We all know what dragons are (or at least hold a self-limiting conception that diminishes their true reality), but I’m unsure how many people reading this will know what a daimon is. I guess in the wider population, more likely than not it’s a novel concept. However, I expect this page to be a beacon for philosophically minded and mystically bent kindred spirits, so I can assume a fair share of you have explored this concept.
Within Your Daimon is Transcribed Your Destiny
First expounded in Plato’s Symposium, and later revivified by Carl Jung, the daimon is a concept that is very hard to define. Essentially, it’s a spiritual companion who–in the subliminal realm before incarnating–we had chosen to accompany us on this wild ride. Within the daimon lies the pattern of our development, the road we are to traverse in life, and the extratemporal unfoldment of our destiny. It is our daimon who is with us, sheltered within and co-inhabiting our very soul, offering the faintest guidance and aid so as not to lead us astray. It’s our daimon’s whispers we hear that cloth themself as pings of our intuition, desires and preferences that mold our life decisions, and emotional outbursts that seemingly erupt from our unknown depths. It is our closet compatriot and trusted advisor, attuned to a reality beyond time that it is trying to bridge you towards.
The daimon’s intentions are often shrouded in enigma and unintelligible to the rational go-getter. Though it’s tune is as soft as the thrush’s amidst the ravenous caucophany of our angst and anxiety, it is a song we must strive to appreciate in order to live out our fullest potential. Eudaimonia, a phrase explored by Aristotle, can be considered the state of being where one lives in accordant harmony with the guidance of their daimon. While “flourishing,” “thriving,” and “living with purposeful passion” have taken the mantle as the most recent buzz words to describe this state of vibrancy, Eudaimonia has a ring that appeals to the higher worlds, and so it is the ideal for which I strive.
Dragon Kin
Now that we’ve shed some light on the shadowy picture of the daimon, you must be curious about their connection to dragons. Well, to be frank, I didn’t really know there was any link, until I had to think of a name for this “travel” blog. But, as the name crossed the threshold into my perception, a relationship between the two began to grow… beyond the D&D trope that betrays my true nerd-heritage. Dragons are the most regal, majestic, and purely awesome creatures in all of myth. They’re wondrously free in their soaring heavenly reign, while also embodying the quintessence of elemental mastery. They’re wise and powerful, yet dangerously misunderstood and taken for granted in our materialist culture.
In the words of Ursula K. Le Guin’s Archmage, “Who am I, to judge the acts of dragons? They are wiser than men are. It is with them as with dreams, Arren. We men dream dreams, we work magic, we do good, we do evil. The dragons do not dream. They are dreams. They do not work magic: it is their substance, their being. They do not do; they are.”
Beyond Fable, Towards Recognition of their Truth
It’s my staunch belief–perhaps upraised by an imaginative and whimsical naivety, yes–that dragons are real creatures, teeming with a vitality that would shatter our nervous system. However, where our society misinterpreted the myths is in assuming their storied existence as being in this physical realm. Maybe I’ll lose some of you here, but IDGAF. Dragons are real, but they’re beings who inhabit a dimension or plane of existence beyond the 3-D reality we call home, and that only through the uplifting of your soul and spirit, may you have the blessing to encounter such a being on the inner planes. They’re guardians of the Earth and maybe even progenitors of humanity… or at least instigators of the evolution of consciousness. How else do you explain the interrelations between dragon myths that span the oceans and aeons?
And so we have it: dragons and daimons. I am infatuated with dragons, and hope to create a space where dragon lovers and admirers may exist and connect. I know some of you feel yourself to be of dragon heart through and through, and to have also imagined the energetic opening of your wings as they flower and blossom outwards from the center of your Heart Chakra. Through establishing a relationship with your daimon, and doing the thing which you know you should/want to/have to do, maybe you’ll even establish a deeper bond and love for your own dragon nature… or at least be able to appreciate the How to Train Your Dragon soundtrack a little bit more