Barb's Musing: Greeting the Dragon

Be kind to dragons, for you are crunchy and taste good with ketchup.

According to the Chinese calendar, yesterday marked the beginning of the Year of the Dragon.  So Happy New Year (again!)

The dragon has special significance for this blog.  Our own Katy C is writing about dragons.  And one of my favorite writing lectures of all time is Jane Porter's "Playing Nice with Your Dragon".  Jane, incidentally, is a favorite author of several Muses.

In Chinese astrology, the dragon is a symbol of good fortune, mystical and unpredictable.  It's year is marked by achievement, wealth, virtue, harmony and longevity.  Big things are to come.  The 2012 Dragon is called the Black Dragon or Water Dragon.  This means that the energy will be continually flowing.  Supposedly water calms the Dragon, making it less unpredictable.  On the other hand,  because the energy is flowing, things will happen quickly, especially at the beginning of the year. 

Dragons are also the symbol of creativity.  This makes sense.  After all, on our best days, our creativity can, like a dragon, be large and awe-inspiring.  On the other hand, on a bad days, it can feel like a nasty, fire-breathing creature bent on destruction.  As I learned from Jane Porter's talk, writers all have dragons living inside of them.  Our dragons must be nurtured so they don't turn into those fire-breathing, evil creatures, but rather spread their wings and fly with the best of them.  I suppose this same philosophy applies to the Year of the Dragon.  Say big changes are coming - and Lord knows just in our own little industry, changes are happening every day -  we can either embrace them or we can let them burn us to a crisp.  Unfortunately, I know too many people who choose the latter.  Like villagers with pitchforks, they fight with the dragon until he breathes his fire-breath straight at them.  Sad thing is, if they'd simply let the dragon be, they'd find the change wasn't so bad.  In fact, the very change they dreaded might bring good fortune on the other side.

So happy year of the dragon!  I hope you avoid the fire, and embrace the good fortune!

PS:  For a terrific summary of Jane Porter's Dragon workshop, click here.