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Zac Chave-Cox's avatar

What you say about the necessity of dragons instantly reminds me of something I've been thinking about a lot recently: the lizard on the shoulder in CS Lewis' "The great divorce".

There's a man with a lizard on his shoulder feeding him lies and tempting him, and an angel comes up to the man and asks "may I kill it?"

The man resists this and comes up with all sorts of rationalisations as to why the lizard is not all that bad and why don't we just let it be, etc. etc. The angel keeps repeating himself and calmly asking "may I kill it?"

Eventually the man relents and lets him kill it, but when the angel squashes the lizard, the lizard transforms into a beautiful stallion and the man rides off into the sunset on him.

Maybe killing dragons is something like that.

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Linda Morrison Durant's avatar

A few short years ago, when my daughter and I walked into the room displaying the painting of St. Bride linked below, we stood transfixed. I am fascinated by iconography, and truly appreciate artists inspired by that tradition. (And I have an Irish great-grandmother, so I was thrilled to discover something of that part of my heritage!)

In a world dominated by internet memes, emojis, selfies, etc we need saints, stories, poetry, and art more than ever before. I often find that many self-described pagans or folks of no specific faith tradition (some of whom I’ve had the pleasure of “meeting” here) have a much more sacramental worldview than cradle-born Catholics of my own tradition - perhaps because so much of the RC church seems to have been subsumed into Machine ways of thinking. But as Pope Francis wrote in his encyclical, Laudato Si, “The universe unfolds in God, who fills it completely. Hence, there is a mystical meaning to be found in a leaf, in a mountain trail. … The ideal is not only to pass from the exterior to the interior to discover the action of God in the soul, but also to discover God in all things” (No. 233). This has always been so, but we’ve allowed ourselves to become literally disenchanted. I tend to consider the dragon as Leviathan/Beast/Machine - rapacious and flattening all before itself, including all of humanity’s creative stewardship of the garden we call our home. I’m cheering for the creatures and humans in DH Lawrence’s poem - their cry is mine as well.

My husband and I are taking a deep dive into permaculture - I bought him Bill Mollison’s text, and today I’ll be starting in on “The Independent Farmstead: Growing Soil, Biodiversity, and Nutrient-Dense Food with Grassfed Animals and Intensive Pasture Management” by Shawn and Beth Dougherty. We’ve also found some excellent resources on YouTube. (Subverting the Machine from within is an important strategy!) From “laptop class” to a retirement as homesteaders - that’s the exit plan so far...!

https://www.nationalgalleries.org/art-and-artists/17484/saint-bride

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