Here Be Dragons
The ancient Chinese were very astute students of nature. From the movements of the celestial bodies to the characteristic movements of animals, they acutely observed every aspect that makes up reality and came to the realisation that all these things were connected. This can be seen most clearly in the Chinese zodiac system where the twelve signs are represented by the twelve animals. How strange it is then that such keen observers would use eleven regular animals, such as the pig or rabbit but also include a mythical beast that doesn’t seem to exist – The Dragon.
This February we are about to enter in to the Chinese year of the Wood Dragon and it is said that people who are born in this year are courageous, ambitious and adventurous. However, these kinds of generalisations, that can be found in glossy magazines and self-help websites all over the internet are little more than mass produced, regurgitated pop-psychology. To truly enter the world of the dragon we have to delve a little deeper.
The dragon in ancient China was rife with symbolism, mysticism and hidden meaning. The classic Chinese dragon that you see adorned on many temples and pictures has a wavy twisting back and is often depicted holding a ball or a pearl in his front claw. There is a very specific reason for why he is drawn like this as the pearl represents the energy centre known as the lower Dan Tian and the twisting body shows the uprising of Chi energy through the spine. Here the Dragon is showing us how our internal energy system functions.
Dragon symbolism permeates throughout all of the Chinese arts. There are the Dragon stances in Tai Chi, the Dragon styles of Kung-Fu and whole systems of Dragon Qigong and Dao-Yin. They even crop up in Chinese medicine quite often and I have recently been studying a more esoteric method of acupuncture known as the ‘seven internal dragons’. In this technique seven needles are inserted into specific points on the body, which when done in a particular order, supposedly summons dragons in to the treatment. These benevolent dragons then chase off any entities or demons that may have attached themselves to a client’s energy field, in a kind of dragon fueled exorcism.
This may seem a little far-fetched but I have witnessed first-hand the powerful transformative effects that these treatment can have. Whether or not there are actual dragons that come along remains to be seen but the ancient Chinese certainly believed in them, at least on some level of reality. And they clearly weren’t the only ones.
In Thailand the temples are guarded by Naka dragons and they are seen as the protectors of the realm of heaven. In India the Nagas and Uragas are seen as the progenitors of all terrestrial animal life. Greek mythology is a-wash with hydras, serpents and a dozen other kind of dragon. Similar looking creatures can be found in the myths of Quetzalcoatl in South America and in the Cherokee lore of North America. Here in the UK we have them popping up all over Celtic mythology and dragons and wyverns can still be found on the flags of Somerset and Wales. In a sad sequence of events our very own St George seems to have killed the last of them off.
So how is it that a creature that doesn’t actually exist, crops up time and time again in the myths and stories of different cultures all across the globe? How much of a coincidence is it that we have recently discovered that actual dragons, or dinosaurs, roamed this very Earth millions of years before us? Do we somehow have memories of these creatures embedded deep within our reptilian brain? Or is something else going on here? Could it be possible that dragons do actually exist but on another level of reality or a different dimension?
The bandwidth of visible light that we perceive is actually quite narrow compared to the full spectrum of frequencies that are out there. We experience such a small fraction of the totality of reality that it may well be possible that things can exist outside of the parameters of our abilities of sensory detection. Throughout my long journey in to the world of Chinese medicine I have been continually surprised in that what I at first thought of as a metaphor or an allegory, actually turns out to be a very accurate description. I wouldn’t be surprised if the same were true of dragons.