Photo by zhang kaiyv on Unsplash
“Perhaps all the dragons in our lives are princesses who are only waiting to see us act, just once, with beauty and courage.
Perhaps everything that frightens us is, in its deepest essence, something helpless that wants our love.”
― Rainer Maria Rilke, Letters to a Young Poet
A while back I was having coffee with a group of friends when the topic of A Game of Thrones came up. No one else at the table was watching it yet but I was hooked. When they asked if I recommended it, the advice that I gave was not to start. There were too many negatives about it…mostly its focus on power at all costs and extreme violence and torture.
The group’s appropriate followup question was not a surprise. “Why are you watching it then”? I thought for a moment, wondering the same thing. My reply was a single word: Dragons.
I had given up on GOT in the middle of the first season for the above reasons. But, after viewing the last episode of season 1 my husband said, “Just watch the last episode. You might change your mind.” This scene was, of course, the scene in which Danerys “births” her three dragons. I was in. There was no way for me to get out now. I endured another 8 seasons almost solely to get a glimpse of those amazing creatures. What is it about me and dragons? At the time, I had no idea but I am starting to get a glimpse. Rilke’s advice to a Young Poet helps.
Something in me resonated very powerfully with the archetype of the Mother of Dragons. The one who could (mostly) wield such powerful creatures to take care of her, protect her, and even slay her enemies. I believe that I sensed some sort of that strength in myself as well.
I have had a lot of fear in my life, mostly exhibiting itself as anxiety and worry. The dragons that I feared lived in the future, ready to swoop down at any moment to swallow me whole or burn my whole life down. I believed that I needed to “fight back” in kind, to don a protective armor and then to marshal my own army of dragons to do battle with the fear. So I fought the fear. For a long time.
Slowly, over many awakenings, I came to truly know what Rilke is saying in the quote above. I wasn’t battling against some external assaulting force. I was attacking myself. And I was no ravaging, roaring monster. “I” was a frightened and vulnerable little girl who hadn’t been protected from the dragons of her childhood. No knight in shining armor had rode in to save me. I had been wounded. And that wound had yet to heal. The way to healing was not returning violence with violence. The way to healing was to allow myself to BE LOVED. To drop the armor, call off the dragons, and allow God to truly, completely, deeply love me and thus, to love myself.
Here, on the other side of that healing, I feel truly like the Mother of Dragons. One dragon is Green. She is the dragon of compassion. She protects the hearts of all of the wounded ones. One of the dragons is Golden. She is the dragon of beauty and of grace. Always flowing in to lift up what has fallen. And one dragon is Black. The deepest darkest black. She is the dragon of Not Knowing. Of Mystery. And Surrender. These three dragons have my back. They allow me to love the deepest unloved parts of myself and to love All That Is with all of our Power.
