Here Be Dragons

[Wells]

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Edited June 4, 2016 by Wells

[Aeran]

I stopped at the monologue on the beach 5 minutes in - does it actually have anything unique to say, or is it just 40 minutes of pointing out the obvious faults in the wider "alternative medicine" industry?

[Apech]

I stopped at the monologue on the beach 5 minutes in - does it actually have anything unique to say, or is it just 40 minutes of pointing out the obvious faults in the wider "alternative medicine" industry?

 

 

I agree it did dragon a bit.

[Eques Peregrinus]

*Sheath my sword*

 

False alarm. No dragons here. Only (pseudo-)skeptics being skeptic of new-agers doing new-age stuff. 

[allinone]

I think about death, its the ultimate critical thinking.

[Geof Nanto]

Here there be Dragons…..

 

 

The Dragon Motif

 

The dragon is at once yin within yang and yang within yin. Its body is constantly transformed but never exhausted: a finer embodiment of alternation as the driving force of continuity could not be imagined.

 

The body of the dragon concentrates energy in its sinuous curves, and coils and uncoils to move along more quickly. It is a symbol of all the potential with which form can be charged, a potential  that never ceases to be actualized. The dragon now lurks in watery depths, now streaks aloft to the highest heavens, and its very gait is a continuous undulation. It presents an image of energy constantly recharged through oscillation from one pole to the other. The dragon is a constantly evolving creature with no fixed form; ii can never be immobilized or penned in, never grasped. It symbolises a dynamism never visible in concrete form and thus unfathomable. Finally, merging with the clouds and the mists, the dragon’s impetus makes the surrounding world vibrate: it is the very image of an energy that diffuses itself through space, intensifying its environment and enriching itself by that aura.

 

The dragon is one of China's richest symbols, and many of its most essential meanings have served to illustrate the importance attributed to shi in the creative process. Tension at the heart of a configuration, variation through alternation, inexhaustible transformation and animating power: all are aspects embodied by the dragon as it surges forward, and all are features of the method at work in Chinese aesthetic creation.

 

The dragon's weaving body surrounds us everywhere. It is the dragon we see as we contemplate the continuous folds in the land and the endless relief of the mountains. The undulations of this infinite body are the "lifelines" (shi) in which cosmic energy never ceases circulating, like breath coursing through its veins. In the bends of this body, where a downward slope curves upward, the geomancer perceives an accumulation of vitality, a point where beneficent influences are richest and from which they can best spread out and prosper.

 

(adapted from François Jullien, The Propensity of Things. )

[Marblehead]

I think about death, its the ultimate critical thinking.

Hehehe.  No need to think about that.  It WILL happen.

[Marblehead]

Yes, the dragon is a powerful symbol in Chinese thought.  I far prefer the Chinese dragon over the Western dragon.