I believe our inner dragons are our fierce alter egos we must cultivate, birth, and let free to fly if we are to help this struggling world. It is in our bringing them forth that we learn to take the necessary flight to soar over the troubles of our time.

Speaking from our collective mythologies of these mysterious and powerful creatures, dragons always have the potential to sit inside, on inner wealth, fight for the wrong things, hoard. 

But like in our society where we are now so distanced from each other, often feeling stuck in unrealized dreams, a hording dragon serves no one and nothing.

I believe in our modern society hoarding often manifests as holding tight to an excess of physical objects certainly, but also certain people, ideas and have-tos. I have been that person, have kept dreams and piles of fabric alike, unwilling to actually engage and make the messes required to move through my ideas towards a beautiful goal.

I have learned to cultivate my fearlessness; cut up that dream, that perfect piece of fabric, get messy, play.

We must teach our dragons to come out and use their fire for the best purposes.

Part of this journey is about being ok with being imperfect, unfinished, cultivating a willingness to create and present beauty to the world from an imperfect state, manifesting from messy real life, and that which others may have discarded. If you choose to do this work, you cannot help but sculpt your self in the process, finding your inner fierceness and definition.

A dragon can also be a guardian, for what better use for fierceness than to guard that which is precious? I view as part of the process of birthing your personal dragons, your own inner fiercenesses, is cultivating the skills to become a guardian of whatever is most precious and essential to your spirit and the unique work you alone are here in this world to do.

This is a learning to communicate with intuition – for if you allow yourself to listen to it, it will lead you in the direction of that which will most uplift you in this life into the person you wish to become. What will give you wings.

For me, one of these fiercenesses which I have had to learn to safeguard is the time and discipline to do the art itself, integrating joyful rituals into my day that allow the manifestation of these creatures to flow out of me effortlessly – but only because I have been willing to carve out the time and release being called in too many directions at once.  

In this age of social unrest and environmental disaster, the capacity for this skill to release the distractions is necessary to anyone who wants to create lasting change of any kind.

I believe those of us that are gifted with seeing the magic that is possible but that others might not yet see are tasked with the divine responsibility of birthing that healing and inspiration into the world, whether it be physical art, or a more just society.

In my case, having always realized the tremendous amount of fabric waste in our country, upcycling calls to me. I choose to literally craft from what others may not see the unique value of, wanting to call attention to, make visible, this waste by transforming unwanted garments and fabrics into something fantastical. To purposely not buy new material, but see what magic can be created from what we already have. This calling is enhanced by my desire to see and make manifest from these particular materials literally something – dragons themselves – that others may not yet be able to see.

I feel the dragons want to come through me out of this other world where anything is possible – like any ideas we may have for a better world here and now through our actions – but if we do not take the reflection time necessary to choose how we will spend our days and say no to what is not essential to the crafting the world we wish to create, we bright souls can burn out. Be a guardian of your inner flame. Birth your unique dragon. Be your dragon.

As Amanda Gorman says in The Hill We Climb, 

…“For there is always light,

if only we’re brave enough to see it.

If only we’re brave enough to be it.”