Time of the Dragon

 

Through the mist, there they were,

The sturdy ghosts, waiting for us

On the snow in their blanket coats. 

"Bring tobacco," they got to the point 

"We ride to the sky on a cloud of tobacco."

So we burned sweet and spicy tobacco 

Dried and cured in warmer lands 

And they said, when they drank the smoke,

"We will place a tree in your path

So you will stay with us till we are done."

 

The wind heard them and dropped pines

And birches across our trails

And took us off-grid and cut power lines

So we were in the big house of another time

In a world lit only by fire

Rubbing at smoke-seared eyes.

The old ones said, "To open the strong eye

You must close your everyday sight."

In the firepit cave I heard the heartbeat of the Mother. 

I closed my eyes and saw what I had come to see:

 

Earth begins in the womb of Ocean Mother, 

terrible to men but not to the man-boy

In his time of the Dragon. 

He follows the intent of minds

That have yearned for him,

Called for him, from many times

And many worlds. From the swirling deep

He raises the Shining One,

Silver-bright, in its winged glory.

He must gentle it to the purpose 

Of the Sisters who have called him

To ride a field of stars to the earth mountain 

Where they will make him

What they need him to be:

The bright warrior who can wield

Dragon fire without incinerating the world 

- from a work in progress

Journal drawings by Robert Moss

Notes for the Road

To find yourself you must lose yourself.
The One you are seeking is not inside you.
You are inside the One.

To be present in every time
you must be here, now.
Now is the center of all times.

Here, now, you can step on and off
the trains to past and future
and travel on parallel lines.

To get to a place you do not know
you must go by a way you do not know.
Burn your maps to make beacons.

To wake up, you must dream.
Without dreams, you are a sleepwalker
who could join the ranks of the living dead.

There will be monsters, of course,
dark dwellers at every new threshold.
Without them, how could you be ready to pass?

In dealing with demons, you must learn
to choose the forms of your worst fears
and laugh at your creations.

If you wish to see marvels around you
you must carry marvels within.
A mirror can't show you what you don't bring.

The gates of the Otherworld open
from wherever you are. Don’t think
you have to drink jungle juice with anacondas.

Put your blade away, dragonslayer.
You only conquer the dragon when you raise it
and ride it and turn its energy towards Light.

Turn out the lights if you want to find the Light.
The visible is the skin of the invisible.
In the dark, it is easier to see with inner eyes.

Don’t list the Trickster among your demons.
He is your friend if you expect the unexpected
Everything interesting happens on the boundaries.

If you want to be fully alive, be ready to die.
How about now? You feel the cool breath
of Death on your neck. Give him some foreplay.

To find the One, don't spurn the many
Name only one God, and you’ll always end up with two.
Seek the nameless behind the forest of names.

Make your confessions on the road
not from behind a curtain. The hawk will hear you
and the rabbit, the lily and the stone.

Walk on the mythic edge. Let your life
become a stage for divine events.
Notice what neverending story is playing through you.

Look after your poetic health.

Notice what rhymes in a day, and a life.
Follow the logic of resemblances.

Practice real magic: Follow the passions of your soul
and bring gifts from the Otherworld into this one.
You’ll regret what you left undone –

the fence you wouldn’t jump, the dream you didn’t follow –
more than anything you did when your cool lover
stops licking your neck and takes you in his full embrace.

Photo: Path in Transylvania (c) Robert Moss

The science of mirrors

Did you look last night in the mirror of dreams
or did you flinch and turn away?

I know: you may not want to see yourself
as others see you or worse,
without masks or disguises
in a light that reveals every blemish.

You may not be ready to see who is with you
that you don't see on ordinary days:
the spider, the red boar, the whore,
the dead drunk, the priestess with purple eyes.

So you rush past the mirror and shut the door,
wishing for no more dreams. Wish strong enough
and you may turn the mirror to the wall
or crack it from side to side.

Breaking the dream mirror is worse luck
than breaking the other kind. Do this, and you break
your connection to a wiser self. You exile part of your soul
and forfeit your power to know yourself.

You lose your inner compass. You no longer hear
the ancestors who are calling, calling.
You still the voice of conscience.
Soon you are lost in the delusions of the day.

There may be dragons in your dreams
but when you face them you find
that they guard your deepest treasures.
It is the denial of dreams that breeds monsters.

Keep your dream mirror clean and bright,
look in it every night and you'll keep soul in the body,
fly in a starry robe, and discover you can
step through the looking glass into worlds of wonder.

- Robert Moss
Esalen, Big Sur, November 11, 2016

Art: Titian, "Woman with Mirror"

Notes for the road

Notes for the Road

To find yourself you must lose yourself.
The One you are seeking is not inside you.
You are inside the One.

To be present in every time
you must be here, now.
Now is the center of all times.

Here, now, you can step on and off
the trains to past and future
and travel on parallel lines.

To get to a place you do not know
you must go by a way you do not know.
Burn your maps to make beacons.

To wake up, you must dream.
Without dreams, you are a sleepwalker
who could join the ranks of the living dead.

There will be monsters, of course,
dark dwellers at every new threshold.
Without them, how could you be ready to pass?

In dealing with demons, you must learn
to choose the forms of your worst fears
and laugh at your creations.

If you wish to see marvels around you
you must carry marvels within.
A mirror can't show you what you don't bring.

The gates of the Otherworld open
from wherever you are. Don’t think
you have to drink jungle juice with anacondas.

Put your blade away, dragonslayer.
You only conquer the dragon when you raise it
and ride it and turn its energy towards Light.

Turn out the lights if you want to find the Light.
The visible is the skin of the invisible.
In the dark, it is easier to see with inner eyes.

Don’t list the Trickster among your demons.
He is your friend if you expect the unexpected
Everything interesting happens on the boundaries.

If you want to be fully alive, be ready to die.
How about now? You feel the cool breath
of Death on your neck. Give him some foreplay.

To find the One, don't spurn the many
Name only one God, and you’ll always end up with two.
Seek the nameless behind the forest of names.

Make your confessions on the road
not from behind a curtain. The hawk will hear you
and the rabbit, the lily and the stone.

Walk on the mythic edge. Let your life
become a stage for divine events.
Notice what neverending story is playing through you.

Look after your poetic health.

Notice what rhymes in a day, and a life.
Follow the logic of resemblances.

Practice real magic: Follow the passions of your soul
and bring gifts from the Otherworld into this one.
You’ll regret what you left undone –

the fence you wouldn’t jump, the dream you didn’t follow –
more than anything you did when your cool lover
stops licking your neck and takes you in his full embrace.

Photo: Path in Transylvania (c) Robert Moss

Raising the dragon in the living room

I am going to put a dragon on my walls. I have defined the curve of its body on the fine brocade wallpaper on both sides of the room. Its upper body will rise between a heavy roped-back curtain and the edge of a window at the front of the living room. 
    I know not everyone will agree that the dragon matches the decor, but I am going to have him. Sections of his body will rise from floor to ceiling on both sides; you can't see all of the dragon all at once. 
    I have sent a younger man I trust to a street market to bring me back certain objects and materials. He returns with a different sort of dragon, composed of disks of bone or ivory connected by springs, so you can pull it out like a Slinky. This isn't what I had in mind, but I'm amused by it and the price is right.
     The dragon I am raising in my living room is Western, rather than Eastern. It is related to the dragon that Vikings set on the prows of their longboats but above all to the dragon that was raised in my body, long ago, in a ritual known to my Scots ancestors.

Feelings on waking: Cheerful, energized.
Reality: There are some lovely wallpapers in my house, though not with exactly this design, which is similar to a Graham & Brown "majestic gray graphite damask" I found online, but has a soft green in the pattern as well as silvery gray. Yes, I know the dragon. I generally don't talk about this connection much, and have not considered putting it on display. 
Action: Perhaps it's time for me to write of the dragon. My dream self is sketching a design on the wallpaper with a pencil; then a pattern resembling that wallpaper is described as "graphite", which again suggests pencils, and thus first drafts and sketches.