragon’s breath inevitably turns around in its belly. The thick wall of scalding breath accelerates toward her.
All those years the girl spent fleeing from this dragon flash across her memory. Before now, she never even got a good look at it. It was long ago when she started finding her hiding places. All she ever knew was the dragon looming in the distance, trying to find her. Evasion became her craft. There was even a time she let herself forget she was running away.
If you would like to listen to my voice reading this aloud, click here.
She grew weary from a life on the run. All of her hiding places became desolate. The dragon closed in on her. She had nowhere else to go. She let it come. Hiding was the only form of defense she ever practiced. Once found, she had no other way to protect herself.
In the last moments before the dragon’s exhale engulfs her, the girl sees her reflection in its eyes.
It all happens instantaneously. Her stance melts. The grip in her hands dissolves. The drum of her heart slows. The flow of breath is set free from her chest into the rest of her body. She softens and closes her eyes.
Surrender.
Everything turns into a glimmering whirlwind spinning around her. The hot wind absorbs her and lifts her into the air. Her eyelids lift, and she looks down to where she last stood trembling with fear. Now she is elevated to a new a realization. She suddenly knows this dragon will always be a part of her.
There, at the brink of her death, she is reborn.
The surrender funneled the dragon’s breath into her being where she could finally understand it. Now, she can look back into the dragon’s eyes with a deep knowing. She clearly sees why it was seeking her all this time.
Now in a fleeting moment suspended in the air, there is a choice the girl must make. The life of hiding is to be released. She feels rage. It is more powerful than anger. It is more prepared than anger. Her rage is harnessed. It is channeled. The fire comes now. She opens her mouth. From within her, an exhale surges out in billowing flame toward the dragon.
The whirlwind lowers her back to the ground. The dragon kneels, lowers its head, and bows before her. Their mutual reverence still abides. The bond is secured. She is finally whole.
The power, which I am so afraid the world will: a.) use against me or b.) never use for me, is the same power I possess within myself. The process of unveiling the true nature of my power feels like the end, maybe even like death’s arrival. It is more than I can handle in my own strength. When I accept that, the pivotal moment of surrender transforms everything.
I sit here pondering the possibility that we all have our own dragon seeking us. Maybe our dragon only descends when we are finally ready to surrender. For some, the dragon may appear early in life. We’ve seen those young, unstoppable fire souls. Others may still be on the run later in life, whether they may realize it or not. In the latter case, I imagine their hiding places are well fortified like mine were… until they weren’t.
The hiding places I built came in many forms. The first few that come to mind are: conformity, people pleasing, self pleasing only in secret, and being a chameleon wherever I went. The funny thing is, these were my strategies, but it doesn’t mean they always worked. At the end of the day, I am a uniquely created, fire breathing spirit. Others can sense that, even when I’m trying to hide.
When I grew weary from the building, the fleeing, the hiding, I turned to my final and favorite hiding place: alcohol. It muted what sounded to me like impending doom. I could feel okay. Feeling okay turned into being numb. Being numb turned into slowly fading away. That is when my dragon first descended to me in 2018.
I have stood face to face with my dragon a few times over the last four years. My surrender came gradually, in waves. I am deeply stubborn. I share this because transformation is rarely a fast “white light moment.” That does happen to some people, and even then, it still comes down to the day-to-day.
Melody Beattie articulates this beautifully in her wonderful book of daily meditations. The book is called Journey to the Heart. My dear friend Miranda recommended this a few years ago, and it has been a companion to my coffee and me most mornings ever since. This is today’s meditation for November 6.
Value Each Moment
How often we wait for those grand moments of revelation, those intense times that blast us into transformation, those turning points that forever changes us and our lives. Those are the dramatic moments we write about, see in movies, and long for in our lives. Yes, they are wonderful. But turning points such as those happen only a couple of times in a movie and a few times in a lifetime.
Each moment of each day in our lives is a valuable turning point- an important part of our spiritual growth, an important scene in the movie of our lives. Each feeling is important: boredom, fear, hate, love, despair, excitement. Each action we take has value: an act of love, an act of healing. Each word we speak, each word we hear, each scene we allow ourselves to see, and each scenario we participate in changes us.
Trust and value each moment of your life. Let it be important. It is a turning point. It is a spiritual experience.
Have you met your dragon yet?
The album Fantasize by a band called Kye Kye carried me while I was writing this piece (linked below). When I put it on, I didn’t even realize it has a song titled Hiding Places. These are beautiful times.