The Dragon and the Butterfly
Archetypal medicine for tough times
NOTE: This is a cross-post from my Spirit of Education Substack; apologies to anyone who may be on both lists!
As the Year of the Dragon begins, I have been drawing Dragons almost every night.
It's become a ritual: I open my sketchbook to a blank page, lay out my colored pencils, and begin with only the haziest idea of what will emerge—today the Dragon will be flying, today the Dragon will be in the mountains, today the Dragon will be standing on a rock.
From that indistinct intention, an hour or so later, a proud Dragon takes form on my page, magnificent to me because of what she represents: freedom, strength, courage, beauty, power.
We live in a time when it is easy to feel powerless. The big forces of human society—politics, business, finance—seem to exist on an entirely different plane than the ordinary earthbound realm most of us inhabit.
It's almost like we're in a 21st century version of ancient times, when humans felt powerless in face of capricious and often vindictive gods.
Having no influence with those distant gods, all I can do is keep tending to my own creative Light, sending out my steady signal, like a lighthouse beacon whirling in a fixed orbit amid storm-tossed seas.
I think this is all any of us can do.
We don't know what will happen tomorrow, or even later today. We don't know how long we have in this lifetime, or what blessings or calamities lie in wait for us. In the face of such uncertainty, all we can do is strive to be steady, and to tenderly nurture our own inner creative fires.
For what else matters, when all is said and done, other than what we have managed to create in the space of a lifetime?
If you're paying attention at all to world events, you know that we are living through tempestuous times. Transition times, I called them in the blog I began to write in 2011, when I first woke up to the climate crisis.
Humans being herd animals, if one of us gets spooked the whole herd gets uneasy, and before long we're running in mad circles and retreating into tribal groups, fiercely confronting perceived enemies.
In the age of AI, drones and missiles, our fears can get us into big trouble.
It's true that there's much to be legitimately scared about. But if we act and react solely out of fear, we will never escape the madness of "mutually assured destruction" by endless aggression (both military and economic).
As the Moon wanes and we await the start of the Year of the Dragon on February 10, I am in the midst of my annual return (in the college general education seminar I teach) to Shakespeare's tragedy of "Hamlet," a classic account of young people ensnared by the corrupt, violent worldview of their elders.
Unlike his friend Laertes, Hamlet refuses to give in to the vindictive mentality of his vicious uncle Claudius. He also refuses to listen to the wise entreaties of his friend Horatio, who begs him to stand down and get out of the fray.
Instead, he goes into the heat of the moment with eyes and heart wide open, neither angry nor afraid, ready for whatever comes, including his own death.
There is a special providence in the fall of a sparrow.
If it be now, ’tis not to come; if it be not to come, it will be now; if it be not now, yet it will come.
The readiness is all.
Somehow it seems to me that my Dragons are urging humanity to be "ready" to face whatever may be coming. They are bright, colorful, proud and loud in their insistence that now is the time to step up and flex our mighty creative wings in service to Life.
Recently I had a reverie about another beautiful, winged being, the Monarch butterfly, which manages to migrate from Mexico to New England and back again, year after year. How do they do it?
In generations.
Each butterfly lays eggs along the way, assuring that new generations of caterpillars will be born, eat, cocoon, and emerge with wings to take up the torch of the migration and carry it further.
Human beings are like these butterflies. Each generation depends on those who came before.
Like Hamlet, most of us alive today came into a "rotten" society, a society so obsessed with military might, aggression, expansion and exploitation that we are blindly destroying our own kingdom, our Earth.
And yet, as Shakespeare told us through the tragic figure of Hamlet,
There’s a divinity that shapes our ends,
Rough-hew them how we will—
To me this "divinity" is the grand force of Life that brought our universe into being and impels every speck of matter to join and grow and continue evolving, generation after generation.
On Butterfly wings, we can use our creative powers to seed a future in which all beings on this planet can thrive.
As an educator, I seek to help students break free from the herd mentality and reconnect with their own creative centers so that they can think for themselves and, like Hamlet, analyze situations independently of the stories spun by their elders.
As an elder, I am not interested in telling young people what to think, or even how to think; I simply want to pass along whatever tools and insights I've picked up in my lifetime, that may help them thrive and shine.
I read the tragedy of "Hamlet" as a cautionary tale, in which the winner appears to be the most ruthless young man of them all, Fortinbras.
Fortinbras takes the crown in the end, yes; but it is thoughtful, empathetic, creative Horatio who lives to tell the tale, passing on the lessons learned from this tragedy into the future on the wings of many generations of readers to come.
Perhaps it is the seemingly fragile Butterfly who has the most power, in the end.
I'd say that these days we need a dose of both medicines: the liberating joy of letting our inner Dragon stretch, strut, and roar; and the serenity of riding those high winds forward, generation after generation, trusting in the "divinity" of Life to carry us onward into a brighter future.
Dragon and Butterfly Medicine at Bioneers this March!
In March I’m so delighted to be offering a distilled version of my popular college course, Leadership, Writing & Public Speaking for Social and Environmental Justice, moving out of the classroom into the world!
If you are feeling your inner Dragon wanting to roar, but need help figuring out how to channel your passions into eloquent, persuasive writing and speech, this course is for you! As we write and speak our truths, we let our generative seeds fly into the future, Monarch butterfly style!
Four Friday morning online sessions, starting March 4 and culminating with an optional in-person gathering at the 35th Annual Bioneers Conference in Berkeley CA at the end of March, where I will also be giving a workshop based on my award-winning book Purposeful Memoir as a Quest for a Thriving Future.
I’m here to help!
The motto of my author consulting business is “Writing to Right the World,” and the motto of my book publishing business, Green Fire Press, is “Books that Make the World Better.”
If these intentions resonate with you and you are working on a book, or have one in mind, don’t hesitate to get in touch!
Supporting creative people bring their work more strongly out into the world is one way the Monarch butterfly in me does her work….
As always, your words inspire me to turn away from despair and into courageous, open-hearted embrace of my life's purpose.
I recently received some guidance from my internal voices about my sankalpa. In Sanskrit, "san" suggests to "become one with" and "kalpa" refers to "time/subconscious mind;" it's used to set intentions or to express one's heart's desire. What came to me based on a Tarot card drawing was "I am radiant like the sun."
Let us all remember to shine our lights out into the world!