Dreaming of Dragons
“I am large,
I contain multitudes”
—Walt Whitman
art by Alvia Alcedo via Pinterest
Dreamscape: I awake from sleep and find that I am giving birth to baby dragons. They slip easily from my body and swirl in flight overhead. I am in awe as I watch the room swell with the beating wings of these magical creatures.
…
Saturday marks the Chinese Lunar New Year, and our entrance into the year of the Wood Dragon. Although I am not Chinese, I find myself very excited about the arrival of the year of the Dragon.
Over the past few years, Dragon has appeared to me in various ways–in dreams and visions, story and symbol, and twice as a sign in the sky as a perfect cloud formation. As a friend of mine put it, I am being courted by Dragon.
When I shared in a dream circle that I have been dreaming of Dragons, a man in the group posed the question, “perhaps Dragons are dreaming you?”
Hmmm. Perhaps.
Who is dreaming you these days, dear one?
Archetypes, symbols and myths have a way of capturing our imagination and inviting us deeper into the wild life of our souls. Michael Meade describes his craft of storytelling as “mythological acupuncture,” awakening lines of energy to bring us into greater alignment with self and soul.
For me, the arrival of the powerful Dragon as part of this collective moment is a reminder that that which is most personal is often most universal. The images and symbols swirling in our own soulscapes are also part of the larger story.
We are not separate.
artist unknown via Pinterest
We are both the dreamers and the ones being dreamed.
Dragon is an ancient symbol who soars across cultures.
For the Chinese, Dragon symbolizes good luck, power and strength. In Japan, Dragon is seen as the ruler of rivers and seas. And in Ireland, Dragon represents sovereignty and protection of that which is precious.
What does Dragon symbolize for you?
To me, Dragon feels like an invitation to step into my own largess. To fully inhabit the power, myth and magic of my one wild and precious life.
As I see it, we are each meant to be large. Not in an outsized way, but in a way that honors the fullness of our human experience.
We are meant to declare, right along with the poet Walt Whitman, “I am large. I contain multitudes.”
And yet, in a conformist-consumer culture, to occupy our own magnificence can be a terrifying prospect.
Marianne Williamson says it so well:
“Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure… We ask ourselves, 'Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous?' Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world.”
And yet “playing small” is often our default.
For many of us as children, it just wasn’t safe to be large, take up space, or reveal our inner Dragon. We learned early on that our belonging, and therefore our safety, depended on our smallness.
Often this pattern is an ancestral one, a means of self-protection passed on for generations under the threat of war, hardship or oppressive systems of dominance, and often lasting long after the threat has passed.
….
art by Stephanie Jenkins
In my dream, I hear a knock on the bedroom door. My wonder turns to fear–I am afraid to be caught giving birth to dragons! Although I can feel there are more dragons waiting to be born, rather than giving birth, I choose to turn them into urine and pee them out onto the bed.
…
In the patriarchal imagination of power-over, Dragons are meant to be slain. For our foremothers, the threat of violence for stepping out of line was real.
Whether due to personal or generational trauma, our inner protectors—these internal voices who tell us to tone it down—had good reason to hide our Dragons. Without a doubt, they saved our lives early on.
And yet, if we continue to allow these old strategies of survival to run the show, we miss out on the life within us and stay stuck in the much-too-small.
In order to birth the magic and muchness that waits inside of each of us, we first must be willing to bravely face and then lovingly tend the wounds that tell us to slay or hide our Dragons.
Healing is not an inner battle, but rather a coming home.
Our wounds, too, are part of our magnificence.
All of it belongs to the largess of you.
Stepping into our own largess means growing our own capacity to lovingly be with ourselves in the muchness of who we are—scales and claws, magic and mystery all included.
It is our birthright to inhabit the true shape of our souls.
Not only that, the world needs our fullest expression.
Each soul is an expression of the soul of the world.
As we live into the truth of who we most deeply are, our personal healing brings healing to the whole.
To quote Williamson again:
“We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It's not just in some of us; it's in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.”
If you are looking for support in tending to your own magnificence, I invite you to check out 1:1 Soul Tending a contemplative container designed to help you deepen into your innate wisdom, attune to the voice of your soul, and perhaps birth a Dragon or two. :)
The largess in me honors the largess in you.
May you find courage to birth your Dragons, inhabit your magic, and live into your own mythic story as part of the unfolding story of creation.
Pssst….know someone who might like this post? Pass it on!
Tending to the wisdom of body and soul is what 1:1 Soul Tending is all about. Click to learn more.
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Hello, dear one. I’m Stephanie.
As a Soul Companion, educator, and sacred space holder, I am passionate about deepening our connection to the earth, our bodies, and the divine mystery that dances in all that is.
Let’s journey together into the sacred wild!
