What Do We Do with Our Dragons

text of my 100 Thousand Poets for Change presentation at Diane Pearl Gallery, Chapala, Mexico September 2021.

I am so glad to participate in this global movement of Poetry Medicine for our beloved Earth Mother. For eleven years in a row, poets and artists around the world have gathered and spoken our visions for peace. This year I reflect on the current polarization of beliefs we humans are experiencing in ever increasing intensity. The one we disagree with is more than ever seen as enemy to blame and dragon to slay. Let’s look at what can be beyond this old way.

Most of us learned very early on about polarities. Us and Them. When I was a kid, my Dad used to watch Friday night boxing on our brand new 1950’s TV set, and we kids would ask him who he wanted to win, the black shorts or the white shorts. Then we would cheer when Daddy’s man knocked the other man to the floor, and the referee bent over the man on the floor to slowly count to ten. Men beat each other up, and the cheery music for the Gillette commercial told us kids, that was the way of the world. No accident that the next program on TV after the fights was Father Knows Best.

The paradigm of Slaying the Dragon is over. The paradigm of Enemy is over. Women never birth enemy faces, as Meridel LeSueur told us long ago in one of her poems. And killing, as we all realize by now. reproduces killing, So what do we do with our dragons?

First we need to see what our personal dragon looks like. Does it look like Covid? Maybe it looks like a (so-called) anti-vaxxer? Maybe your dragon looks like mine, Mr. Money, a corporate puppeteer pulling world economic strings.

Whatever it looks like, we have to clasp that dragon. Like boxers, holding on in the center of a ring. We need to clasp our dragon; and find out –what could happen. We came to earth in a time of the radical transformation of humanity, not a time to be small. Let’s move on from the old paradigms. Let’s see what happens when we move through our fear to tame our own dragon. Let’s find out what power waits behind our fear of the dragon. What power awaits the taming of our fear?

We did not come to earth at this time to merely flip one brand of power-over for another brand of power-over. Maybe we came to tame our dragons. Maybe doing our personal taming contributes to the humanity’s taming, contributes to humanity’s job as youngest Earthling to grow up, to evolve into the stewards of earth.

We all know the World Bell has rung. We are moving from the corners of our personal boxing rings, toward the center of the ring where our dragon awaits. The dragon we used to see as our enemy. Let’s step in toward it. Let’s step gingerly. Skillfully. Carefully. Lightly. Slowly. And repeatedly! Let’s step in toward our dragon— with gentle and unstoppable Love.

Here is my 100 Thousand Poets for Change poem.
Boxing Match

Each in her corner of the ring,
getting ready for the match.
Each in a rich and silky robe
stating on its back
what she’s For or Against.
Each in their corners, doing footwork,
getting guidance, getting oiled.

At the Gong of the Bell,
each removes her robe
and dances to the center.
They circle and throw trial blows.
They move like light
that flows, and lo! Forgets
its borders!

They thought they wanted
to fight. But how can
there be a winner, when positions
fall away to nothing
in the center of the ring?
When ideas lose their boundaries
and boxers clasp in love?

What are their names
and what does it matter
if you bet on black or white?
Better bet,
beneath the FOR and AGAINST on our robes,
on matching up as kin.
Better bet
on ‘winning’ — for the world.

©Susa Silvermarie 2021

100KPoetsforChange.org