Tag Archives: Dragons

March 10, 2011

The Belly Of The Dragon

By moses' blog

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I dreamt of dragons over the weekend and I am shaken by the content.  Two previous dream types were referenced; one a classic, a child living in a Baobab tree (see Dragons), the other more recent.   You’ll see as you read.   I am left wondering who the puppet and who master.

MY DREAM:

There was a knock at the door below.  A knock is not strange by itself, but the gentleness of the rap; almost ladylike in its strike.  For just a moment, the boy thought of his mother.  Possibly she had found him and was here to take him home.  For only a moment though did he pause, the boy had learned never to trust and a knock in the night, no matter how appealing its chime, necessitated caution.

So, with lance in one hand and shield in the other, the boy walked carefully downstairs to his front door.

“Hello?  Who’s there?”

No response.  Looking through the peephole only revealed barren landscape.  Carefully, the boy cracked the door but at the moment of opening a burst of energy blew it off its hinges.  First, a scaly hand grasped the end of his lance and tugged.  Before the boy could let go, a tale shot through the opening like a serpent striking a mouse and coiled around his waist.  The boy could not counter and was flung out into the sand, both lance and shield knocked aside.

In the middle of his chest, a very large dragon muzzle pinned him.  With every breath exhaled, the boy felt a blast of fiery heat from the dragon’s nostrils.  The dragon parried the boy’s feint by pushing harder into his chest.  The boy gasped for breath and the dragon pulled back shaking its head ever so slightly as if to say “No.”  This stilled the boy.  What else was there to do but await his fate?  Sharp teeth and sticky gums appeared as a grin spread across the dragon’s lips.  With a grunt, the beast grabbed the boy, flung him onto its back and was airborne leaving no chance of escape.  That is, unless the boy coveted certain death by leaping off.  They were already hundreds of feet in the air.

Dragons are very fast.

Holding on, the boy watched as the dragon flew towards the distant mountains where its cave lay.  The boy’s thoughts were of defeat.  The dragons had finally gotten the better of him and now he would become their dinner.  But as they approached the lairs of his numerous enemies, it become clear that was not their intended destination.   Flapping vigorously, the dragon cleared the peaks by mere inches.

The boy looked back and in the distance saw his home in the Baobab tree, light from its open door spilling out onto the front yard.  Looking ahead he saw rolling hills as far as his eyes could see.  He looked back again, but this time, there were followers; nine dragons pursuing in tight formation.  The boy’s mount never acknowledged the chase.  Actually, now that the boy had time to look, this was the dragon that had earlier attempted communications or at least some form of writing.

“What are you doing!?” he screamed at the beast.

The dragon ignored the boy and kept flying over hill after hill.  Looking down the boy saw they were covered in grass ruffled by a breeze.  On each hill stood a small boy, about his size standing at the summit silent, still and staring off into the distance.  He tried calling to them but none noticed.

He gave up.  This night’s adventure had become a complete mystery.  The boy had never been beyond the mountains, had never seen the hills and had no idea other boys existed in this realm.  He was not alone.  But on closer scrutiny, the boy noticed something, something very important.  The child atop each hill looked just like him.  It was as if he had been copied multiple times and thrown about the hills like planting seed.  For the first time fear gripped the boy.

Watching from above, one of the pursuing dragons dove full speed at one the children.  The boy cringed at the violence about to occur.  But, mystery, not carnage happened.  The dragon swept down but did not devour the child.  It flew straight into the child’s body, disappearing in a ball of flame that when dissipated, left only the little boy still standing on his grassy hill.  The dragon became part of the child.

A perplexity of reality, dragons eat boys not disappear inside them.

Then, another dragon flew into another child.   Again and again it happened until only he and his mount were left in the air.  The implication drew a shiver down his spine.  Was he, too, to be host to this beast who had kidnapped him?

They flew on for what seemed like days.  Finally the hills ended at the edge of a green sea.   The dragon dropped gently from the sky landing at the foot of a man.  The boy looked into the man’s face and saw his eyes were deep black and sightless.   The dragon knelt so that its shoulder touched the ground.  Carefully, not sure what was happening, the boy climbed off the dragon’s back.  He looked at the man whose eyes remained a void first and then back at the dragon.  The dragon’s eyes were filled with many emotions but nothing the boy perceived as malice.

With a thrust of its snout, the dragon pushed the boy towards the sightless man.  Confused, the boy watched as the dragon inhaled deeply.  Then he understood.

“No!  Don’t!”

But it was too late.  The dragon exhaled a line a flame that engulfed both boy and man.  Then flapping its wings, the dragon took to the air, gulping both boy and man as it lifted off.  Neither had been burned and both sat comfortably in the dragon’s stomach.  The boy could sense their direction from inside.  He felt every hill pass underneath again.  This time, the trip back to the mountains lasted less than a minute.  The dragon opened its mouth allowing the boy to see the approaching jagged rock face.  The man never moved, just laid against the wall of the dragon’s belly.  The boy watched as the mountains grew closer.   He kept thinking the dragon would pull up but the beast kept a true course straight at the mountains harsh wall.  When it became clear there would be no deviation from death, the boy pounded on the reptile’s teeth, tongue and cheeks, anything that might get attention.  But as before, to no avail.  Resigned to their fate, the boy sat and watched as the mountains ahead loomed larger and larger until he could see the small seams of individual rocks.

The dragon hit nose first, exploding in a great fireball leaving nothing behind.  First there was intense heat and pain and then all went dark.  Nothing for an eternity before light appeared once more.  The boy stood next to the man who now had eyes blue and full of sight.  Across from them stood an Indian typing something into his phone, face lit by its screen in the night air.  The man next to him spoke.

“Ray, what are you doing?”

The Indian man looked up.

“Texting.”

“Texting?”

“Yeah.  Finding out if I have to scalp you or not?”

“Oh,” was the man’s only reply.

Here the dream ended and my eerie questioning begins.  Of course I’m the man and Oliver the boy but who is the dragon?  Ray gave me permission to post this.  His response, “Hell, I like being the bad guy.”  But I am not sure who the bad guy of this dream really is.  The memory of it sits in my gut like bad Mexican food eaten the night before.  It growls in my subconscious without the substance of  reason.

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December 29, 2010

Is Someone Speaking To Me?

By moses' blog

Dragons trying to communicate?  In each dream dragons attempt communication.  Rather a dragon.  Who’s to tell if it is always the same hellish reptile or a separate individual each time?  And one becomes two becomes three then four, what is the meaning of that message?   The dragon drew a single line in the sand that become many.  This syncs up nicely with my search for identity.  Am I single or many?  Reality is more than what is seen, heard or felt.  Chaos theory broke the rule of constants making reality a blur of our imaginings.

My first New York apartment had this bathroom medicine cabinet with three mirrors circa 1949.  There was the large middle face with two others hinged on either side.  If you closed the two hinged mirrors around your face, its reflection was splintered off infinitely within the three reflective visages.  You couldn’t tell which one was you and which the reflection.  Is this the meaning of the dragon’s message?

 

One becomes two becomes three becomes four and so on into infinity.  Or was this merely a statement that one cannot stand against many?  If so, why not?  The boy has yet to lose standing against the ten for as long as I have dreamt of this far off desert setting.  Or was it just scratchings in the sand?  No.  I’ve never had this dream on consecutive nights.  Meaning is there only to be mined by the tenacious.

And if there is meaning, from what source?  That is what truly interests me.  Is this my subconscious trying in its very own demented way to illuminate some lesson?  Or are these nebulous dreams from a source I cannot comprehend?  Who is speaking to me?  Is there a person behind the message?

Or am I demanding reason from the Fellini like musings of my slumbering mind.

M. Haygood

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December 27, 2010

Dragons 2

By moses' blog

With so much snow last night, there was little I could do this morning but write down my dream.  Again, I dreamt of dragon battles.  But, instead of random violence, there appears to be a theme.

Dragon Dream 2:

On occasions of great curiosity, the boy investigated the desert beyond his pond.  This was dangerous for dragons, when not attacking, patrolled the skies above.  If it weren’t for the ferocious harassment of himself, it would appear that they too were exploring, looking for a way out.

The boy himself, not of this place, wanted nothing more than to go home.  But there was no apparent exit.  Even memories of his prior life were blurry images at best.  He did, though, have a burning need to go home.  And when this feeling smoldered greatly and the sun was not too hot and the dragons fell into a synchronous harmony and stayed in their caves, the boy explored.

This day, the boy hiked towards the far mountains.  With him he carried only his sword freshly polished, a gourd flask filled with water and paper with crayons to map his expedition.  He had been walking for quite a while but the boy knew that time was meaningless here.  He never aged.  Time in his Baobab tree had been frozen in place.

dragon2
He looked up at the sun to take a sighting of his location and noticed that his tree, tall though it was, had fallen beyond the horizon.  Only the reflected heat vapor could be seen rising from the ground.  The boy contemplated returning.  It was never a good idea to be out, exposed on the plain.  But just then, he saw in the sky a single dragon circling.  This was not good.  Not good at all.  Looking about, it was clear that the far mountains were closers than his home.  Without looking back the boy broke into a full run towards the mountain’s base.  His only hope was to reach a hole or crevice before he was sighted, stalked and captured by the dragon above.

He made it.  But just.  There was a crag in the mountain that he could just fit in.  The flap of leathery wings whooshed behind him as he sprang through the thin opening.  Running to the back of the crag, the boy heard the pounding of the dragon’s fists on the rock and dirt outside his hiding place.  He put his back against the farthest wall, his sword drawn only to see what little protection he really had.

The dragon mercilessly pounded the rock outside, splitting off chucks, widening the opening.  Knowing he had little time, the boy crab climbed up between the narrow walls at the back of the crag.  He stopped when he was just above the dragons head and waited.

And that was not long.  The dragon broke through the last bits of sediment and dust.  Sighting the sun again, the boy waited for the dragon’s death blow.  Just as the dragon reared in an apparent strike, the boy brought up his sword and let the sun reflect off its polished surface.  The light was blinding.  He directed the flash at his enemy’s eyes giving him the chance he needed.  He jumped.

Jumped with every fiber of muscle in him.  He looked down as he soared above the blinded dragon’s head.  The boy made a rough landing on top of the reptile but quickly turned and grabbed its ears.  Dragon’s ears are sensitive and so by grabbing them, the boy leashed the beast to his whim.  The dragon reared up to its full height trying to shake the boy off.  The boy held tightly to his anchor points.  Every time the dragon tried to brush against the mountain rock, the boy pulled back harder on its ears.

Struggling, the boy was able to turn the beast about and coax it into the air.  The dragon, not happy by this turn of events, said little and just flew.  Its ears rang with pain.  Its only hope of relief was acquiescing to the pull of its tormentor.  It flew and flew where directed, to the boy’s baobab tree.

By dragon, the trip was short.  His tree broke over the horizon’s edge.  He looked back only to see the other nine dragons in close pursuit.  He knew he could not land this beast and escape into the safety of his house before the others were on top of him.  Again, he had to be brave, use his mind and outwit the dull beasts.

 Instead of landing, he steered his mount around the tree like children playing at a Maypole.  The other dragons followed and on his second in a half rotation of the tree, the boy turned his dragon into the treetop’s thick branches and leaves.  This would be painful to navigate through but his doorway was on the other side and his hope was that the other dragons would crash into one another attempting pursuit.

And that they did.  They crashed and caromed, bashed and slammed into one another tangling in a heap, the branches a shelf for their failure.  Clear of the treetop the boy jumped to the ground.  He rolled once and sprinted inside.  The dragon he’d flown continued on looking back as the boy shut the door.

Outside, the boy heard an intense mêlée.  The other nine fought for position.  But, with the door closed, there was little chance of any of them getting him.  So, after many minutes of vicious war cries, the dragons flew off.

When he judged it safe, the boy opened the door.  He wanted to see if they had really left.  They had except one.  The one whom he had saddled and rode stood on the other side of his pond.  It looked at him in a very uncomfortable way.  Then, it too, flew off.

The boy watched.  The dragon flew straight and true to its mountain lair.  Back inside his home again, he thought about the look that dragon fixed on him.  There was no violence in it but menace none the less.  It was imploring yet anger edged the eyes.  The boy went to his cub bard to make a cup of tea.  His encounter with that particular dragon would take time to unwrap with much mediation and contemplation.  For now, a hot cup of green tea and a biscuit was in order.

++++++

Now, I’ll see if I can dig myself out.  Love shoveling snow.

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December 26, 2010

Dragons

By moses' blog

Earlier I posted about dragons, battles and a little boy.  Be it the holidays or just too much time alone, these dreams resonate strongly with me.  Below is one I had the other night.

Dragon Dream:

The little boy woke to a thumping.  Not so much at the door of his tree but at its midpoint.  As if some large hand were slamming fist to trunk on his home and the shock vibrated all the way down to the tree’s base.

dragon1
The boy slipped from bed, stepped over his crayons and paper left from the previous night and snuck downstairs.  At the foot of his door, balanced on it’s thresh hold, a folded piece of paper.

Another thump rattled cups and bowls in his pantry.  Not trusting the situation, the boy selected his favorite lance, and with great care dragged the note across the floor where he stood near the stairs.  Outside he heard the snarls and bleats of the large beasts that lived high in the mountains.  The boy opened the note.  It was unintelligible but he recognized the writing.

Dragon.

Today’s opening move or declaration of surrender, his or theirs, the boy had no idea.  He could not read dragon.  Every time he tried, it changed and so he had given up ages ago.  Piercing the page with his lance, the boy walked to the door, the dragon’s note a fragile banner.

Carefully, he spied out the door’s peep-hole.  They were all spread out around the far side of his pond nipping at each other.  All except one.  It stood close, using its snout as a rapper on the tree’s bark.  Bits had fallen to the ground near the beast’s feet.

Opening move then.  Unlatching the door, the boy stepped quickly back.  Leading with the note stuck through on his lance, he walked slowly outside.  The dragons stopped their teeth gnashing and focused on the boy.  Their eyes gleamed either out of hunger, triumph or fear.  There was no telling with dragons.  He stood a moment contemplating his next move.

The dragon closest to him, the one who thumped his tree, looked down at him.  He bobbed his snout at the note.  The boy, taking this as a cue, began to slowly move his lance towards this dragon.  He moved slowly so that the dragon would not think he was attacking.  His intention was to drop the note at the dragon’s feet.  Instead, a wind whipped up and blew the note off its perch on the lance and floated it into the middle of the pond.

There was a tense moment as the dragon in front of the boy watched the note sail away to sink onto the water’s surface.  The boy sensed no attack from this beast, but before this thought was thought, the others flew across the pond in ferocious formation.   The boy found himself trapped between his pond and nine fierce dragons.  The monsters reared up and snarled, forcing the boy backward by measured steps.

At the ponds edge, the boy stopped.  He had no place to go.  The dragons fell back on their haunches, readying themselves to pounce.  But this boy was no stranger to combat.  He’d beaten these beasts on more than one occasion.

With a practiced move, he flung his lance from a defensive position in front, up and around to a back handed sword grip.   Its weigh dropped it’s tip into the water.  With a quick turn, the boy stuck the lance into the middle of the pond and with both hands jumped, flinging himself above the water to the other side like a pole-vaulter competing for gold.

Without thought, the dragons tried to follow.  In their hysteria to catch the boy, they had forgotten a very important thing.  That is that water does not like dragons.  In fact, water is to dragons what acid is to little boys.  Pulling back onto the shore, the dragons cried out nursing wounds and looking very cowed.

Without thought, the boy vaulted the pond again landing behind his foes.  With a staunch swing of lance, he paddled each dragon’s behind with the sharp end of his weapon.  This sent each of the dragons into frenzied flight, each taking off in a different direction.  All but one flew off without looking.  It was the one, the one who had thumped his tree so mercilessly.  The one who had slipped the note under his door and watched as it fluttered off his lance onto the pond.  This one, scorched by the water and whipped across his rump, looked back.  The boy could not tell if the look was one of anger, embarrassment or sorrow.  This dragon turned his head and flew off to his lair among the mountain caves in the far distance.

The boy watched until the dragon had become a speck.  The pond’s surface was calm with the wind’s leaving.  The boy walked back into his house.  He was shaken by this encounter.  Not from the peril he had been in but by the curious behavior of that one dragon.  Sitting down at his little table, he tried to recreate the note with his crayons.  But every time he tried, his memory of it changed.  The lines, all squiggly, never met the representation he thought he remembered.  Finally, he gave up.  Dragon was not a thing he was to understand.

M. Haygood

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December 23, 2010

I Dream Of Dragons

By moses' blog

 

There be beasties in the basement of my subconscious.  Yes, dragons, monsters, fiends of grisly portent.  In my dreams that is.  Important piece of information I have yet to divulge … I’m not the only mysterious being to cross swords with my particular piece of desert.

I suppose I should call it our slice of desert.  Two years prior to my appearance a young boy disappeared.  Same spot.  Never found.  The relevance?  When I dream, sometimes it is of this boy.  Long before I became familiar with his story, I witnessed his battles with all sorts of dragons while I slept.

 There is a desert plain.  The boy lives in a tree near a small pond.  Ten dragons live in caves in the far mountains.  And every day, the beasts come down to do battle.

Why should I dream of a child I have never met?  Saw his picture years later when I found newspaper stories on his disappearance.  Could this be synchronous?  Our misfortunes tied by shared sand?

Oliver Williams left his mother’s side while stopped along the same stretch of road.  He never returned.  Where did he go?  I ask because maybe the answer correlates with where I came from.  And why does he battle dragons?  Why, in my dreams, is it not me fighting reptilian villains with lance and sword?

This is where all research leads, a perplexing crossroads where there are more questions than answers.  Each dream seems familiar, with meaning that I should be able to grasp.  Yet, I am left awake in my bed without the book of ciphers to break this nocturnal code.

So, I witness the monster battles only to wake up hoping I am not somehow aligned with the dragons fighting fragments of a lost child.  A child who represents what to me?

M. Haygood

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