the blue dragon's notes

the blue dragon’s notes

Writing tickles the brain. And it reminds me of my first time riding the dreams of a bird. It was an osprey. Their thoughts curl and swirl around just as they do when they’re bringing a fish back to the nest. They always circle the nest. At first, I thought it was because the winds made it impossible to go there directly. But you learn by watching osprey that they love to celebrate the catch, to create the anticipation of the meal. The female has been waiting and calling and looking and searching the skies for her mate. And dinner. When he arrives, what a joy!  Although, the female’s calling doesn’t stop until he lands with the fish in the nest. When their little ones are hatched, the calls are joined by the smallest, high-pitched cries from what will one day be the mightiest fishers.

It is summer, the season for writing. I am one among a few dragons who have decided to write. This is the season that many in this world long for during the grey and cold days that offer little sunlight. Summer’s gift begins each warm morning and slowly opens to a long day and a gentle night. Conducive to writing for those called to it and an inducement to dive and lounge with joy for those captured by the charms of summer.

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If ever seen by humans, these pages remind them of newsprint. They are easy to write on and accept the ink fully like newsprint. (Perhaps not all the thoughts some may write.) These soft papers are actually the preserved scales of baby dragons that were taken by the wind as the babies began to shed them. They are welcomed by the earth as they settle into the leaves and grasses. Many dragons, who have hopes to write in the coming summer, hastily move about the grounds trying to gather the shed scales. They learned from the squirrels and the birds to store their document materials in trees. But like them, they store so many, with no careful catalog to retrieve them. Many are forgotten and become the nesting materials for the same birds or squirrels they have watched.

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 Many dragons who have wished to write often decide to sing their songs instead. They have learned from birds that the winds carry messages and the trees and even some humans revel in their songs. These dragons wish to be a part of the chorus and to rejoice in the sounds they too have come to love. Writing seems a bit stodgy and beside the point to these dragons. When would they or anyone read what they wrote after all?  And if they lost a summer to writing, how would they follow their birds around or the birds’ dreams? They love to do both. Choices have to be made.

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It is said among all dragons that we love too easily because we were once, in a world that has fallen, not loved enough. When we travelled around the planets in many galaxies, we moved as a group. For a long time, we were a world unto ourselves. We talked little because that was not our way. We did not write at all but carried our histories in our minds and bodies, in our gestures and tones when we communicated. Many gestures or sounds have different import because we couch the movements and sounds to hold layers of meaning. It is no wonder dragons love bird songs for they recognize, and deeply appreciate, the layers of meaning and nuance in them. We understand this is often lost on humans but not on other birds or animals.

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We understand that what happened to us and the world we once knew as home is held in our language. Our language has the highest regard among all of us, no matter our age, because we know it holds us. We know that to be true to ourselves we must follow what we love. There is always a clear path if you accept your gifts and value the gifts of others. The gifts can be as simple as sharing your life’s story or the story of your ancestors. These stories weave time and experience and hold those that gave us life in the fabric of our being. If you could say we had a guiding principle, our teaching is that joy comes from listening. Sometimes sorrow. Both are always in the stories you will hear from dragons. We follow what we love and see the beauty in life. We don’t think this is special.  As some humans might say, ‘it just is.’

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We lost our home. Since falling through that great hole in space we looked for a home that we could love again. It was a long journey and one that other dragons may wish to tell. I may wish to tell it one day. But what I want to share now is that we found birds here, on Earth. We were immediately charmed. There is no other way to express it in writing. If I were to share it with another dragon, I would curl and glide, and roll, and twist and pop up or appear to be a blue liquid sliding through the sky or a winding river. And then my movements would evoke the land and stones and skies that this river flows through. With sun and breezes suggested through my motion and stillness. That is how dragons most often communicate. But with words only, let me simply write that a world with birds had to be a world with love. And so, we have been here for millions of years because we found birds.

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Like us, many beings move through different levels of realities within the Earth’s sphere of influence. All dragons that once were the world unto ourselves have filtered into these realms. We may travel on our own or on the dreams of birds but we no longer are a nomadic group. Birds are our home and wherever we go on Earth, we are home. We belong because they belong. Our travels, both in riding their dreams and over all terrains, are their travels. Through time we have also found our way through other beings. There are now, since millions of years have passed since we first came to Earth, eons some like to say, half dragons and half other delightful beings. There are even half dragons and half writers. I may fall into that category. Some have even indicated that there are half dragons and half blue dragons. Wit does not escape my kinsmen, the dragons.

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The mysteries of our lives are braided with the histories of many ways of being on Earth and in its many realities. The universe is made up of finely woven threads, and, like the sheen of a mallard’s head, sometimes green, sometimes purple, the tapestry is always beautiful. But it is also so common that the beauty is often overlooked.

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Until the balance was broken, we lived in a beautiful world. We have found another home here on Earth and have lived here in joy. We also understand the powers that exist and the imbalances that can threaten this world.  Dragons remember our first home. All dragons know we once lost our home. We do not teach this history. It is in us.

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We watch and we, of course, listen, even as we continue to love birds and ride their dreams. Many birds that once filled the skies and summer mornings, are gone. We know.

We also know that some rivers are being legally recognized as persons so that they have protections in the courts. In this world, personhood allows rivers and protections. These and other protections offered to and projected to be offered to larger bodies of water, parts of the vast oceans, and some territories, have the promise that those in power understand that beauty is integral to life and to survival. All of these protections further the opportunity to offer birds and all of wildlife what they need to thrive.

We found our home here because we fell in love with the joy and beauty of birds. But perhaps it was more than that. Something even dragons do not yet understand. Oven eons, some dragons have indicated that we were called from across vast spaces to this place; that something in us and something in birds drew us together. We arrived at a time before humans are as they are today. Even when other large animals died through cataclysmic periods on Earth, birds remained, and dragons along with them. They not only remained, as we dragons, perhaps more than other beings, can recall, they flourished. They evolved and created all the variety and wonders of the known birds that exist today. It is only some birds that are lost forever because of ignorance and outright harm done them.

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Birds are the wonder in our world. Every day, even the birds at feeders and fountains, are miracles. Like the journey through time birds have travelled, so has the joy that this word miracle - to wonder, to astonish, to smile - is built upon. Some people have assumed that miracles are infrequent events brought on by dire need and once in a millennium gathering of unlikely coincidences; that miracles are called upon by unprecedented pain and the horrible emptiness of death’s finality. Simply untrue. Every day, birds show that miracles have wings, that miracles are morning and evening songs; that miracles nest to create the next generations of miracles.

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As long as it might be that dragons have been on Earth, we are still learning about many energies, such as winds and currents, the many forms that water takes, the ways that multiple realities exist and how many beings move into other worlds with ease. Dragons understand that many humans do not see these other realities but we notice how they address them in different forms nonetheless, such as howls, or songs, or prayers and chants. Time is, of course, something that moves through life like a current or stream moves through the ocean. It changes the temperature of the surrounding waters, so to speak, when it is near. It effects all lands and waters and living beings from a distance through the imperceptible movements it makes and creates in its layered realities. Some dragons have suggested that time is also a bird dream that one can ride. I have not had the pleasure of riding that dream. I do not know what shore it may touch or what rivers it may enter. Dragons, in their own understanding of such topics, believe all rivers deserve the rights that people are granted in human courts and that they should be loved and protected because rivers receive the dreams of birds and all life from the oceans and carry them inland to all shores.

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I am a blue dragon. I dance with the rivers. Many of my ancestors liked to celebrate life through dance. I understand the powers that exist and the imbalances that threaten beauty and joy. This is why I chose to write. Words sometimes tickle me when I write them. Some words have me pause and take a deep breath. All dragons that have dabbled in writing know that when words become songs they add to the messages the winds take. And all hope this will help save birds and the lands and waters they, and all of life, need. When many can see the common, daily beauty of birds, and listen to their songs, we hope that like our ancestors who fell in love with birds, that those on Earth who have not yet been captured by their beauty and joy, will be. And that they will, like the rivers, carry that love and joy inland to the many shores and to those who can gain the power and can influence their peers so that they will provide birds and all wildlife protection.

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 Dragons believe there is hope for this world. They believe that just as a nest provides a home for the new hatchlings, listening to bird songs and the songs of others who love this world, will protect the beauty and joy that is here.  We stayed here because of birds. We may well have come here because something in us and something in birds called to each other. We have also come to love and see the beauty in all life in this world; having watched it evolve for many years.

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If you are like many we have met, and you feel a stranger to the land; or don’t recognize the connections you have because they have not been woven into your skin and stories, have hope. The land and waters know you. The birds know your songs even as you learn your own heart.