Sapphire Dragon

The Sapphire Dragon

Of muses the ancients
knew only nine
while wise Shakespeare
knew of a tenth
though truth be known
there are many more
but most remain hidden
from the minds of men
Here now comes the tale
of the old and wise
Sapphire Dragon
a muse of great heart
and kindness to all mankind

Now, dragons come and go
There are dragons wise
and dragons foolish
but it's said
the most foolish dragon
is still wiser than most men
There are dragons in the air,
and on the ground,
and dragons beneath the sea
Dragons made of flesh and bone
dragons of ice and fire
dragons of water
dragons of brown earth and stone
dragons of light
and dragons made out of nothing at all
Some dragons are always up to mayhem
Some dragons
don't concern themselves
with man at all
still others are very kind and help men
these we call muses and memes


Many thousands long years ago
in a time now lost to our memories
man was like every other creature
on our planet
we could feel
the divine heartbeat of life
and we could hear the great song
all the universe sings as one

Then a terrible illness befell our species
and man alone among life on earth
became deaf to the grand music
that surrounds us all
Soon too we lost our ability
to talk to other animals
and feel in our mortal hearts and minds
the song of our own eternal souls

Blind to the flow of life
men began to fear and hunt dragons
and like other creatures when they are sick,
we started the bad habit of destroying
our own homes in the forests and savannas
and bringing much mayhem
to the land and creatures around us

A great council was called
among the wisest dragons
to see what could done
to cure humans of our strange illness
and restore us to harmony with all life
It was resolved among the council
to teach man new ways of living,
new ways of thinking,
new ways to look upon the world
in the hope that by our increasing
our knowledge man would once again
also discover true wisdom

Over many thousands of years
the great dragon muses
slowly taught men
writing, and mathematics,
science and philosophy,
to live in villages and cities,
to sow crops, create great art and music
and to form governments and religions


A very wise and ancient
dragon made of brilliant blue light
known simply as the Sapphire Dragon,
was given the task of teaching
man to hear once again
the great song of life

Dragons all know the secret of shape shifting
so, in 570 BC disguised as a beggar
the Sapphire Dragon went to China
where the Zhou Dynasty then ruled
He searched many years
for the most intelligent
human he could find
After much trouble and many adventures
he picked a young boy named Li Dan.

After revealing his true form
to his new student
and with young Li Dan upon his back,
the great Sapphire Dragon flew
to the Greek city states and again
searched for several years
teaching Li Dan all the while
the ways of the flow of life
After much time and many more adventures
he settled upon a young boy of wealth
from the city of Ephesus
named Heraclitus. 

Now with two students,
the Sapphire Dragon
and his young companions
retired to deep in the Ural mountains
where he taught them diligently
until they each were in their twenties
then he returned both of them
to their native lands
where they each taught
men of ancient wisdom
just as great Sapphire Dragon
had taught them. 

Li Dan came to be known as Lao Tzu
meaning 'old master'
After a lifetime of teaching
Lao Tzu, now a master librarian
in the imperial archives,
grew tired to the ways of men
and prepared to retire to the wilderness
in the west of China
As he was leaving the imperial city
a young guard at the gates named Yin Hse
recognized him and begged Lao Tzu
that he go with him as his student
After much time passed
now old and near death,
Lao Tzu gave Yin Hse a book
that summed up his wisdom
called the “Tao Te Ching” meaning
“The Way and The Virtue”
wherein he taught of the flow of life
which he called “Tao”meaning “The Way”

Meanwhile, in Asia Minor Heraclitus
also became a great and wise teacher
relating to his students
of the way of life
which in his tongue
he called “Logos” meaning “Formula”
He taught that Logos permeates all things
and steers the course of all existence
In his later years, like his old friend
Li Dan, Heraclitus grew weary
of the stubborn ways of men
and came to be known
as the weeping philosopher 

Much of what Heraclitus taught
has been lost to the sands of time
but Lao Tzu's book has weathered the years
and can still be found
upon the bookshelves of men
where it is considered to be
among the greatest books
ever written.

Dewey Dirks