Dancing with the Dragon
It’s not what I expected, this dance with rage. In a culture that has warned me my anger will consume me, that my rage will destroy me, I only (willingly) let it go so far.
Take tiny sips, and quickly look the other way. Pushed down and quieted for too long, the anger sometimes escapes me in a smoky haze...almost without warning, at some insignificant misstep. I feel it well up, and I try to run, or hide, or find something to deflect it, or just set the damn thing off and get it over with. Unacceptable. They might say. And to be certain, to be ill-timed is to be ill-fated, causing hurt to those I love the most. It’s not what I want. Why are you doing this? And I am ashamed of myself. Of this fire. And in this way, I continue to fear it. Continue to dread it. Continue to be repulsed by the flame, repulsed by the burning embers sizzling quietly in my solar plexus. Please just be quiet. Please be still. Please be nice. Please go away. Go away! And so it goes on.
But this night is different. It pulses with mystery. Pulses with hearts beating true. Within the web my sisters and I have woven, within the tight basket of our willow branches, of our mutual love, respect, and courage...I let it all go. I don’t call in the rage, I don’t expect it. But here it is, and here I am, and it is time. Heart open, hands drumming, feet stomping. As a scream, a guttural roar, tears through me, as I close my eyes and let the sensation rock me, as the fire burns up and through me... I let it all go. I am not afraid. The drumming continues. I am Mother Bear, letting her fierce warning blast away those who would dare threaten her young. Ready to destroy. I am Tiger, calling up the depths of the jungle to my aid. I am Dragon, deep in the cave. Deep in the dream. I feel no separation between my rage and these predators, these warriors. I am Kali. I breathe fire. I am not afraid.
And as I direct this rage OUT, out of my body, out of the solar plexus where it has been held, suspended, tightly coiled and dangling like bait in the Lion’s den, for years, for generations...as my cells remember this cleansing fire...as I do this, the blaze opens upwards and outwards from its center, flickering now at the edges of an ink-black well. A deep obsidian tunnel, of the darkest dark, of which there seems to be no bottom, no end. A ring of fire surrounding a great abyss. The flame does not consume me. It invites me in. It is silent. I am still.
I would expect to find grief here. I don’t. I have cried enough, I suppose. I have grieved for lifetimes.I wail in my dreams, for the trees and the oceans and the whales and the elephants and my ancestors, past and future. I’ve known the cries that do not cease. I have known those epic waves of grief since I was very small, letting my hot salty tears and rhythmic sobs rock me to sleep. Letting the sadness hold me. She is so familiar. That child, that river of grief. What I encounter here, in this place of rage burned clean, leaving no ashes, no rubble to speak of...is something very different. Perhaps the fire is so hot, any tears that dare trickle are vaporized and disappeared before I get one tiny sip...and what is left instead?
Peering through this ring of fire, like a small child peering over the edge of the Grand Canyon, I gaze into the abyss with wonder and awe. What gazes back at me hums with calm, hums with magnitude. It is so massive, that it feels small. So unfathomable, that it feels quite clear. Not unlike the feeling that comes over me as I am falling asleep sometimes. Do you know that feeling, as you drift away? The feeling of being so small, yet so incredibly heavy, and somehow floating in space, so far away from everything around? It’s a somatic paradox that enchants me. I’ve come to think this is a splendid feeling, and not so scary at all.
The blackness, the nothingness, I encounter here... undulates with potential, it beckons with possibility, it groans with Power. Silently. It looks me in the eye and does not flinch. It does not comfort. It does not judge. And I see. I see why some might fear it. I see why I too, have turned away from this place for so long. What would it mean to release the anger fully, to walk through the fire, and enter such a place of mystery and manifestation? What if anything was possible? What if we let go of those stories? What if the fire burned up those ideas of who was who and what they did to us? What would be left? Who could we blame? Wouldn’t it be safer, somehow, to hold the rage close? To let its familiar flames flicker on the inside, keeping its hot heat close to our bellies, to our hearts...letting it burn us up slowly, a trade-off for some feeling of control? Like a secret never told. Like a love never spoken. Like forgiveness never given, never released. Wouldn’t that be safer? To cage the Dragon? To let the hurt come slow, through bodies numbed, rather than risk losing it all to the fire?
But I am learning, slow and steady, that withholding is a poor excuse for power, a tragic attempt at control. It keeps me small. Believing I am safe, when actually I am burning to ashes and scrambling to hide the evidence. Withholding passion. Withholding forgiveness. Withholding my voice...my beliefs, my concern, my laughter, my joys, my sorrows, my anger. So tonight, tomorrow, and another tomorrow, I choose something different. I let my heart encounter what it must. I make time for my body to remember without my mind telling it why. I allow my ancestors to speak through me, and I let their pain dissipate. I encounter Peace in an unexpected place. I let fire be fire. I let the Dragon roar. I let my Spirit soar. I am not afraid.