The Light Dragon

The morning rays of sunlight lit the ground gently. The sound of the people’s shoes upon the earth was soft. Bird’s songs twinkled through the air like magic dust, lilting sounds, with open spaces in between, where the sound of the air quietly drifting could be felt. The world was awakening, and it was awakening with light and welcoming. The trees, tall, with their thick trunks, seemed to quietly sway their leaves, like friends smiling to each of them, peacefully. The ground before them was a rich, rich brown, and it felt like it cushioned each step.

Their feet enjoyed the ground. It was communicating with them, loving them, and as they stepped each step they felt more of their connection with their earth, and they relaxed more, letting the nature’s energy dissolve away things, as with the aura of the song of the birds and the trees all around was also sharing beauty, healing, and gentleness with them. The earth sang to them, and its quiet song was one of love, and as they let more and more things melt away, more and more did they appreciate the earth, in the most lovely, tranquil, wide way. Their breaths felt deeper, strong, and full.

Then the lilting, light, soft rays from the sun were there like descended gifts from above, and as they stepped into patches of sun and rows and lines of sun, it felt like a loving, soft presence. Sun rays warming the ground warmed their bodies, too, and they felt the coolness of the air shifting into placid warmth, and their eyes began to glow with gratitude. They felt so sweet with how gradually it changed.

Some began to stretch their arms and felt the sun reaching through and to the sides of their garments, healing and warming cool places, lifting it into a positive, encompassing feeling.

The rays of sunlight flowed over the top of the mountain to reach them on the path where they were. The rich, brown earthen ground was lit gently with warm yellow rays sent with rolling grace over the top of the mountain, to touch upon the ground here; the ground glowed sweetly yellowish tints and hues, like yellow life, from the softly rising sun. As its presence slowly lit over the quiet earthen path, it felt like light, moving--nourishing, majestic life--so clear and beautiful to see and feel after the silent, purplish, nocturnal colors of the deep, surrounding dawn.

The loving feeling and the magical appearance of the morning sun’s rays—the rays, not the sun itself, just the products given by the sun, like special gifts, shared humbly and quietly—made it now feel like the whole world, from the forested trees on the sides of the path, to the area in front of them—the area in the distance, over the top of the mountain, which would open before them; over the top, where the sweet brown path was now rising up to merge with—all this world felt even more welcoming. A light energy could be felt lifting splendidly, like a long, sonorous musical note, elevating all around, incredibly gently, elevating almost rapidly with encompassing, tall, feelings of comfort, peace, love and welcoming that stretched higher and higher from the earth all around and into the sky itself, surrounding everyone, every plant, everything; even the air itself felt rich with the light energy.

As dawn rose in the gentlest continuation of warmth and color, the night quietly dissolving away, this light and nourishing, welcoming feeling rose. Everyone felt so wide with the feeling, and soft smiles beckoned on all faces.

They could almost see it, this sun that shone its love through the gorgeous, gentle, quiet yellow rays that glowed upon the deep surface of the textured, thick earthen path. They could feel it, the sun’s mass, hovering somewhere, vast, in front of them, behind the mountain.

As the thousands quietly continued up the path, sweet sighs of wonder and gratitude began to whisper through the cool morning air as the view of the dawn sun became visible. First, the sun was a cupping yellow, peeking over the cusp of the trail as it ascended to the top of the mountain; the slight, vibrant sight of its gentle illuminance filled each body with tangible warmth and a sacred presence. Then, as their feet carried them up the path to the plateau top of the mountain, the whole sun was seen, revealing itself brilliantly, combined with an incredible view of vast vistas of oceans and forest!

It’s half-circle, elemental shape was rising sweetly far in the distance, over the ocean, lifting itself above the waters, gradually, peacefully, quietly, softly.

The land at the top of the mountain was a flat plateau, as if it had become a viewing ceremony. The trees that rose here rose starkly, their full-bodied forms lush with leaves and resplendent in green, a green that although fully unexpressed by the half dawn-dark half yellow-light that only partially lit the trees, one could still feel the vitality and texture and color of the rich green shade. The trees felt as if they were welcoming the day forward, inviting it to begin.

As the rest of the people arrived, they filled in the spaces, fanning out gently to the corners of the plateau easily to gaze at the sights. The ground was hard and clear beneath their feet, and eagles and hawks soared in the air of the view.

Some leaned against trees; tall green firs lifted up. All gazed in quiet appreciation of the vast vista that opened around them.

The plateau was the highest point in the distance; the highest hill, the tallest climb, the ascension that yielded the view of the land the people could settle. The hills on the left and the right, bedecked with fluffy trees and flowers, gradually sloped down for several miles before resting down upon the earth like arms spreading to fingers, descending quietly into a centered square-ish spread of trees that extended forward for hundreds of miles. Pools of water pocketed the dots of bright trees like nourishment stations. Dots of yellow, purple and blue indicated wildflowers grew amidst the trees and along the water sources.

This even center of trees spread out further on the left and right, growing into the distance for a couple of miles, then melted into grassy fields that ran before meeting stony, grey mountains that were more bleak and carried few trees on their bodies.

The left and right horizons ended on those stony grey mountains, hazy in the distance. The horizon in the front continued with trees vastly until they met a peculiar white ground that was utterly flat and carried no plant life. So far away this ground was that it could only be seen as a thin line, and then the line after that was sparkling blue that stretched across the left and right horizon, indicating an ocean.

Like dots, the people speckled across the plateau, like stars spread on the earth. The people’s eyes were wide and lit, warmed by a gentle sun, touched by the soft wind from the air that trickled through the collection, and lifted and hummed higher into the stratospheres. The thousands looked appraisingly over the view.

The king looked over everything. His eyes were vivid. The color of his eyes were deep, and flickered with moving light and energy. Every moment as he gazed he condensed information into conclusions, feelings, about the energy and the quality and the spirit of the land before him. He could feel it was vaster than lands seen previously, and the open spaces—the lakes, the rivers, the meadows—that existed between the forest felt like hints about mysteries unsaid that would be revealed.

Large winged, majestic birds soared in straight, sloping arcs, in the land far between the sea and odd flat silver ground that stretched in miles that extended from the coast to the edge of golden-green meadows which breezed beside the entryways to the forest.

These wings are different than any I have seen before, he thought, and he felt an opening within him, opening in light radiance warmly and gently throughout his chest, as his eyes traced the edges of their wings. He suddenly saw a sparkle, reflected from hundreds of miles from wing to eye, and as his mind realized the sparkle was a rich, vibrant, green color, unlike the hue of any wing he had seen on any air-beast he had known, the crowd amongst him began rumbling.

“The coast.” people began calling out. “The coast.”

Aulia, his wife, beckoned quietly, in her white robes and her calm knowing and her tranquil smile, for him to lift his vision beyond the forest and the meadows and the silver flat ground, so the coast could be seen.

“There are no beaches,” a man with a helmet said to the king. His voice was direct.

“There is only silver, flat ground, lacking any life.” His finger pointed straight. All along the coast, from the furthest horizon on the left to the furthest horizon on the right, rolling waves in tumbling froth ebbed in and out upon odd ground with white hues and thin lines visibly percolating throughout parts of the ground, like scales.

The king’s eyes widened. Even from this distance, it was clear that not even shrubbery existed on those plains of white.

But the forest, his heart called easily and gently. The King’s head turned slowly with his body. His body opened and his palms spread in a wide arc as he felt his being automatically open quietly to the majesty of the forest and the birds and the lakes and the rivers and meadows that were so far from the flats, those flats. A smile stretched across his face beautifully.

“Our people prefer to live by the sea.” The helmeted man said flatly. His body turned ninety degrees, reflecting a decision made without thought and a decision made without any expansion or openness for any shift given from realization, only logic.

“We do not live by the meadows.” He scoffed, somehow gently, as if relieved by affirming his existence. “Like moles.”

“There are more than meadows here.” The king’s voice was clear and beautiful. He spread his palm diagonally, directed widely at the large, glittering birds whose presence could almost already be felt, humming in the distance.

“There is something different here.” His voice was soft. His eyes then lit, and lit. He then spoke to the masses.