February — The Feast of the Blue Green Dragon
Towards the end of February winter started easing its grasp on the mountain springs, allowing them to come back to life, almost suddenly, in bubbling expressions of movement and sound. The tiny brooks searched for each other down the mountain, forming tiny pools and waterfalls, and when they could, they joined their forces in larger streams, with the playfulness of living things, and very young ones at that. From the window of her room, Aifa had a very good view of that side of the mountain, and the moment the water started shimmering between the distant peaks, she hurried down the stairs with great noise, to give the entire family the news that spring was near.
The Feast of the Blue Green Dragon was an entertaining, childlike experience. During that day every person in Cré, child or grown-up, young and old, agreed to suspend seriousness and reason and give in to the kaleidoscope of sounds, smells, sights and tastes that overwhelmed the senses. People worked for weeks to manufacture the gigantic paper dragon, whose length spanned the whole width of a block and whose sophisticated metallic contraption was an engineering masterpiece intended to make the fake creature’s movement more fluid than water. The finished object was so heavy it required tens of people to carry it.
Old wives’ tales had it that as soon as the real blue-green dragon, the one made of streams and waterfalls, came rushing down the mountain, one could count the days until the arrival of the Twins.
The blue green dragon was the spirit of the mountains, the guardian of the east, the keeper of the harvest, and it always brought with it the first rain of spring, although it wasn’t usually rain, more like a watery slush that couldn’t make up its mind whether to be water or ice.
Once freed from its wintry case of ice, the bubbling brook made its way down the mountain and settled into a stone aqueduct before it entered the city, usually around the feast of Agape. People went to great lengths to guess the exact day of the blue dragon’s arrival, if for no other reason, because it was terrible luck for somebody to sweep and dust their house before it showed up, and after a long winter, everybody was kind of relieved to be able to get rid of the cobwebs and know that spring was now very close indeed.
The celebration of the Blue Dragon, which lasted the whole day, started at the Hearth, like every other important social gathering in Cré. Legend said that that’s where the real blue dragon was first sighted, after it slunk into the city, to quench its thirst with a sip of water from the pond in the middle of the garden. That was, some people believed, what gave that pond the power to foreshadow the arrival of the Twins.
On that day, the children of the city, all seated on the floor of the Hearth in a circle, on top of the cushy, overstuffed pillows their doting mothers had brought to the event, in order to protect their little ones from the coldness of the stone, were regaled with the traditional story of the Blue Dragon Holiday, which went something like this.
At the beginning of time, after the earth was separated from the air and the water, the Spirit of Being decided to create four mythical creatures, four eternal keepers to guard the four cardinal points: a phoenix to inhabit the south tower, a turtle to keep watch over the entrance to the north, a white tiger to look out into the western sea and bring luck to the fishermen and a blue green dragon to come down the mountains from the east in spring, with rain and good harvest for the people of Cré. The children were always mesmerized by the intricate details the storytellers embroidered around these mythical creatures each year, stories that were to legends as sand mandalas are to paintings: they were made up on the spot, only for that event, and meant to be forgotten not even an hour later, in the excitement of roasted chestnuts, spun sugar treats, and following the paper dragon through the streets and alleys of Cré.
The tradition required that each young person, when he or she came of age, would have to contribute a story, and the story with the most elaborate details was rewarded with the honor of taking the first sip from the newly awakened spring. This honor had fallen by the wayside in the later years, since sipping from the murky stream, muddled as it was with all the debris it carried down from the mountains, ended up being more of a punishment than a reward, so the High Council decided to reach a compromise and have the fortunate youngster water a plant instead.
Aifa wouldn’t dream of missing the festival, she was always right next to the action, trying to get as close to the paper dragon and the water as she could, and she never forgot to indulge the holiday superstition and dip a lock of hair into the stream for good luck.
As far as fairytale time went, she was long past the age where she would sit on the floor with the other children, and listen to the stories, but not old enough to contribute some of her own, but today she was kind of nostalgic about the simple joys of childhood, and crouched behind the last row of children, propping herself with one hand on the floor to keep her balance. The floor had indentations, which didn’t feel random, but not very skillful either, more like something a young child would scribble, if he or she had the strength to chisel a symbol in stone. It was very crude, but it looked like a heart filled with waves, and she felt like she remembered it very well from her childhood, although she couldn’t tell exactly when it was that she first noticed it.
“So much for the stone of the Hearth being sacred and untouchable. I wonder how many more of these I might find, if I really looked,” Aifa thought.
The thought that the Twins’ arrival was imminent had set the entire community on pins and needles, and between that, the endless food preparations, and the blue dragon festivities, nobody had time to keep an eye on the young girl, now old enough to be a Caretaker. She wandered about the large hall at her heart’s content and found all sorts of markings on its floors and its walls, some of which she could recognize, and others that made no sense to her at all.
“Aifa!” she heard the voice of her grandmother, colored by a tinge of worry. “Thank goodness I found you, child, I’ve been looking all over for you! The paper dragon is about to arrive at the Hearth, you don’t want to miss it, do you?”
“Doyenne,” Aifa abandoned her little treasure hunt and turned to her grandmother, “why did the city pick the blue-green dragon and not one of the other three mythical creatures to be its mascot?”
“Because it is the water bearer, of course,” her grandmother answered. “Water is very important to Cré. Tradition says the blue dragon used to be the Twins’ favorite pet, but it grew too big, so they sent it into the mountains to guard the stream and bring it back to life when good weather returns. Supposedly, every spring the dragon remembers the Twins and comes down to find them, and, always disappointed because they are not here yet, it resumes its journey to the sea.”
“Why is water so important?” Aifa asked, knowing that a long conversation was about to take place, one that would keep them occupied until they got to the parade’s starting point.
Water was deeply embedded in the life philosophy of Cré, and its significance to the inhabitants of the city often transcended the physical. As expected, her grandmother referred back to the classic teachings that Aifa herself had to pore over repeatedly in school.
“Because water sustains life, and also symbolizes the journey of our spirit upon the earth. You can hold it in the cup of your hands, and you can sprinkle it upon the earth, but there is no more powerful element in the universe, when its full strength is unleashed. And it always finds a way back to its source, through the rivers, and the clouds, and the earth, it always finds its way back to its source, the big ocean, its essence unchanged. So must we, through life’s changes, be yielding but unchangeable, and like water carving deep canyons through the hardest rock, our actions must be effortless to be powerful, and respond to the unwritten laws of the spirit. There is no flaw in the nature of water, it is humble, simple and pure, so much so that it even cleans whatever else it comes in contact with. If only we could keep our souls in this condition too!”
Grandmother looked at Aifa, who seemed a little confused by the concepts, but most of all, couldn’t figure out how the discussion had veered from the importance of water to the purity of the spirit.
“That little carving you found,” grandmother pointed out. “The heart filled with waves.”
“What do you think it means, doyenne?”
“See, that is exactly why it is hard to learn the way of the spirit. The second you think you had it all figured out, it eludes you. If you can describe it, it’s not real. If you name it, it no longer is, but it never goes away, it is forever, everywhere and fills all things. That little carving you found, sometimes it is easier to feel the meaning of something than to think it. What is the first thing that came to you when you saw it?”
“I just had this strangest feeling that I’ve seen it before, known it for a long time, but could not remember where,” Aifa said.
“And that’s the nature of the spirit, little one,” grandmother laughed. “Independent of our mighty rational thought. I will ruin the explanation just by trying to put it into words, but what that carving taught you is that, at a fundamental level, that heart and the waves it carries inside are one and the same. Now come, dear, I think your mother worries endlessly, not knowing where either of us are. Everybody has already gathered for the parade, you don’t want to miss it.”
“But doyenne, that celebration, the last thing that comes to mind when I see it is simplicity, humility and moderation. What of it?” Aifa asked.
“Well, sometimes things just are,” grandmother said.
“Things are what, doyenne?”
“Something doesn’t have to be something in order to be. Just being suffices,” grandmother explained.
“What about people?” Aifa asked.
“Especially people. If you cannot simply be, then you cannot be anything.”
As the conversation grew more and more esoteric, Aifa’s confused thinking dug in its heels and slowed down to a full stop.
“Don’t trouble your mind with these things, granddaughter. As I said, some things are meant to be felt, not thought, in order to be understood. I hope the sugar confections are not all gone, there is no reason not to savor little treats every now and then. Life is meant to give you joy.”
The paper dragon advanced slowly through the crowd in front of them, and they could only see bits and pieces of it, and flashes of bright color, when the dancers lifted it up in the air and swayed it to make it look like it was moving on its own. It followed the path that was established for it, moving at the pace of a snail and stopping many times, so people could gather around it, joke and laugh, before it embarked again on its slow stroll through the city. As it approached the Hearth again, the blue-green dragon didn’t want to fall short for the year, and rain started falling, slow, icy, February rain, jarringly unpleasant. The tiny ice crystals were pricking their cheeks and they were both grateful when they went inside the Hearth again, for the celebration of Agape.
Of course, once inside they found themselves in front of another host of refreshments of every variety, stacked in mounds on large trays.
“Why does everybody in this community always brings food to every event?” Aifa asked herself.
