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>>surely you understand that western society, having been born out of fear and an earth mother despising paradigm, doesn’t know any of that stuff<<
I think it's finding out in quite a hurry. j
There are destructive aspects to the Dragon energy depicted by the East too. I read somewhere about virgins being sacrificed to the river dragon in China too, not just in the west.
Also, in the tales of the eight immortals, Lu Dong Bin uses a magical sword to slay a malignant Dragon. So there are definitely dragons and dragons.
As a counterpoint to this, in the West we have the Red Dragon on the flag of Wales, the oldest flag in the world. This was originally a Golden Dragon banner carried by ancient British war leaders and seen as a positive figure. Arthur Pendragon (Dragon head) is a good example.
The point I’m making is that its more than a battle between Christianity and Paganism – oversimplification. The dragon was seen as both positive and negative by pre-christian peoples too. What about Indra slaying the Dragon, Thor and the midgard serpent, Marduk and Tiamat?
You can’t even explain it away as Patriarchy versus Matriarchy either, as ancient Cretan origin myths have the Earth mother stamping on the head(repressing) of the serpent- this time depicted as male energy.
So I think in the end, slaying the dragon can be seen as transmuting energy or mastering energy in the body, Kundalini and in the earth – a kind of Feng shui. I’ve heard that Slaying the dragon with a spear for example represents a kind of Geomantic acupuncture, the spear being a stone of somekind.
The dragon can be slain but never really dies because its also the symbol of rebirth and regeneration.
One word about St George, he was originlly a much older figure, Green George (green Knight) who protected the earth and was/is a symbol of green fertility. He later became christianised in the same way as St Nicholas.Dylan
… partic. the welsh flag and the ‘evil Chinese dragons’. In context of sex and death, the difference between slaying and saving becomes hard to see sometimes!
My only point was really that stereotypically in the west we ‘dislike dragons’ but this is not so. For starters walk down the fantasy section of any bookstore – you will find many more dragon friends than dragon enemies these days and series often have protagonists in symbiotic telepathic relations with dragons. We are talking about a multi-million dollar industry here and considering it began only a few decades ago thinking that ‘dragons were bad’ it seems they have come a long way. These people are working out the dragon energies for themselves. With some authors (eg. Le Guin) over the course of their work you can actually see the dragon change into something different.
As far as dragons in the history of the west are concerned, well you have to separate the states from Europe! I don’t know what the state of dragons has been in the US, you would have to comb Native American traditions to find out, the secret of the disconnect between place and people lies with them.
In Europe obviously for the last 2,000 years the influences were Rome and Christianity – at least so we’re told! But actually the Romans never conquered half of Europe, and even at their height whole swathes of Europe were Celtic, Germanic, Scandinavian. Basically the farther North you go in Europe the more you find dragon place names, dragon rituals… they are there in people’s blood! Not just the people either, WAY into the Christian period nobility were being buried in dragon coffins. I doubt they just did it for no reason…
So as far as ‘dragons in the west’ are concerned it just isn’t true that we all hate them and the Chinese all love them. The seeds of dragon-respect and friendship are certainly there in the west, and I would say the outlook for our relationship with them is rather good! That Welsh flag again for those who never saw it:
j
I think this whole thread was about that other story plus what the life force as individuated spirit does to us!
w/ the dragon you are talking specifically a part of the life force connected with the animal nature and the reptilian brain in a human being, a mechanism of evolution, not Michael’s ‘Life Force’ which is more general, a field associated with all consciousness; it’s a specific subset of the general to do with what drives it IMHO. j
The reptilian brain – cerebellum – is in my view (inspired by Michael), a recapitulation of the lower centre within the upper centre. Extrapolating from that we could say the lower (belly) centre is itself a recapitulation of the centre of the Earth, which is in turn a recapitulation of the centre of the universe – the great Cauldron. This would link the serpent with cthonic energies which need to be transformed. The Dragon could be seen as a winged serpent- rising dragon means JIng transforming into Chi and Shen and back again (serpent biting tail?) The serpent wrapping round the sword (True essence of Dragon slaying?) is one of the symbols of kundalini.
So I think, as do many systems that the cosmic serpent is a valid representation of the life force in general which can also be expressed as individual entities.The founder of Aikido, Morihei Ueshiba, one of my inspirations, had as his primary guardian spirit, The Dragon King. It seemed to function as an individual entity, but also in some way represented the supreme creative force of the universe. He was told by another spirit that he would be “possessed” by the Dragon King on a certain date. This transfiguration shows that he underwent the Kundalini big time, Martial artists tend to have a rough time with the kundalini energy before controlling it. He wrestled with his anger all his life before transmuting it into Divine Love, exemplifying the essence of true martial arts – transformation of fear and anger into courage, valour and Love. Even he didn’t fully complete this process though (if anyone ever does) as he died in old age of Liver cancer (green dragon? anger?).
Dylan
… yes I agree with all that and the guy who taught me about kundalini, Glenn Morris would also agree.
I have had a partial kundalini rising and it looks like I’m heading for more right now actually. Interestingly Robert Bruce, an astral projection guy who also teaches energy work, says that there is literally a serpentine movement inside oneself that wraps itself in 3 1/2 twists around the core channel when kundalini is fully activated.
The dragon energies in the earth may perferm certain other similar functions on a wider scale, the kundalini being a personal version – that’s my guess. j
Interesting you bring this liver thing up…
Not only martial arts guys wrestle with anger Dylan… My liver and I are having a complex hate and love situation, I wonder who is strongest, anger/fear or love.Riding the dragon inside yourself is not a one time job, it is a life time job, to get the tail and copulate with it. You see the mouth for me is crucial, a kiss is crucial, it tells all about who you are… I had a dream last night where a man I know for many years kissed me with a softness I never experienced before from him, in my dream I was surprised to notice the change of kissing.
And also focusing on the upper centers only is not doing the trick, it is having the balls to dive into the earth and wrestle with that. At least for me, just focusing on the heart and up is creating a split which makes me very angry because it is denying a part of my reality.
Excluding my sexuality, my desires is denying earth itself, which means you don’t belong here. You give a signal to earth that you don’t love her, you don’t like her and you don’t want to copulate with her, how does that feel…
Sure sex is thin ice, hard to master, but denying is is killing earth, killing us, that is why dragons are here, to help us out, yet we don’t listen, we fear, we judge.>>Excluding my sexuality, my desires is denying earth itself, which means you don’t belong here.<<
Bingo, you have to ride it constantly, this is the very mechanism of evolution, it is why we are here. How can one harmonize with it and make this a spiritual world if one is trying to ignore it? Which, with my pagan hat on, is what the 'spritual leaders' amongst us are always telling us to do? 🙂
This is also why I don't like the Buddhist doctrine that 'the physical world is illusion'. I know precisely what they mean by it, but it is totally the wrong thing to keep banging on about right this second in our history. Fear of being worldly does make you favour the more rarefied things. You have to learn to wallow naked in the mud with everybody! Or something will get left behind. Nothing can be done without a dragon, without sex, without the necessity of getting the beast and you in harmony. That harmony is what makes evolution possible I think. j
You may be interested to know that Glenn Morris was also a major inspiration to me too.
About 20 years ago I studied Bujinkan Ninjutsu for about five years in Birmingham (my home) with Paul Rice, a student of Bo Munthe (along with Stephen Hayes and Doron Navon, considered one of the founding forefathers of western Ninjutsu) and Sven-Eric Bogsater. It blew the lid of my previous studies of Judo and Karate and paved the way for my interest in Tai Chi and Chi Kung. Path notes really accelerated that path and it was then that I realised Kundalini was achievable and through that I got into Chia and then Michael.
I never met Glenn but I discovered recently that a fellow student,Karl, who now runs the centre at Birmingham Uni, did meet him when he visited.
Was shocked to hear of his death last year, do you have more information on that? I almost don’t believe it.
I want to get back into Ninjutsu now, especially with the perspective that Tai Chi and Chi Kung have brought. There is an american teacher, David Holt here in Budapest who has also studied with Hatsumi. He is shit hot! He trains the Hungarian police in H to H. Like most high level Ninpo practitioners, he looks like a big teddy bear but could rip your arm off if it came down to it.
I think the spiral energy (integration of circle and straight line) is key to Taijutsu and all natural movement and has given me further insight into the Kihon Happo (way of emitting real KI).Dylan
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