The holy boy has another name too. Until this other name was given back to him he couldn’t find his place in this world, the ordinary world of human beings and the earth. He spent his time between the worlds, sitting at the doorway unsure of his place in either world. Sometimes he visited with the woman whose soul he is but she didn’t know how to help him be here now in the ordinary world, she didn’t know how to open the door. Sometimes he came to the woman in her dreams, a holy boy in great pain bringing her gifts that she just couldn’t see. The woman knew the holy boy was there but she didn’t know how to open the door.
One day this woman met a holy man and her spirits said to her work with this holy man from him you will learn how to work with your own power, he has a power like your power, work with him and you will learn who you are. So the woman worked with the holy man slowly learning of the gifts she’d been given. Then one day the holy man with his spirit held the woman’s shoulders and sang love back into her heart making a space ready for the boy to come back home. Where there had always been pain and fear was a yellow boat of love and peace in the woman’s heart open to receive the boy home. So the boy came home in a dream but this time he stayed. He brought with him vast amounts of spiritual energy that the woman found difficult to accept into her body and he brought back with him very painful and difficult feelings and memories from his past lives and from his present life before he left. And still the woman didn’t know what to do or how to be with him. The woman’s spirits were full of joy that he was back, they wanted to have a ceremony to celebrate his return, a mark of transition they said. When the boy came back he recognised the holy man to be like him but he knew no others. And the woman was really a bit afraid of him, she felt his power and what he could see and feel but she wanted to keep him hidden, she didn’t realise it was gifts she was being given. So the boy stayed mostly in the spirit world, sometimes appearing to help with the healing never sure of his place.
Then one day more of the woman’s soul came home to her, a magic faery child and the woman’s spirit said ‘will you stay now boy will you stay?’ The magic faery child brought much magic and power back to the woman and joy unfolded into her life as the child within her was reunited with her soul.
And the boy stayed now, still not sure of his place but knowing the faery magic was also a part of him, a different power – white not dark like him but nonetheless a power like him. And slowly, slowly the woman was able to be with and feel the boy more as the magic faery child called more lost soul parts home connecting them all with her white thread.
And sometime around this time a Dragon came into the woman’s life. In meeting the Dragon the woman cried much tears of life as she heard his name, she knew he spoke the same language as her. A language that bursts forth in her when she is close to her spirits and the ordinary earth, another hidden part of her that she never understood until she met the Dragon. And then she recognised the language of the boy and felt through every pore of her body and soul a cry for unity, a deep surge within her yearning for wholeness.
Now this woman in her life that she remembers had never been able to find any purpose or meaning in her life. She grew up through a childhood of much pain and suffering and lived most of her life through the heart and eyes of a magical child mostly in the spirit world playing with her friends. The woman had a daughter who she loves dearly and she stayed on the earth to see her grow up but she never really wanted to stay. And then just about a year or two before the woman met the holy man more spirits came to her that she didn’t know and asked her to work for them. They showed her things she couldn’t understand, they poured the Universe through her soul, which is really why she went to find the holy man to help her understand these things. And it was when she was there working with the holy man that they told her he is your teacher, you have much work to do, your work is to learn the Way of the Shaman.
And so now in the story after the boy has said he will stay and the magic faery child and the Dragon have come into the woman’s life her spirits ask her again to have a ceremony to welcome the boy home and it’s a mark of transition they say. The woman now understanding more deeply agrees and so one day with the holy man and two other friends she has a ceremony. During the ceremony the woman opened her heart in her body to become one with the power of the Dragon connecting deeply with the power of the earth and the elements, as her own femininity became one with the earth she brought this power back up through her body and danced with her masculinity bringing the power of her femininity and masculinity into a beautiful gentle balance of harmony, a dance in the circle of life.
The power of the ceremony and the reunion of her sexuality within her being brought the woman into a place she had never been before. She felt fully present in her body deeply connected to the earth, very open and very vulnerable as the harmony continued to dance through her, she experienced her boy/girl as one flowing through her awakening every cell in her body.
And then a very sad thing happened the woman’s spirits told her to stop working with the holy man. The woman had no deep understanding of why but she did do what her spirits said. Her spirits told her ‘you will understand’ and invited her to connect deeper and deeper with her own power – which she was still quite scared of. The woman felt very confused and the mystical child within her was very sad because the holy man was her friend and she loved him dearly and his spirit. And then one morning in the early hours the woman was walking over the marshes in the white mist connecting deeply with the earth and she felt sad, she felt like the land with out a king and she thought of the holy man and his spirit she loved so much and then out of the shadows came the black horse who has been waiting for so long for the woman to be in her power. The woman climbed up onto the back of the black horse and rode with his power and her spirits said to her ‘this is exactly why you had to stop work with the holy man, you are your own king.’ That night the woman had a dream that her testicles were given back to her and she woke up feeling the power of the dream throughout her body. Still the woman didn’t really understand and then slowly her spirits showed her in many different ways that what she needed to do was embrace her own masculine powers. They told her that she had work to do in the world and that her work was to teach. They told her ‘our sexual energy is our creative energy, free this free your soul, teach this be your soul.’ They gave her two new teachers in the spirit world, a white man and a white woman where she goes for weekly lessons and they teach her how to work with the magic faery child’s power and how to teach working with sexual energy. They say she will teach through the eyes and heart of a mystical child who calls others like her to her.
Still the child within the woman was crying a river of sadness in loosing her friend the holy man and the river took the woman back to her original wound in this life where she had shut the door on the boy, the woman opened the door again and the boy walked through, tender and raw he stood in the centre of the open wound naked and vulnerable and the spirits gave him his name back, Dragon Lord. And the shy Dragon Lord, so dark and quiet, present here now feeling his face, he shows himself to the woman now sure of his place. The spirits gave the woman her life back, the opportunity to express her self fully standing at the centre of an open wound her heart open to life.
The boy helps the woman with her work in the world. His gifts are many and now she recognises the power of his vulnerability, the ability to see and feel human heart and spirit heart as one. And since the boy has fully come home the woman has danced with many shadows – split off powers of her masculinity and femininity, dispelling old untruths and fears, she has been embracing her pain and finding acceptance and healing as the power of the ceremony continues to demand wholeness and the unity of her being on earth. Throughout the shadow work the boy stayed with the woman calling his spirits to help him meet the frightening feminine powers who would do without him and through this process the woman came to know very deeply the beauty of her own masculine power.
But still the mystical child within her felt deep sadness because she missed her friend the holy man she still couldn’t understand how it could be that he is not her teacher anymore. And her spirits told her he is your teacher, he’ll always be your teacher, he lives inside you in all that you have learnt from him, they told her you will work with him again and it will be different, but that time is not now, the time is now to deepen your relationship with your own power and bring your work into the world. But still she felt sad and her spirits said to her many times try a journey to the spirit of the stone he gave you and then one day her friend the Dragon said do the journey now so she did. Her spirit teacher took her deep, deep under the earth to meet the spirit of the stone to ask does it have any help or advice for her in her life right now. She met a very beautiful stag and a doe and a baby deer, they told her to embrace herself, open her heart and love and be gentle with her self. Then they all became one and told her that was how she needed to be. The mystical child cried and told the deer how she missed her friend the holy man who gave her the stone and they told her he was a good teacher for her and that he loved her dearly. She asked them why they lived so deep down under the earth and they said it was their home and she could come anytime. She asked them was there anything she could do for them and they asked her to play with them and then she heard the holy man’s voice saying ‘I’m always there if you need me’ and she looked over and saw the holy man in the clearing. She asked him ‘are you really the holy man?’ and he said ‘his spirit’ so she asked him again ‘are you the holy man’s spirit?’ and he bent down and touched the earth so she thought oh he must be the holy man showing me the earth’s his witness. So they all sat down together and the child cried her sadness and she asked the holy man ‘why can’t you wake up? why can’t you wake up?’ and the holy man said he has his own pain too and he was waking up slowly, slowly you wake me child and then he put his hands together and said to the child you are my teacher. Then the drums changed so she had to leave and the holy man said if ever you need me come here to the deer before time and they will call me and then she hugged him and left.
After the journey the woman understood that she needed to become one with the boygirl, child within her, she also didn’t feel so sad anymore because she knew she hadn’t lost her connection to the holy man, it was just different, and also the woman felt a much deeper acceptance of her own vulnerability, she could see the child within her as her own teacher. And as the days passed after the journey the woman realised that the child was waking up the teacher in her, calling her own masculinity to wake up more and take his place. And this is happening.
“Dragon Lord who shall our students be?
hose who walk the same path as thee”
by a woman who lives in her story and tells it if it feels right
“Warriorship is a continual journey.
To be a warrior is to learn to be genuine in every moment of your life…
The ideal of warriorship is that the warrior should be sad and tender,
and because of that, the warrior can be very brave as well.
Without that heart felt sadness, bravery is brittle, like a china cup.
If you drop it, it will break or chip. But the bravery of the warrior
is like a lacquer cup, which has a wooden base covered
with layers of lacquer. If the cup drops, it will bounce rather than break.
It is soft and hard at the same time.”
Chogyam Trungpa