Five or so years ago I had a business with my friend Allison. It was called Bliss. I built this wooden garden sculpture and wrote a story to accompany it. It never sold and for that I am today grateful. It has returned home to me and to my garden.
I called it the Temple of the Red Dragon and here is the story I wrote for it.
Zen tradition tells us there are dragon veins, deep invisible energies, running through all objects in the material world. In the very center of the earth lived Crimson Dragon breathing fires of destruction all about. His energy was reaching all the 10,000 things and causing havoc, chaos and change. On the day of the 9th sun, White Tiger arrived to admonish Dragon, "Crimson Dragon you have been given power to transform energy. You have been given terrifying beauty and your color is a spectacle for all living creatures to worship. Yet you choose only to destroy. What do you say of this?"
"I am Dragon. It is my nature to breathe fire. I am being as I was created to be. How can you, White Tiger, question my natural force?"
And Tiger replied," It is my nature to be the equalizer. I am given the task of bringing the 10,000 things to harmony. So for now, I ordain that your power and beauty will remain unseen in the world. Your energy will remain hidden and appear only as solid stone. You will stand in mere existence, removed from thinking or feeling any sense of self. But anyone who, sensing your power, responds to a desire to honor the stone will be given the gift of knowing. They will understand you and the value of silence. The will know you and the way of compassion made through suffering and loss. They will understand your essential nature to burn and destroy but will also have knowledge of what your visible sign, the stone, symbolizes. They will have knowledge that even though unseen, some things can never be lost or dissolved. The fire of the Dragon is the energy of the stone. Harmony requires balance.
Now I must wonder why it is back and just what I have to learn from it.
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