And Here Be Dragons

And Here Be Dragons


I just put together a novella - almost a novel - it's so long. I call it 'And here be Dragons'. About a woman's quest for magic. Not pulling rabbits out of hats, but real magic. Everyone needs a little magic in this weary world. Especially my main character who as a child has been rejected by her mother. I put it together last night in a span of 4 hours or so. That's because I have these three novels on my computer and I can draw from them and create novellas and even other novels.

My son, Siddhartha, was in last night helping me look through old floppies - yeah, I was hunting for a couple of paragraphs for the beginning of the book, where my character describes a dream-vision she has of the many breasted black goddess - call her Diana of Ephseus or Isis. My character chose to call her Isis. Well, we came across a section that I had forgotten I'd written - this little girl's fantasy about how a dragon helps her seek out her mother. So now I can begin with dragons and end with dragons.

My main character dabbles in all sorts of magic throughout the book, and the reader glimpses various instances in her life when magic is at the forefront. Like how her Swiss lover is fascinated by this witchy powerful side of her. And then in the end she discovers The Way. I was just asking Sensei today about the photographs they have in the Temple of this absolutely clear and detailed cloud dragon that appeared in the heavens when the Cheif Holy Teachers invoked the God of the River in Japan.

Dragons are water elementals. And there is this river near one of our Temples in Japan. Every time they had a celebration of any sort or a function, it would rain heavily. Till they consulted the Sacred Oracle and discovered that there were ruins of some ancient temple in those parts. They sought out these ruins deep in the forest - a shrine to the River God. The shrine was restored and as they prayed to the River God to be nice to the Temple and stop raining on it, the Dragon appeared in the skies above them! The pictures were taken by a devotee who was just fooling around with the camera, not realising that there was this Dragon in the sky. It was only after the prints were developed that they saw the River God loud and clear.

Ever since then the rain has ceased to trouble the Temple.

Now, if that isn't magic, what is?

Sensei says since The Way is the very origin and rules all beings seen and unseen, it has great influence over them. Now I know that dragons and fairies are for real. It's one of the most wonderful discoveries of my life. That there is indeed magic. All we have to do is find it.