The Green Earth Dragon
But now is the ripening of green — the harvests have begun the season most connected to change and beginnings — what kind of wonder has been growing up in the birth of autumn
There is no limit to the low dipping of the sun. All the valleys are touched and showered as a glistening yellow is painted on their surface, covering the earthly skin. The joy of plants and birds. Nothing is happier than the birds and plants when the sun breathes life into them. How high do grey pigeons really fly? They don’t lift their tiny bodies to explore astronomy as humans wish to do so with theirs. They barely travel above the clouds. Light birds stay on the surface as us. It is their size that is smaller. Smaller compared to Regen.
How are the days sun-filled? Is it a kiss? The trees in the rich forest grow towards it. Regen looks at the branches and questions marvelously again. What magic lives near the forest for the branches to rise towards the sky path, instead of pointing hands to other trees? Through the space of two Sequoias, he sees the wide blue sky. It covers every village in this region. Each well has a cloud upon it to mark the distance for travelers. The villagers are not lulled by it. Energized. Regen, too, feels eager. His adventurous spirit keeps his heart alive. As the sky resembles a sequence of dances, he hears a different symphony. It is true, nothing has changed around here for 300 years. But, it is the beginning of another century. Miracles are born in that time.
He goes to the trees with his people. The deep greenness of the forest is gardened best under the first light. They check together which crowns need to be cut. Which branches are sick. Those holes in the leaves turn an unhealthy yellow. The soil of the sweet smell of sugar. Sweet smells in the forest are not a good thing. The forest has its smell. Pine and deep earth. The villagers can not duplicate it and they can not create it. They have learned slowly, in a slower rhythm than raising a child, hidden in 300 years, to take care of woodland.
‘Where are the flying creatures? I saw a spark of silver among some rustling leaves the other time’, Regen asks Mattias.
Mattias, who was gathering some tiny tomatoes near a brownish wood on top of another, stops to answer. ‘Nowhere so far. Nothing has been seen again. Maybe you dreamt of something pretty from a book. Real fairies are not safe, boy. Be careful.’
Regen looks at the tomatoes again. Short and tiny. His eyes move around some more, the acres of the forest he can see have tiny paths, rocks, berry bushes. Everything looks small. And what he saw was larger. Only the thickness of the trunks seems to measure up to it. Where does the silver creature connect with the other ones in this green land? Is it through an invisible line? He knows the forest is alive. Healthy. A cycle of a thousand lives is right here. Where is that one?
When the night rests on them like a wife’s veil, he is lost between a state of sleep and lucidness. Half-awake in his small house, his eyes are looking outside the window. His friends think he stops being enamored with the green when his hands bleed from cutting down so many trees. But, even when his knees shake from climbing Platanus, Regen is never tired of it. He seeks something. There. He catches another glimpse. He sees it so unclearly. Like moonlight water dripping on the river. It is a striking silver, high, high up. It seems to move the leaves. It is not the simple element of air playing games with him.
He has one opportunity. He knows the forest is alive, with so much love being put in it. It is the very start-up of another century greeting them. At the beginning of a beginning, miracles happen. Often, like when his grandpa had found eldest butterflies dancing choreographically to welcome spring. But, now is the ripening of green. The harvests have begun, the season most connected to change and beginnings. What kind of wonder has been growing up in the birth of autumn?
Regen is fast. He is running. His door is left open. Abandoned completely. He couldn’t risk shutting it loudly and he couldn't risk losing a precious second to close a door and miss the silver sighting. He moves, up, lifting his tall legs. Jumping above the rocks near the Redwoods and bending low where he usually hits his head.
His excitement is pure and charges first in the situation. He is fast, too fast. The hidden ghostly creature hears him and moves. It’s gone. Suddenly, darkness. The trees echo back his excitement as he looks… at nothing. There is nothing there. He looks up. Something feels different though. He does. It feels incredibly different to be here, looking for something, instead of looking to give back. He feels like a different version of himself. Is this the change coming? Is he in trouble now?
Music to his ears begins as he sees big paws appearing from the shadows. Ten big nails look like silver diamonds deep-rooted in the skin texture. It is full of ridges and uneven, the skin looks hard and terrifying. As the creature walks to him, the ground doesn’t shake. The feet follow up thighs that are large, leading up to a full stomach that is alight with fire. Higher, there are limbs samely shaped like the feet. But, behind them, big, terrestrial, wings are connected. Higher, there is a neck leading up to a face. A head is connected to a body that is 20 feet tall. It is the head of a dragon.
Regen looks up and up, he can make no sense of the eyes. He desperately wishes to connect with this magnanimous life form in front of him, through the eyes. But, he can’t make sense of them. Which eyes are those that swirl like a volcano caught in the night sky?
The dragon moves closer and the colors finally appear.
In awe, stuck like a statue, Regen drinks. Here, on this creature, a creature that looks wiser than a thousand years, he sees the valleys of the land drawn on its front limbs. The wings favor all the silver leaves they picked up for the festival. The head is as green as the oak. The feet have all kinds of green and darkest green. Regen walks under the stomach and sees the detail in the wings. There are no symbols. The dragon seems to have been made out of the Earth itself. Regen lifts his palms and then honeyed nostrils blow a small fire towards a pile of small rocks. Regen looks as they turn black.
He looks and looks. He makes countless circles around the olive-colored creature. Symphonies play in his head. He looks at the details. Can it be? Is the dragon this season’s necessity? It is not a butterfly kissing his hair. It is a dose of earthbound magic.
With the clouds resting gently upon them, Regen calls upon the dragon as the latter bends his head down to understand. To accept.
‘Your calling will be the Green Earth Dragon. May your magic live on and stay with us. May you be joy, may you be our spark as we continue and grow. Welcome home’.
