Saturday, January 21, 2012

Dungeons and Dragons

When my husband and I go for walks around our neighborhood, we frequently see rabbits doing rock impressions. They hold very still, flatten their floppy ears onto their backs and hold their breath. Because we are far from normal, we always compliment them as we walk by:

"What a great rock impression."

or

"Look at that rock in the middle of that yard."

If we see them about on a sunny day with updrafts and skydancers, we warn them.

"Get into the shade, or the skydancers will see you!"

This describes, in terrifying detail, how I have been living my life for the past four years. Not the walking and talking to rabbits part, but the hiding, freezing, and breath-holding. In this past year, The Year of the Iron Rabbit, (according to the lunar calendar) I have been hunkering down and waiting for the storm to pass.

Yesterday on our walk through the native space behind our house, my husband and I noticed... a pelt. He recoiled and said "what does that to a rabbit?"

"A predator. And time," I answered.

The thing about predators is they have nothing but time. They wait, gliding on updrafts, resting on warm air.

-----

As I think forwards to this New Year, the Year of the Dragon, I'm still inside my stone-rabbit cell. I've never seen a dragon, have you?

It is the only mythical creature on the 12 year cycle in the Chinese system. Dragons are fierce and powerful. They breathe fire. They fly. Dragons only exist within the context of the human imagination. In the West, we slay dragons. In the East, we become them.

I read this as an invitation to tap into the deepest sense of power and reinvent ourselves. This is a year beyond resolutions and goals, outside of weight loss and closet organization. This is a year to cast off shackles and fly.

After a year of turning inwards, focusing on the nature of ourselves, we launch into liberation.

From dharana to dhyana to samadhi.

Are you ready?

1 comment:

  1. I'm ready! Great ideas are flowing through me an I've decided that 2012 is the year for action... No more being a rabbit, it's time to soar as a dragon.

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