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Dragon Magic - Dragon Spirit:
The Fascination With Eternal Dragons
by Silvia Hartmann
Why are people so deeply fascinated with dragons?
Why are there dragons and dragon depictions in EVERY culture, old and new alike, all around the world?
Why are there so many dragon stories, dragon symbols, dragon pictures and why is it that the idea of the dragon is so powerfully present - when there are no dragons here today?
These are some very interesting questions, and we can start our journey into the mystical country of the dragon with what there isn't.
This is quite beautifully in keeping with the spirit of the dragon - fascinating, powerful and somehow elusive.
Unlike the other similarly powerful animal totems in use around the world to "evoke" the essences relating to that animal, there absolutely are no dragons.
We have eagles and we have definitely lions; we have horses and we have serpents, we have bears and we have dolphins but there's nothing even remotely like a dragon.
The TINY and entirely unimpressive lizards that are still around and even crocodiles are just not IT. They're NOT dragons.
And conversely, no-one seems to have thought of making a major international symbol out of blowing an ant or a spider out of all proportions!
So in the dragon we have a symbol of an animal that doesn't exist AT ALL - only EVERYONE seems to know about it, somehow!
How NEAT is that?!
If you compare a dragon to other mystical creatures out there, once again, it is a strange anomaly.
Mostly, these creatures are either crosses of existing species - like the hippogryph, the centaur or the mermaid - or they have bits stuck on from other species like the unicorn.
The dragon is not derived from anything that exists in real life, nor can you get to a dragon if you were to try and cross a snake with a horse.
The dragon is a mystical creature in a class all of its own.
There is an idea that dragons and our ideas of dragons derive from the extinct dinosaurs and that's a reasonable idea - only, if that is true, we must have SOME memory!
Dinosaurs, especially the really impressive ones, became extinct a long time before people started developing speech or evolved to any level; well at least that's what the historians think is true at the moment.
But even if they are wrong, and there was a time when people and the large dinosaurs roamed the earth together, that would leave us once again with some form of "human racial memory" that covers all the civilisations on Earth - and that is still pretty fantastic.
Another school of thought holds that dinosaur skeletons and remains were found by all these ancient people and that's when they all decided to start worshipping the dragon lords.
Ahm ... yeah, right ...
The mystery of the dragons only thickens at this point ... :-)
What is interesting about the attributes assigned to the magical dragons around the world is that some cultures are terrified of them and have dragon slayers as their heroes; some cultures are terrified of them but worship them as Gods; and some cultures think they're just great and that they bring you information, wisdom, power, luck and wealth, amongst other benefits.
What we have here are a number of different HUMAN reactions to the same thing and they all have in common that they consider dragons to be HUGELY POWERFUL.
To have made such an impression on an ENTIRE SPECIES and for SO LONG, we really must begin to wonder about the sheer POWER inherent in the symbology of the dragon, and in the essence of what dragons are.
Dragons From Outer Space?
In the ongoing quest to make sense of dragons and the dragon symbology - and this particular dragon quest has been going on for many, MANY millennia, make no mistake! - many theories have been put forth.
One fascinating theory involves the existence of a real reptilian species that either evolved on Earth or came from outer space.
There are even theories that these alien dragon lords and their soldiers interbred with humanity and that there are people on Earth today who carry "dragon DNA".
At the far end we have theories about dragon shape shifters who still to this day actually run the affairs of the world at the highest level.
It is interesting to note that the Aztecs "saw" the power of dragons and decided that they must be Gods, and modern day conspiracy theory folk in the same circumstance decided that they must be "the heads of multi-national companies".
There is a spooky similarity there, only the definition of "who holds the power over the fate of humanity" seems to have undergone a transformation ... :-)
What other explanations can we think of for humanity's obsession with the powerful dragon?
A creature that flies, that is huge, extremely powerful and "breathes fire"?
What else could our dragons be?!
One line of enquiry is to consider the fact that human beings make METAPHORS about everything.
This is really noticeable in the Chinese language, for example, which is full of phrases such as "the gate to the temple of heaven", even in everyday language usage.
The dragon and all its attributes might simply be the attempt of symbol making, language using human beings to DESCRIBE a form of reality the best way they can, by making COMPARISONS - it was as big as house, scaly like a lizard, and its breath was like fire ...
Across the times of men, there have always been reports and anecdotes of very alien visitors - but these were NON-CORPOREAL in origin.
Angels, demons, and ... DRAGONS?
Imagine if you will that there was a kind of out-of-body, astral projection possibility for interstellar travel.
That there were species out there who had learned that you don't take your body on a mechanical craft to traverse the endless spaces between suns and galaxies in real time, but instead, travelled across these vast distances in the blink of an eye on the astral planes, whilst their bodies slept in comfort 6 million light years away.
Imagine such a being materialising in front of a farmer in the 14th century, phasing into a radiant form of existence that was not based on a body but simply glowing energy, shifting shape.
What would our farmer make of THAT?
Well, that would depend on the farmer!
If they were terrified, they may have met a demon.
If they were awe struck with wonder, they may have met an angel.
And if they'd never even heard of angels or demons, they may have met a dragon.
Now I don't know about you, but the idea of there being these entities we call dragons, and no matter what they are or where they *really* came from, is a WONDERFUL thing - a real dragon gift, if you will :-)
People have the capacity because of our strange neurologies to dream, to make up things and to travel to all sorts of places in their minds, in their imagination that are way, way beyond the everyday graft of plucking roots from the ground for mere survival.
That's the wonderful thing about being a human being, and it really makes up for a great many of our limitations and other problems.
Yes, of course they are!
If they never were in the first place, WE PEOPLE HAVE MADE THEM REAL by endlessly talking about them, putting the dragon pictures on our flags, shields, helmets and now on our web sites; by telling stories about them and by standing on hilltops of a night time and looking out to the stars, and hoping and willing to see a REAL DRAGON, glowing and beautiful, large and powerful, gliding in perfection and radiant harmony beneath a wondrous moon.
Calling to the dragons and calling the essence of the power of the other worlds to us and have them be present in our lives is a source of fascination, enjoyment and a TRUE ANTIDOTE to the slavery of the chain gang of every day.
Whatever they are, wherever they came from and whatever else they might do, dragons, their symbols and their energy, their essence and their wonderful mystery are a gift to all people - if they know this, or not.
© Silvia Hartmann 2005 - https://DragonRising.com
Read more about the dragon spirit here: https://spirit-animal.net/dragon_rising_dragon_spirit.htm
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"What do we do when we get stuck? When we have no answers? When there is nowhere else to turn? We do Project Sanctuary. Of course. What else?" Silvia Hartmann
