The Truth About Dragons – Part 5
Of Dragons and Terreity
Not long after humankind forgot that the role of dragons in their lives had been harmonious and mutually beneficial, the dragons left our known world. They crossed into another world, a new world, where they could live their extended lives safely and in harmony with all beings. Eventually, this land came to be known as Terreity.
Terreity has existed since before human recorded history, before humans’ oldest stories. In our lifetimes, we have heard of dragons and have been taught of them as myth. The fact that dragons did indeed inhabit our world is the origination of many legends, fables, and myths. Yet those tales do not tell the truth in presenting dragons as fierce, fire-breathing monsters who were feared for their tendency towards destruction and hording treasures.
What those stories fail to teach is that dragons are kind and generous and prefer to live in harmony with all species, including humans.
Many dragons stayed behind when most left for Terreity. Those most ancient creatures sleep into mountains, long since becoming the mountains, but a few remain awake and watching.
One example of dragons’ kindness towards humans was their early participation in human boys’ rites of passage into adulthood. Dragons cooperated in those sacred rites into manhood. As most rites of passage into adulthood symbolize the transition from childhood into the responsibilities and wisdom of adulthood, the dragons’ role was to help the youth demonstrate - symbolically - his bravery, cunning, and wisdom. In a dramatic production, the boy went on a quest to find the dragon who held a young woman from his community “hostage.” Finding them proved the boy’s cunning, safely rescuing the girl from the dragon proved his bravery and wisdom, and thus the boy returned as a man.
Eventually, the rite of passage became more dramatic, and the boy would symbolically slay the dragon to complete his passage into manhood. This shift from rescuer to dragonslayer was supposed to symbolize that the youth had also triumphed over his own childhood fears. But as the years passed there were others who did not learn the sacred knowledge and did not understand the symbolism. They set off on their own, individual, quests to actually slay a dragon. For these youths, no longer was a damsel needed to rescue. They thought to prove their bravery and cunning to the world without understanding the symbolism or the spirituality of the rite. Nor did they understand that wisdom was an integral part of the ceremony.
Fortunately, few of these youths found dragons, and fewer succeeded in slaying a dragon. Yet, this caused great sorrow and anger among the dragons at the needless murder and death. Because humans had failed to continue teaching their children of the interrelationship between the species, few humans defended the dragons’ lives. This rift destroyed the goodwill between the species causing the rest of the dragons to depart into Terreity.
In Terreity all peaceful creatures are welcome: flora and fauna, winged, gilled, four-legged, even two-legged. Humans who find their way into Terreity discover a world familiar yet very different. Although it appears much the same as the world we know, dragons have fiercely, but gently, protected Terreity. Guardians of their world, the dragons hold in place the energies that allow Terreity to exist and provide protection for the natural resources and lives of their land.
One does not find passage into Terreity; the ways are or are not opened to each individual. Few humans have passed through, fewer still have chosen to remain, for the world is untamed by humanity. When Terreity is healthy, only an open heart and great desire for change are necessary for passage between the Sentinels.
