Year of the Dragon

New Milk Moon

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I am the unquenchable Fire,
  The center of all energy,
  The stout heroic heart.
  I am truth and light,
  I hold power and glory in my sway.
  My presence
  Disperses dark clouds
  To tame the Fates.

  I am the Dragon.

Year of the Dragon

Gung Hay Fat Choy! January 23 is the new Fasting Moon in Annette Hinshaw's calendar and the first day of the lunar new year, a huge celebration all over Asia. The festival is called Tet Nguyen Dan in Vietnam, Chaul Chnam Thmey in Cambodia and Chun Jie, or the Spring Festival, in Chinese speaking communities. When I was a little kid in San Francisco Chinese New Year was almost as big of a holiday at my elementary school as Thanksgiving or Spring Break. We made red envelopes to fill with chocolate coins and watched lion dancers at school and parades in Chinatown. 

Every year in the Chinese calendar is ruled by an animal, creating the Chinese zodiac. The year 4710, or 2012 in the Gregorian calendar, is a Year of the Dragon, a headstrong, charismatic, and enthusiastic animal who's luck just never stops. Dragon is known for being a free spirited doer who always wins people's admiration and never accepts defeat. Though my theme for 2012 is Grabbing the Tiger By the Tail, the Chinese Dragon is a perfect poster child for the kind of year I want to have. Bright, buoyant, active and adventurous. There is a caution, though, with Dragon because they can tend towards being a bit brash, abrasive or prone to power-over dynamics. I am liable to fall into these patterns myself so I will be calling on the Water Dragon, this year's elemental dragon, to help me remain more open minded, to see other people's points of view and weigh all the options before rushing into action. Martin Luther King, Jr., Woodrow Wilson and John Lennon were all born in the Year of the Dragon. I wonder what will be born this year?

Dragon and Mandarins

Food plays a central role in the celebration of the Chinese New Year and there is much symbolism on the banquet table. Oranges and tangerines are given as gifts and eaten at meals both because they are so deliciously in season this time of year, but also because their names sound like the words for luck and gold in Chinese. Whole fish are often served to represent the beginning and end of a lucky year and sweets of various kinds bring a sweetness to the year. The local Asian newspaper here in Portland printed the following recipe and I hope to try it sometime this season. Long beans or long noodles represent long life and lobster represents the dragon of the zodiac. Shrimp or chicken can be substituted for the lobster, or combined with the dragon of the sea. Combining lobster and chicken is another traditional food, symbolizing the lucky union of the dragon and the phoenix.

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Dragon Beans

1 tbs oil (vegetable, peanut, or lard)

1/4 tsp Sichuan peppercorns, crushed

1/2 tsp Chinese five-spice powder

2 cloves garlic, minced

1 1/2 pounds Chinese long beans (also called yard long beans, string beans can be used)

1/2 cup water

1/4 cup oyster sauce

1 tbs soy sauce

1 tbs toasted sesame oil

splash of Sriracha sauce

7 oz cooked lobster meat, chopped (substitute/combine shrimp or chicken)

1 tbs toasted sesame seeds

In a wok or deep skillet over medium-high, heat the vegetable oil. Add the peppercorns, five spice powder, and garlic. Heat, stirring constantly for 30 seconds.

Add the beans and toss to coat. Add the water, oyster sauce, and soy sauce and cover. Allow the beans to stem for five minutes, or until just tender. Add the sesame oil, Sriracha, lobster meat, and sesame seeds. Toss together and cook until just heated through. Serve immediately. 

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Lion Dance

How are you celebrating this ancient and global festival? Do you have family or community traditions around the Chinese New Year or is all of this new to you? What foods bring good luck and wealth in your home? How is the dragon going manifest its optimistic, exuberant and charming energies into your life this year?

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New Milk Moon 2009: New Milk Moon

New Milk Moon 2010: Forty Two with a Seventy Percent Chance of Rain

New Milk Moon 2011: The Quaker Year

This post is about Chinese New Year, which I mention in the Full Fasting Moon 2009 post and The Nian.

** This winter was tough and I got messed up in my calendar. I wrote this thinking it was the Fasting Moon but it was really the Milk Moon. Since the post itself is more about the the Chinese New Year I just changed the tags and labels. For more on my thoughts about this, see this post. **

Michaelmas Photos

Autumn Equinox

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Michaelmas season is my favorite time of year and I couldn't let it pass without some more photos.

The season started with the yellow flowers of September. The purple asters are called Michaelmas Daisies and I look for them (and find them) everywhere this time of year. Rianna of These Days in French Life finds a color in each month and her September is the deep purple of grape and plum harvests. My September is the golden yellow and light of these flowers. My favorite colors in my favorite month.

The golden-rod is yellow
The corn is turning brown
The trees in the apple orchards
With fruit are bending down

The gentian's bluest fringes
Are curling in the sun
In dusty pods the milkweed
Its hidden silk has spun.

Sedges flaunt their harvest
In every meadow nook
And asters by the brook-side
Make asters in the brook

From dewy lanes at morning
The grapes' sweet odors rise
At noon the roads all flutter
With yellow butterflies

By all these lovely tokens
September days are here,
With summer's best of weather
And autumn's best of cheer.
Helen Hunt Jackson

September is also the month of the Vaux's Swifts roosting at Chapman School in Northwest Portland. It is an amazing natural event made even more amazing by all the awesome Portlanders who show up to watch it every night. The tiny birds nest and rear young all over the are but come together to roost in a chimney at the school before heading out on their fall migration south. There can be over 10,000 birds flying into the chimney on any given night in September and hundreds of people gathered to watch. It is a September ritual for many people in Portland, including myself.



"It looks like pepper flying in the sky!" I overheard a little girl say. "No! It looks like a dragon," her brother insisted. I agree.

Speaking of dragons, I started a new Michaelmas tradition this year by baking a dragon bread. This is a common activity in Waldorf schools and families but it was my first year doing it. A bread dragon is an excellent, hands on way to symbolize both the vanquishing of a dragon and incorporating it's lessons into our selves, and also the harvest aspect of the season.


Fresh baked bread's a yummy treat
Made with love and warmth and wheat
knead the dough, then let it rise
and soon you'll have a big suprise.
From the water, flour and yeast
grows a golden, delicious beast.
Unknown

I did get up for my Equinox sunrise ritual. It was a lovely, crisp morning at my fruit field. The mountain was visible and so was the old crescent moon. I found a pear to add to my dragon bread breakfast and watched the sun come up in a fiery orange blaze.

The autumn winds blow open the gate,
St. Michael for you we wait.
We follow you, show us the way,
With joy we greet this autumn day.
Good morning, good morning, good morning.

The silver rain, the shining sun,
the fields where scarlet poppies run,
the fallen leaves blow up and away,
with joy we greet this autumn day.
Good morning, good morning, good morning
Wynstones Press book Autumn (I believe)

Happy Michealmas!

In Autumn Saint Michael with sword and with shield,
Passes over meadow and orchard and field.
He's on the path to battle 'gainst darkness and strife,
He is the heavenly warrior protector of life.

The harvest let us gather with Michael's aid;
The light he sheddeth fails not nor does it fade
and when the corn is cut and the meadows are bare
We'll don Saint Michael's armour and onward we'll fare.

We are Saint Michael's warriors with strong heart and mind,
We forge our way through darkness Saint Michael to find.
And there he stands in glory, Saint Michael we pray,
Lead us into battle and show us thy way.
-Anonymous

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Autumn Equinox 2009: The Autumnal Equinox and The Earth is Breathing its Soul Back In

Autumn Equinox 2010: Here Be Dragons and A Dragon Tale for Michaelmas

Autumn Equinox 2011: Michaelmas Season

Michaelmas Season

Autumn Equinox

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The season is swirling around and I am feeling very caught up in it. I love the ride, the golden light, the crisp mornings and hot afternoons, the change in birdsong and the ripening fruit, but I am also feeling pushed and pulled all over the place. I haven't found my new grip yet. Must be the turning of the wheel into autumn.

Autumn is my favorite time of year. I love the cooler days, the yellowing plants, and the harvest. I especially love the comforting feel of the constricting energy that fall brings. In the summer, the Earth is in the height of its long outbreath. It's soul is expelled fully out to outer reaches of it's atmosphere, touching the cosmos. This gives those of us on the surface energy and freedom. We want to be outside, live outside, be up early, stay up late, run and play and swim and be in the world. I tend to feel a little frayed by the end of it all, like last season's prayer flags, faded and rough around the edges. As the earth turns towards the Winter, it begins to breathe its soul back in. This constricting energy makes me feel like I'm being given some more boundaries. A bed time seems like a reasonable idea. Sitting down to dinner instead of just grabbing some food on the run makes sense. Rebuilding the rhythms of a life that includes work as well as play, rest as well as activity. It's the back-to-school season in more ways than one.

Fall, Leaves, Fall

Fall, leaves, fall; die, flowers, away;
Lengthen night and shorten day;
Every leaf speaks bliss to me
Fluttering from the autumn tree.

I shall smile when wreaths of snow
Blossom where the rose should grow;
I shall sing when night's decay
Ushers in a drearier day.

-Emily Bronte

In my evolving wheel of the year, I call this time the Michaelmas Season. The story of Michael is one of a hero who harnesses heavenly and earthly powers to subdue and over come a primeval force of chaos and fear. There are many stories told about dragons and heroes this time of year and all of them help align us with this powerful movement of the seasons, both inner and outer.

My Quaker pastor, who's sermons are always a mix of hilarious and thoughtful storytelling, told a story this morning about a world plagued by a terrifying serpent. It lept out of the ground in a village, ripping up cobblestones, showering the area with rubble and dust, knocking people over and devouring the tinker's faithful mule. The villagers filled the hole in with rocks and logs, paved over the square and put up a statue to the mule. After a number of years the tinker was able to purchase a new-to-her mule and travel further afield selling her wares. She came upon a large city with towers and guards all around it. A friendly guard allowed her in and took her up on one of the towers to show her what the fortifications were all about. There were large cannons on each tower but instead of facing outwards, towards an enemy's army, the cannons faced inward, toward the town square. Specifically, facing the gaping hole in the middle of the square. The guard told her about the serpent and how the city had responded to the threat by building all these battlements. Everyone was expected to do their part in helping guard against the serpent threat, including a tax levied on traveling merchants and tinkers. The tinker owed, as it happened, exactly one mule.

In this time of year when we prepare ourselves for the coming darkness of winter we are also asked to prepare ourselves for the coming challenges of earthly life. There will be illness, poverty, pain, loneliness and eventually an end of this life. The story of the tinker and her mules mules reminds us that we can prepare for these inevitable burdens in any number of ways, some of which are actually more detrimental than beneficial. Michael provides us with heavenly iron to arm ourselves this time of year, but the real defense against debilitating fear is internal strength and courage. These things come from the dynamic interplay between God's love and providence, and our own willful building of our lives.

We wait in hope for the LORD;
he is our help and our shield.
In him our hearts rejoice,
for we trust in his holy name.
May your unfailing love be with us, LORD,
even as we put our hope in you.

Psalm 33:20-22, New International Version

I marked the Michaelmas with some of my favorite September activities. I put up my St. Michael and the Dragon mobile, watched the swifts at Chapman School and woke up for the sunrise on Equinox morning. I went again to my favorite fall fruit picking field and walked around as the sun creeped up behind Mt. Hood. I made dragon bread the night before, a new Michaelmas activity for me. Bread dragons are easy to vanquish and nourishing as well. At the field, I found a lovely pear tree in full fruit and happily accepted the gift. In prayer, I have been given the image of a pear tree, laden with full and heavy fruit hanging within easy reach, as an image of God's provisions available to me. Pears seem a perfect image for God's gifts. The fruit is earthy, woman shaped and sweet but bruises easily so must be conscientously picked and preserved. It is not a windfall treat.

As the sun came up, all pink and orange, over the misty autumn field I laid out my feast and said my thank yous. Thank you sun, thank you mountain. Thank you pear tree and grain field. Thank you morning and thank you evening. Most of all, thank you autumn!

How are you marking the turning of the wheel into Autumn? What dragons are you facing these days and how are you preparing to meet with them? Are your preparations costing you more mules than they need to? What's your favorite kind of autumn fruit?

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Autumn Equinox 2009: The Autumnal Equinox and The Earth is Breathing its Soul Back In

Autumn Equinox 2010: Here Be Dragons and A Dragon Tale for Michaelmas

The Nian

New Fasting Moon

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Gung Hay Fat Choy! This week is the start of the Chinese New Year celebrated by millions of people around the world. There are many wonderful stories about this time of year and the traditions that mark the festivities. I wanted to tell you the funny story about the rat, the cat and the race to name the animals of the Chinese zodiac but this story seems more fitting for the moon that Annette Hinshaw calls the Fasting Moon. Maybe at the full moon I'll speak more about the energies of this month. Today, though, I present my retelling of the Chinese folktale about Nian The Dragon.

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A long, long time ago, when the world was still new and people were still learning how to live together there was a village that was tormented by a terrible dragon. Every month at the new moon and the full moon the dragon Nian came down out of the sky at sunset and ate everything it could find. Pigs and dogs were eaten, crops were burned or trampled, even people who were foolish enough to stay outside were swallowed up by the monster. The people learned that they simply had to lock everything they wanted to keep up in their own houses.

One day in late winter a wandering monk came into the village. The people were very friendly and invited him in, fed him and let him sleep by their fires. A couple days after he arrived was the full moon night when the monster dragon was due to descend upon the village. As night fell came the people he had been staying with changed drastically. They rushed around the village, collecting their belongings and herding up their animals. He watched one man knock a little boy down as he dragged his sheep into his shed. People rushed passed the crying boy, carrying their tools or chickens or bags of rice quickly into their own homes. The monk picked the boy up to comfort him but his mother snatched him away, a look of sheer terror on her face. He watched in wonder as these people, who had previously been so friendly and kind to each other, panicked and selfishly protected their own things.

As the first stars appeared in the clear winter sky the old man spotted a glow on the northern horizon. The family he had been staying with dragged him into their house and slammed the door. He peeked out the shuttered window and saw the dragon, gleaming gold and green and blue, as it tore through the town. It made a terrible noise and had terrible teeth that snatched up a wayward chicken leaving nothing behind but a loud ba-gwaaak and a whirlwind of feathers. The old man sat down on a bench across the hearth from the rest of the terrified, huddling family, a puzzled frown on his face.

The next morning the women and young men set out to survey the damages and glean what they could from the fields while the old man met with the leaders of the village. He asked them to tell him everything they knew about the monster. He learned that the only thing that had been successful at scaring the Nian were fire crackers and red lanterns, but that no one had been able to stay outside long enough to scare it off completely. The old man sat on a bench under a tree for the rest of the day, his puzzled frown still on his face.

Life went on in the village over the next two weeks. The chickens and children and dogs ran free in the yards and the young men took the sheep out to graze and the women went out to work in the fields as they always had. The day of the new moon, when the Nian was next due, the monk gathered the people of the village together.

"To scare the Nian away we must work together. All of us must stay outside in the evening waving red lanterns and setting off firecrackers. Together, all the noise and light will scare him away and he will never come back," said the monk.

"It won't work", said one man. "We aren't powerful enough."

"I am too afraid of the dragon," said another. "I don't think I could stay out long enough to be helpful."

"We've tried before and it didn't work," said a third. "What makes you think this time will be different?"

"Because we will all work together," replied the monk. "In the past only had one person with a lantern or firecrackers tried to scare the Nian. This time we will all stand at the edge of the village, together. Where one is weak, many together are strong. And we don't have to be afraid because we will all be there, together. Let us ready the firecrackers and make as many red lanterns as we can."

They spent the rest of the afternoon building lanterns and stringing paper packets of firecrackers together on long strings. The children helped paint lettering on the lantern papers, and a few older boys made a scene by setting off firecrackers before sunset. Everyone worked together cheerfully as the sun started to sink.

"Oh, no!" one man cried as he realized how late it was getting. "I haven't collected my sheep or my chickens. The Nian is sure to eat them."

"There is no time for you to collect your animals now," said the monk, pointing to the glow on the northern horizon. "Your only chance to save your animals is to stand together with all the rest of us, waving a lantern or setting off firecrackers."

Sure enough, just then the dragon came over the northern hills and flew down into the village. It was glowing and gleaming gold and green and blue. It made terrible noises and had terrible teeth that could easily eat one or all of the villagers gathered outside their homes. Just when the monk thought they were all going to bolt back into their homes one young man ran out in front of the group, lantern in his hand, and set off a large string of firecrackers. Soon, the whole village was running toward the dragon, firecrackers popping, lanterns swinging, children and women and men yelling. The dragon saw these terrifying things coming at him and immediately turned and flew away.

They had done it! The villagers had scared off the terrible Nian. The angry yelling turned to joyous shouts as the villagers started to celebrate their victory. They continued to set off firecrackers and everyone brought out food to share. Coins and oranges appeared and were passed around for luck. Some people started dancing like the dragon while others pretended to fight it off, everyone laughing. The party lasted for 15 days until the next full moon. The dragon didn't return and the people rejoiced. Ever since then the people have celebrated the new year on the anniversary of that special new moon night when the village stood together to scare off the Nian.

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New Fasting Moon 2009: The Fasting Moon is New and New Fasting Moon Photo

New Fasting Moon 2010: Spring is Springing

This post is about Chinese New Year, which I mention in the Full Fasting Moon 2009 post.

Here Be Dragons

'Tis the season of the dragon. The story surrounding the festival of Michaelmas is one in which a dragon threatens a person or a community and a hero, harnessing the strength of heavenly iron and their own inner courage, fights and either slays or tames that dragon. The story of St. George and the dragon is the most well known story fitting this theme, but by no means the only one. The Chinese tale of Li Chi and the Serpent and even Tolkein's tale of Bilbo Baggins the Hobbit helping to slay Smaug the Dragon is of this pattern. One of my favorite literary pieces with this theme is Lewis Carroll's The Jabberwocky.

'Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe:
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.'

Beware the Jabberwock, my son!
The jaws that bite, the claws that catch!
Beware the Jubjub bird, and shun
The frumious Bandersnatch!'

He took his vorpal sword in hand:
Long time the manxome foe he sought --
So rested he by the Tumtum tree,
And stood a while in thought.

And, as in uffish thought he stood,
The Jabberwock, with eyes of flame,
Came whiffling through the tulgey wood,
And burbled as it came!

One two! One two! And through and through
The vorpal blade went snicker-snack!
He left it dead, and with its head
He went galumphing back.

'And hast thou slain the Jabberwock?
Come to my arms, my beamish boy!
Oh frabjous day! Callooh! Callay!'
He chortled in his joy.

'Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe:
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.

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Dragons are a part of the mythology of almost every culture and have interestingly similar characteristics across vast geographical areas. In European culture dragons are large reptilian beasts that may have strange attributes like wings or talons and are usually terrifying. In Asian culture they tend to be more strictly reptilian and more benevolent. More like ancient spirits than malicious forces. Many folklorists believe that dragon stories come from the observation of dinosaur bones around the world. I tend to fall more into the camp of seeing dragon imagery as manifestation of ancient and deep fears.

The outer world is a very scary place and people of pre-literate consciousness (people of past times, of non-literate cultures and children) use imagry to wrestle with and come to terms with these fears. Medieval maps showed pictures of dragons in the empty, unknown places and everyone knew dragons or other monsters lived on high, uninhabited mountains or in deep, dark forests. We individuals with logical, literate consciousness can still access these images and use them to deal with the fears we face. We have less fear of the physical world - science and a generally more worldly understanding have given us answers to why earthquakes happen, whether summer will return again and how to deal with disease - but more fear of the inner world of our own minds and hearts. Dragons live there, too, in our insecurities, our loneliness and our anxieties about god and man and life.

Autumn is a time when our deep monkey brain is dealing with fears of the physical world. The days are shorter and colder and wetter - will there be enough food and warmth to make it until spring? At the same time, and probably not coincidentally, our feeling and thinking bodies are struggling with our fears of the inner world. We spend more time indoors, with just a few friends or alone. It is dark longer, giving us time and room to think those deep, dark thoughts. Who am I, really? Why am I here? Is it all worth it?

Sara at Love in the Suburbs reminds us that our dragons "deserve our attention again because they’ve been patient—even faithful—waiting for us to remember them." Stories and images of dragons and the heroes (or heroines, as the case may be) can be helpful in battling both sets of fears. Stories of individuals who find courage, with or without supernatural help, can help us find our own courage. Symbolic slaying of dragons through making and eating dragon bread or making and destroying dragon models can help us play out those battles in a safe way. The more I learn about the festivals Rudolph Steiner lectured about the more amazed I am at how deep and holistic his thinking is. This is deep stuff that works on so many levels at once, many of them we don't even understand or comprehend.

The morning of Michaelmas, Sept 29, I woke up dreaming about a dragon and knight mobile. I'm sure I had read about it on some Waldorf blog somewhere, but I couldn't find instructions or photos anywhere. So I made one. The wreath the figures hang from is wound ivy vines and Michael and the dragon are both made from silk tied around some polyester batting. I didn't have any dye so I just colored the dragon's silk green with markers. I pinned some felt pieces together to make the fire, sword and shield and tied it all up with some embroidery floss. It is still hanging above my bed. The dragon of fear and the heavenly hero twirling round and round during this autumn season of growing darkness.

How is the change of weather and daylight this autumn affecting your dragons? How do you use imagery, stories or poetry to pay attention to your dragons? What else do you do when feeling threatened by monsters? Have you ever made dragon bread or other dragon art? What's your favorite dragon story or poem?