Embrace Your Inner Dragon
A New Year's invitation
As soon as I heard that the Year of the Dragon was coming in 2024, it was like a portal opened in my mind's eye, and I began obsessively drawing and thinking about Dragons.
The last Year of the Dragon was 2012, the much-heralded threshold in the Mayan long-count calendar, which predicted that a long bloody cycle in human history would end on December 21, 2012, ushering in the start of a new, better era.
This new period has sometimes been depicted through the legend of the Eagle and the Condor: the Eagle representing the masculine, scientific, dominator mind, the Condor representing the feminine, intuitive, collaborative mind.
When these two great principles begin to fly together, it is said in many indigenous traditions of the Americas, humanity will shift into a more harmonious phase in our relationship with each other and with our Mother Earth.
As archetypes, Dragons represent this kind of convergence.
Like Eagle and Condor, they are both fierce and nurturing. They are creatures of both the Earth and the Sky (and Water too, if you count Sea Monsters as Dragons).
They breathe Air and project Fire.
They are often depicted as hoarders, sitting on vast treasure; but when they fly forth from their caves, they carry nothing with them, needing only the fire in their bellies to achieve their objectives.
The year ahead certainly feels like a time when we will need to draw on our archetypal Dragons, to activate the fire and inner strength that they represent.
The world I survey from the mouth of my cave is full of strife and danger, overrun by all the Furies that ancient Greeks tried to keep locked in Pandora's box: war, famine, pestilence, social upheaval, not to mention the Sixth Great Extinction of species and a climate gone haywire.
The Dragon in me looks out at this bleak landscape, and a wisp of smoke curls from her wide, snorting nose. She is impatient with the follies of humanity—how we keep letting greed, aggressiveness, competition and short-sightedness do away with so many chances at happiness.
Sometimes my inner Dragon wants to fly forth with fire blazing, scorching the Earth clean of its miseries.
Sometimes she just wants to retreat to her cave and sleep on her pile of treasure: mulling over memories of happier days past, and visions of better futures to come.
As an archetype, she has much to teach me about the fearlessness that either of these paths entail.
It takes courage to let the fire in your belly come out of your mouth; to become visible in your quest for transformation of self and world.
It also takes courage to retreat; to accept that every righteous warrior also needs time to sleep and dream and recharge.
I admire the Dragon for her wisdom and her fearlessness, her strength and her tremendous poise. Nothing phases her. She has seen it all and her huge heart beats in rhythm with the great pulsing cycles of Earth time.
In this Year of the Dragon, I call on her qualities to bring the Eagle and the Condor together in my own spirit so that I may better serve the Earth and all her beings with whatever fire and tools I have available.
During these first months of the New Year, I will be flying out from my cave quite often as a teacher; you can check out all my online classes and in-person retreats below or here on my website.
As we welcome in the Year of the Dragon, I encourage you to seek out opportunities to ignite the creative embers in your own dragon-belly and cultivate the wisdom and fearlessness you need to soar.
Waving to you from the mouth of my cave,
Jennifer
Come Write With Me Online!
The Things We Carry: Writing Transformational Travel Stories
When we step out of our comfort zones and take the risk of exploring new places and activities with new people, we open up the potential for tremendous growth and transformation in our lives.
In this lively, hands-on online writing workshop, reanimate memories of your most special travels, inquiring into the unforgettable experiences and insights you continue to carry with you even now.
Three Fridays in February starting Feb. 2, 9-10:30 am Eastern.
Hosted by Il Chiostro, $120 for all three sessions.
Find out more and register here.
Exploring the Many Faces of Love
Chockfull of writing prompts and craft guidance, this class will help you create heartwarming stories about love (in all its many guises).
Four Mondays, February 5, 12, 26, & March 4, 6 - 8 pm Eastern.
Hosted by the Writers Federation of Nova Scotia; $169 for WFNS members, $234 for non-members (includes membership).
Click here for full details and registration.
Speak Your Truth! Leadership, Writing & Public Speaking for Social and Environmental Justice
Four Fridays in March starting March 1, 12-1:30 pm Eastern.
Hosted by Bioneers Learning; $349 includes discount pass to the 35th Annual Bioneers Conference in Berkeley CA!
Find out more from the short video below; full registration details available here.
Join me for a Californian writing retreat by the sea!
With my lifelong friend Audrey Kalman, I’ll be leading a three-day Birth Your Truest Story Writing & Hiking Retreat in northern California, March 25 - 28, 2024—and YOU are invited!
We’ll stay together at a cozy retreat center, sharing meals, writing sessions and hot tubs, interspersed with invigorating hikes on the nearby beach and up in the hills along the coast.
This will be the perfect idyll to get your creative juices flowing in good company!
Check out all the details here and if you’d like to come along, don’t delay—space is limited and will go fast!
Come with me to Tuscany next spring!
I’ll be leading another fabulous Il Chiostro writing workshop May 25 - June 1, 2024 at the luxurious Borgo San Fedele, a meticulously restored monastery set in exquisite gardens amid a classic Tuscan landscape of olive groves and vineyards.
Our days will unfold in a perfect balance of guided writing and productive sharing; excursions guided by our Il Chiostro hosts to nearby picturesque medieval towns; coming home to San Fedele to relax by the pools and gardens, eat delicious meals and visit with new friends; and taking time for your own contemplative writing and thinking.
You’ll come away from this magical sojourn simultaneously enlivened and relaxed, with a deeper understanding of your purpose in writing memoir, along with many pages of new writing providing a plethora of potential doorways into the story of your life.
More information (and beautiful photos) here.
Ready to book? Click here.
Come Riding & Writing with me in Iceland next June!
Come along with me for an all-inclusive week of RIDING and WRITING in the spectacular Icelandic countryside, in the height of the bright summer season, June 10 – 16, 2024.
Every day we’ll ride out on sturdy, sweet Icelandic horses through the expansive rolling vistas of western Iceland, led by our experienced guides from Hestaland. Once you’ve experienced the exhilaration of the fast, smooth tolt, a gait unique to Icelandic horses, you may not want to go back to the trot!
We’ll eat delicious meals together at the beautiful Hestaland Guesthouse and participate in thoughtful, open-hearted guided writing sessions.
There will also be plenty of time for sharing and discussing your writing projects and visiting the nearby hot spring spa at Krauma.
Learn more about costs and accommodations on the application form.Â
Whether you’ve been to Iceland many times, or this will be your first experience there, this trip is sure to be transformative!
More information (and beautiful photos) here. Email me with any questions!
Friends, it’s my pleasure and my passion to support you as we stretch towards living our lives creatively and to the fullest.
Are you ready? Let’s go!
Such a beautifully, profoundly human dragon-tale, Jennifer! Thank you. Flapping my dragon wings!