Ephiphani

Today is the celebration of Epiphani, the fourth Saturday of the fourth month when neighborhood communities throughout the Land Reborn gathered to remember and honor the Great Mother, Sapphira, Archangel, and fearless Dragon who came to liberate us from the social and emotional towers we had built that separated and divided all kind. Our past had been one of isolation and harm and oppression; too painful to live in, and even now too troublesome to recall. We only speak of the dark days during such celebrations as today, when we have the love of community and the collective power or our interdependence shining from our hearts. The sun always shines the brightest on Epiphani, and this year especially because it is the year of Jubilee.

It was said that when she came fifty years ago, she came into the land, formerly named the United States, ironic because it was born out of and subsequently fought to maintain dehumanizing division. Despite her size and image, she was a dragon afterall, her presence seemed to create a quiet calm even for the howl of the autumn midwestern winds. She had first built a nest in the Milwaukee neighborhood of Sherman Park. Haunted by a history of violence and recklessness, it was not by chance that she had appeared in what had been noted as the most “inclusive and diverse” community in their land. Such terms as with most promises and pledges of that time had become empty and meaningless. The dragon had every intention of using their own words to deconstruct them just to use them again as a model for rebirth.

The sight of the dragon did not seem strange to the people. At this point in human history, artificial intelligence had so significantly blurred the lines of real and fantasy that it was difficult and not worth the hassle to figure out which was which. Furthermore, after the tremendous loss of lives and hope from the second civil war, the survivors had faith only in what they could control, their emotions, and they held their hearts so tightly that the practice of inhaling had become a chore. So the people were neither moved nor alarmed by her presence. Those who were slightly interested appeared wearily at the city park, hopeful only she would not eat them, but if she did the fear and agony would be sharp and death quick. Understandably then, it was the mound made of bricks and broken glass that she had collected and cleaned up from the streets after the four hundredth eleventh day of rioting and protests that sparked the greatest alarm. Just as the nights were filled with chaos, the days were illuminated with curiosity. People from all over the city came to Sherman Park to see her use the bricks from the demolished Boys and Girls Club to build what was clearly becoming a perch. Had she come to watch over them? How long would be her stay? These were the beginning sparks of an ignited imagination that would help illuminate the path forward that she would indeed blaze.

In the fourth month on the fourth Saturday, the entire city had gathered to watch, and inquire to see what the dragon lady had been building. She could feel that some of them had come for the sole purpose of policing her and others. Those always made the scales on her spine send a violent shiver down to her tail. She held herself from wetting them with a lick of fire that would incinerate their bodies, leaving their souls to wander or land wherever pre-determined. But she assured herself that her new way, her new approach would bring forth such a new and bright order that those who dare resist would soon just die off on their own.

As she laid the last brick into place, she caught the eyes of a frail, dark brown girl, with tight, unkempt curls framing her ashen face. She stood behind a wire fence that obtrusively held her back or kept her safe. The intent of the oppressive fence was not clear. But Sapphira knew she needed to tear it down. Sapphira decided within herself at that moment that every word she would speak would be for such little girls whose neighborhoods and mindless neglect had kept them ignorant of their calling. They, too, were dragons, with viable and necessary fires burning within. The entire purpose of her arriving and opening her mouth before the people of the land stillborn, sharing with them the sun of her soul, the song of their renewal, would be to open the portal to their understanding, to call all the other dragons forward. Their songs and fires would be necessary for the world to be reborn.