World Photography
  • NAXI DONGBA
  • TREE SPIRIT
    • NEIDRYA
    • ARTIST STATEMENT
  • SOUL ECOLOGY
    • NEIRIKA >
      • NEIRIKA (experimental video)
    • ENTHEOGENS >
      • What is DMT?
      • DMT (experimental video)
    • ANGEL REMIX: LIGHT & DMT SPELL
  • POLITICAL ECOLOGY
    • ACTIVISM Scholarly Articles >
      • FIPA Canada-China: International Trade Law and Water
      • Kinder Morgan Trans Mountain Expansion Project Memo       Decarbonizing Canada’s economy
      • DRAGON TEARS A CRITICAL ANALYSIS ON THE POLITICAL ECOLOGY OF PLANETARY SURVIVAL
      • Policy-oriented Macro-analysis: China's Freshwater & Health Crisis an Essay on the Techno-industrial Puppetry of Oligarchic Dictatorship
  • PORTFOLIO
    • FILMOGRAPHY >
      • DRAGON TEARS
      • TREE SPIRIT
      • MEMORY THEATER
    • WORLD PHOTOGRAPHY >
      • DRUNG
      • INDIA >
        • Ancient Palace, Leh, Ladakh
        • Himalayan Nomadic Region
        • Srinagar, Kashmir & Jammu Province Northern India
      • MONGOLIA >
        • Middle Gobi Desert
      • WORLD PORTRAITS
  • BLOGOSPHERE
  • TOPOGRAPHY OF THE SACRED
    • DRAGON MYTHOLOGY
    • DIVINE FEMININE >
      • SACRED ART >
        • neo-shamanism prayerformance
        • The Painting-dress: a ten year Neo-shamanic interdisciplinary art project
  • PSYCHEDELIC DIGITAL CARPET
    • SACRED GEOMETRY
    • DIVINE MOLECULAR THEATER (DMT)
    • ALIEN ( visual-music pattern )
  • ELVISH-POETESS
    • Angel of Poetry
    • Ritual Poetry
    • Melody of an Angel's Heart
    • Rainbow Tears

Dragon Mythology

7/27/2018

 
Picture
"Science and Civilisation in China, Volume 2," Joseph Needham, Cambridge University Press, PLATE CDXLIV.  This image is used under the fair use license, U.S. Const. Art. I, § 8, cl. 8., Section 107 of the Copyright Act

One of the earliest depictions of the dragon was found on a plate in Taoist southern Shanxi, carbon dated to 2500-1900 BCE, during China’s earliest dynasty, the Xia dynasty (Lindqvist, 2008). In Taoist Chinese ecological lore, the dragon is a shamanic symbol associated with the Great Water Goddess and sacred life-giving element of water. The dragon is also symbol of fertility, midst, dew, rivers and rain. Water cults’ primeval matriarchs performed ancient ceremonies (Schafer 1951, p. 132) celebrating river water deities (Schafer 1973, p. 60). From c. 1750 to 500 BCE, shamanism was the dominant spiritual force in China (Palmer, 1996). Additionally, in ancient Chinese mythological lore, the dragon motif embodies transformation, yin, as well as a spell invoking water deities. The dragon is also associated with imperial power; China’s first emperors were believed to be decedents of the celestial dragon-spirit.

“The dragon was not just another mythical animal. It was regarded as the most sacred of all creatures and symbolized China and the power of the emperor. The Yellow Emperor, who, according to legend, ruled the land along the Yellow River, the cradle of China around 2700 B.C., and is considered to be the father of all China, was said to have been the incarnation of the dragon.” (Lindqvist 2008, 115).

In the chapter Women, Nymphs and Dragons from "The Divine Woman, Dragon Ladies and Rains Maidens," a book written in the early 1970s by Dr. Edward H. Schafer, professor at the University of Berkeley, and Harvard graduate, we learn about the magical legend surrounding China’s first emperor.

“This lucky-unlucky woman had been embraced by the same kind of being that had embraced many Chinese queens to make them mother of kings. Such dragon lovers were themselves kings, by virtue of their power over rain and fertility, like the ancient rulers of the Middle Kingdom.” (Schafer 1973, 23).

The Classic of Mountains and Seas is considered one of the most important classic Chinese literary works, and it is referred to as “the locus classicus for many myths” (Anonymous (trans. Birrell) 1999, xix). In Book One, “the deities of these mountains all have the appearance of a bird’s body and a dragon’s head” (Anonymous (trans. Birrell) 1999, 5). The dragon permeates the cosmology of ancient China and is still deeply rooted in the spiritual imagination of the Chinese social fabric today.

In Tang poetry, “some ‘dragon kings’ daughters visualized in this genre resemble the court belles of Europe imagined in polished literature as Greek nymphs and naiads” (Schafer 1973, 90). The dragon is associated with the female shaman, called shamanka, or the Wu Shan goddess (Schafer 1973). Although she was mostly ignored by Tang poets, Nü Kua was the most important dragon in ancient China and referred to as the “old rain dragon goddess” (Schafer 1973, 61; 92).

“Nü Kua’s gauzy skirt, a hundred feet long, Suspended over the Hsiang and Kiang, gives its color to the hills.”

The universe is composed of opposing forces. Yin and Yang in Chinese spiritual cosmology symbolize the universe. “Yin and Yang represent linked opposites, or antagonistic factors. Such dualities as male/female, water/fire, and night/day are antagonistic pairs, but the parts of the pairs cannot exist without their opposites” (Ede 2006, 21). The symbolic union of the dragon and phoenix, symbolize the elemental opposite forces of water and fire, as well as a mythic-cultural representation of the marriage of the emperor and empress (Ede, 2006). Mythology is a tool for social cohesion (Rees, 2002) and shapes the spiritual patterns for cultural identity and daily life.

Asia Pacific Dispute Resolution Project Working Paper No. 18-3
"Policy-oriented Macro-analysis: China ́s Freshwater & Health Crisis an Essay on the Techno-industrial Puppetry of Oligarchic Dictatorship" has been successfully published on the APDR website, UBC's Institutional Repository (cIRcle), and the Social Sciences Research Network (SSRN).
Electronic copy available at:
APDR website: http://apdr.iar.ubc.ca/dissemination/publications/workingpapers-series/volume-3-trade- policy-implications-and-the-right-to-health/number-1-public-health-policy-in-asia/ 
cIRcle permanent address: http://hdl.handle.net/2429/64568
SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3118538 


Comments are closed.
     BÉRANGÈRE MAÏA NATASHA PARIZEAU
    ​

    My artwork, experimental films, and scholarly reflections emerge from a deep curiosity and fascination with the boundlessness of the human spirit, the limitlessness of the cosmic universe, the mythological, the spiritual, the exploration of my EARTH LIGHT body which emanates from infinity (this is the realm of the MYSTERY, the wildest imagination), as well as a real concern for our beautiful planet MOTHER EARTH.  The premise of this heuristic body of work is that the current planetary crises are crises in human consciousness, crises of the humanity group soul/spirit. As an environmental advocate and consciousness activist, my work intends to intentionally participate in redesigning culture, the intentional participation in designing a post-growth ecological culture (this is the creative process of redesigning culture) for an ecologically sustainable and spiritually thriving planetary future. My intention is to shed light on the sacred multidimensional ways in which we potentiate the power of our consciousness. This body of work is a prayer to humanity to align our mind and hearts, to raise the power of our hearts, to develop methods and technologies to go inward towards the complexities and awareness of our individual connection to Source We are the Rainbow Warriors.  If the world is indeed participatory, we manifest/dream this world into existence. Indeed, dear friends... a colourful future is ours to create! 

    Archives

    September 2019
    August 2019
    July 2019
    June 2019
    May 2019
    April 2019
    March 2019
    February 2019
    January 2019
    December 2018
    November 2018
    October 2018
    September 2018
    August 2018
    July 2018
    June 2018
    May 2018
    April 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    December 2017
    November 2017
    October 2017
    September 2017
    August 2017
    July 2017
    June 2017
    May 2017
    April 2017
    March 2017
    February 2017
    January 2017
    November 2016
    October 2016
    September 2016
    June 2016
    May 2016
    April 2016
    March 2016
    February 2016
    December 2015
    November 2015

    Categories

    All

    RSS Feed