I asked my dear friend Phill, a digital artist, to create for me a sacred image which would signify, formally, a role I’d just been given. A man overseas invited me into a tradition of dragon magic with communities in various countries – meaning to honour me. I loved and admired him; I agreed. Each locality was designated a ‘tor.’ My tor would be named for the town where I live.
I asked the artist for a design suggesting our local mountain. Viewed from my location, it has a high, pointed summit on the left, then two humps descending to the right. I saw it shaping the word ‘Am,’ for Being. When he asked what colours I'd like, I chose green and purple, the colours of the Women’s Movement.
Phill put this image inside a sphere. He added – unasked, but perfectly inspired – a seven-pointed star in the background, symbol of the Faery realm, in a form that could be viewed as loosely woven fabric or gently radiating light.
The magical man’s dragon tradition grew warlike. It was metaphorical; even so, I rejected any such identification. I couldn’t bring myself to establish a branch of the tradition here. I resigned. He saw this as betrayal.
He had overcome many challenges in those years, requiring a warrior’s mind-set, so I didn’t seek to change him but I wouldn’t join him. He cut off all communication with me.
The artist, my soul-brother, died: cancer, sudden and quick. From his hospital bed, at my request, he gave me permission to save all his digital art, to do whatever I like with. I don’t have particular plans for it; I just didn’t want it to be lost when his website lapsed.
Later, for reasons unconnected with any of that, I was one of a group of white Australians who received from a local Indigenous elder the freedom of this land, Githabul land. It includes the mountain.
sometimes at twilight
I look up at the mountain
and glimpse a dragon –
its shadowy back a swathe
along the darkening ridge
Written for Poets and Storytellers United at Friday Writings #120: A Touch of Formality