Celebration

It started as a quiet day at the Warrior StoryField.

Bob just finished filling in the Dragon’s neck by heating, pounding and hammering 1/2” steel rods into a graceful curve. He’d been doing this for days.

On a whim, he climbed to the top of the Dragon’s head to celebrate a great day of making art. Grabbing a picture of that was a stroke of luck. 

For almost 7 years now he’s been infusing life into this fierce and gentle beast. His contribution to this creation is an expression of his untold stories of war. “My life is all dragons and horses now,” he says with a wide grin.

Fire

Moments later Mary & Sabina jabbed their arms into the sky.

“Hey! That fire is getting really close!”

The plume was curling over us with, fury, flame and falling ash. We closed up the shop and turned our attention to checking on the safety of our team. A number of our homes were in reach of the fire. All of us were affected by the dense smoke. We moved horses and pets and prepared for evacuation. Fortunately the fire never made it to any of our doors. But our hearts go out to our many neighbors in the foothills and mountains that lost their homes, their memories, their way of life.

The Warrior Storyfield Family

While waiting for an evacuation notice, I climbed up on the roof of the shop. Moments later a text came in from Carol Keeley.

CAROL: Hello Robert, Thinking of you and sending protective love and rain dances. Checked in the others today and helped some evacuees get settled in Boulder. Don’t hesitate to let me know if there’s anything I can do for you or the WSF family.

No fire would dare come near the Dragon. (Ben sent me a close up of the dragon’s head and it SCARED me.)

ROBERT: Hey Carol, Thanks so much for checkin in on us. We all feel the sweet web of your protection.

I’m on the roof of the shop cleaning a thick layer of dry pine needles out of the gutters to prepare for the fire. Right when your text came in the wind bore a hole through the gray-black smoke casting a filtered beam of sunlight on the dragon’s face.

It’s stunning to see the dragon’s head from up here. Even though it’s still not done,  it’s working!

Everything we have talked about over these last 7 years is showing up in the dragon’s face. The awesome furrow of its brow tethered to a ratcheting curve of strength down the length of its neck. Its clenching jaw reeling her lips into a gnashing snarl. Or, is that a face of fierce pride for a job well done?  Its forked tongue scanning for threat from behind shattered and crooked teeth. Its nostrils sucking in air ready to act.

Our warrior at war.

With so many hands, so many minds, so many attitudes stirring this soup of wonder…
How have we managed to capture so much emotion? How did we capture both the harmony and disharmony of this expression? What artistic muse is at work here?

We need no answer. Just gratitude for fire.

That’s what I was seeing at the moment. But,  Carol saw so much more.

CAROL: This knocked me windless. Yes, the whole team has captured so much emotion, so much polarity, so much mystery and terror and truth. What magic is at work there? The fierce potency of satyagraha, I’d say. Truth-force. Soul fire.

As for gratitude for fire—that’s where I went breathless. Unsure what it means, but vibrating with the possibilities. Fire only connotes destruction in the West. In the East, as you know, it connotes purification, transformation. Another polarity that holds truth-force. Destruction and purification and transformation. All of that is ablaze in the Dragon, too.

Gratitude for all of it, even the pain and uncertainty and groundlessness. Grateful for the WSF family, for the transformational fires of community. Right here if you need anything at all. Wrapping you and Terry and the Dragon and Phoenix and the pin oak in protective love medicine.

* * *

This is just one of the hundreds of conversations we engage in to discover what our collaborative art wants to become. One of the hundreds of conversations that gave rise to the community that is as Carol called it, the Warrior Storyfield Family.

What does the Dragon really stand for? Well, it’s clear, it all lies in the eyes of the beholder. And as Bob says, “Healing is an inside job.“