How to Get a Dragon for a Pet

I’m sharing this excerpt from my unpublished book “How to Get a Dragon for a Pet” for the benefit of a class on Magic and ancient Cornwall (Dumnonia) that we’re enjoying together this January 2020.

This may sound like a post of pure silliness to some of you. If you have no interest in getting a dragon for a pet,  or possibly no understanding or belief about dragons existing at all, you might as well skip this post and return to my more “professional” writings about how to edit papers for scientists and engineers or how to write lessons to enchant students about math. J Only read this post if you actually are interested in having a dragon, or knowing about people who have dragons. Have a nice day.

Meditation to Get a Dragon

or

How To Actually Get a Dragon for a Pet

“Pure-hearted people are not always wise or good for themselves, though they are often very good to others. This is why pure-hearted people need dragons.”

-- ScullyRubba

Normally when we use the word “get” in our society, people think “buy.” Well, you can’t buy a dragon. And if you are lucky enough to “get” a dragon for a pet, which I hope you will be, you won’t be able to keep it in a cage.

You can buy a silly stuffed dragon, or dragon stickers or dragon pictures or a dragon book like this one. You can study dragons, think about dragons, and dream about dragons. But the only way to get your very own dragon into your life is to meditate one up. You have to attract a dragon into your life, and you have to be brave enough to invite them to stay. I might as well tell you now, this is way easier for kids than it usually is for adults.

Dragons have been around a long time. They know that money and stuff and circumstance mean... just about nothing, as a measure of a person. They’ve seen generations of rich people lose everything they have in wars. They’ve seen dirty rotten thieves in every economic group. They’ve seen the integrity of communities of monks and nuns who have lived for thousands of years in poverty, but even there, they’ve seen corruption. People with impure hearts really can’t fool dragons, though they sometimes try. But after all these years, all these millennia, getting to know humans, dragons pretty much don’t bother talking to people of impure heart. They just remain invisible rather than engage in pointless conversations.

As I have mentioned elsewhere in this book, you might very well get a dragon who likes to play tricks.  However, it is extremely unlikely that you will get a dragon who you can trick, though dragons sometimes play along with kids’ jokes, just for fun. But don’t go thinking you can hide your true nature or your emotions from a dragon.

And sadly, that’s why most adults never get dragons.  They’re too busy hiding. Dragons require Bravery.

“Most adults are big fat chickens, though single moms are often braver than most.”

-- ScullyRubba

So if you want a dragon for a pet, and you want to attract a dragon, you have to clear your heart. Make it light. Kids are often already pretty clear, but the older they are, the more cluttered with nasty stuff from society their hearts tend to get (you know, like bickering, and name-calling, and bossing each other about)(until they learn how to reverse that and become clear light again!) but adults generally need to do a LOT more work to become clear enough to understand dragons.

The first thing you have to do to clear your heart is to write down your gratitudes, and to do it every day. Who and what are you thankful for? The nifty things about gratitudes is they’re nearly endless. I’ve never yet come to an end to any list of gratitudes I started to write. You start writing the big things you’re thankful for, and the little ones, and the more you open yourself up to the thankfulness, the more thankfulness flows in. And the more thankfulness flows in, the clearer your heart gets. You might have to do this for a week, or a month, or a year, before your dragon comes.

… which is not to say you’re a better person if your dragon shows up faster. As we said above, dragons have a lot on the agenda. Aside from visiting all the people they’ve collected into their lives over the centuries, they also (I think) have council meetings with each other in that other realm they have, the one between space and time, which they can get to through magical places (like stone circles in Cornwall, or when they fade behind menhirs in Brittany). So don’t be impatient or annoyed if your dragon takes its time. Sometimes they do. I mean, you can get impatient and annoyed if that’s how you like to feel. But it won’t change the dragon’s behavior any (just like you shouldn’t change your behavior for impatient or annoyed people either, as any good dragon will tell you! Other people’s choices of emotion are their choices, not your business.)

Now here’s how not to get a dragon: I can just imagine some families getting around a table like a business meeting, and bickering “I think our dragon should be red.” “No! I want a blue dragon.” “It should fly!” “No! It should swim!” “Now, now, kids, how about we compromise, we’ll have a blue dragon that flies” (or a red dragon that swims, or whatever...).

That is NOT how to get a dragon. You have to be open, willing, accepting, and pure of heart, and then you have to listen. You do not get to choose your dragon, any more than you get to choose that you’re the child of a single mother or a father with a huge nose that you’ve unfortunately inherited, or that your hair is brown. You just have to accept the dragon you get (or go ahead and reject it, if you’re a fool –– your choice!). Dragons do not come from pet stores, and you can not keep dragons in cages. And if you insist on wanting a pet that you can choose, or a pet that you can keep in a cage, then you should probably choose a type of pet other than a dragon.

I don’t know how long you have to listen, but it’s just until the dragon shows up. At some point, you will just know the dragon is there. Maybe it will come and alight on a tree beside you, or maybe it will be there when you wake up one day, or maybe, like my dragon, the dragon’s mother will put the dragon’s egg in your maple tree, and the cat might not be all that happy about it, but there it will be. And maybe it will even jump into a novel that you thought was a relatively straightforward historical romance.

And maybe your dragon is already here, and you just haven’t listened or looked in the right way. If you close your eyes every morning and be very still and quiet, that’s the easiest way to find your dragon, and find out how your dragon likes to be.

If you want a pretend dragon, you can make one up. You can write it any colour and size and shape under the sun. But if you want a real dragon, the only way to get one is to listen, and watch, and wait.

And if one never shows up… rejoice. Maybe you’re one of the lucky ones who doesn’t need a dragon to help you. Maybe you’ve already got your king and courtiers, and the message from the dragons is to count your blessings, you’re wealthy enough already.