myth for tea

Where the mountains formed into a point where the earth, sky, and rain came to meet; where the stars left their shoes before playing in the night, a dragon with nine legs and nine horns formed itself. It was green as a summer forest and dangerous as a lightning bolt. A woman who was cutting herbs in the mountains was the first to see this dragon and when she saw it she put her knife down and gave the dragon three herbs and welcomed the creature to the world.

The people who lived at the base of the mountain loved and cared for this dragon. It never did anything to have them fear it and they were not afraid of beings that were very large or strange. They lived with clouds and wind, rivers, and oceans the people were no more scared of the dragon than they were of those things. And in return for their kindness the dragon gave the people health and energy. These people lived to be very old indeed, and they were immensely strong, and could run many miles further than any human had before.

For many thousands of years this was so, until a stranger came on on the horizon from the desert. They had traveled the world over because they had a dream about a creature who was not animal, nor plant, nor rain nor wind. This stranger came with almost nothing. But had the smallest, most beautiful tools these people had ever seen. With these tools the stranger made music and told stories. The stranger cooked foods and transformed trees and rocks into more tools.

The people were amazed and loved to work with these instruments, and tell stories, eat, and play with these tools. And the stranger said that he would be leaving soon and that they could keep all of the tools in exchange for the dragon. The people, of course, couldn’t possibly own the dragon. What human can own a dragon? If they were to hold it without its consent the dragon would kill them straight away. But the people loved their tools and did not want to have to decide between the two.

But the stranger had a tool that seemed to be able to still the dragon, it was a young woman. The woman who had found the dragon way up the mountains where she lived with her family. The stranger took her away and the dragon followed behind like a cloud. When the dragon left the people suffered. They were not as strong as they once were. Their bodies were weak. The stranger, on the other hand, cut the dragon up and sold the parts all over the world, and with the woman, he kept her captive, and though her life was strange and not always happy, she was able to tell stories. She told stories of her people and her memories. She told stories that the dragon told her, because she kept its tooth, and it whispered amazing things into her ear.

But dragons don’t die. The dragon spread itself around the world in the hot sun and grew. Now, if you look closely at tea leaves you can see the dragon. If you listen wild you make tea you can hear the dragon’s voice. We will always have something more to learn from this being.