Day 333 (ooh!)

Sweeping sunset.

In the morning, it is 31F (0.5C), so...
Pedometer - check.
Balaclava - check.
Hoodie - check.
Lovely new green down jacket - check.
Gloves - check.
Music in my head - check.
Space available for free-flowing thoughts - check.
Stretching exercises - check.
Run up and down Babbling Brook Hill five times - check.
Jump over fallen tree into meadow - check.
Greet meadow, which wags with all its grassy tails - check.
Run five circuits over the crunchy, frost-white ground, the earth hard and unyielding beneath my feet, my mind singing, counting, thinking - check. 
Run one extra circuit to collect jacket hanging on Pin-oak, which stands proudly with the green jacket in its branches, pretending it has leaves - check.


Discover that I have run 5.86 km, at 6.18 minutes per km, my best speed yet!


A thought which took up a lot of space and time was about dragons, wishing they really existed, after watching How to Train your Dragon last night, which we all loved!

Dragon myths exist in many cultures, and there is an interesting difference between those of the East and those of the Western World.  In Eastern images of dragons, they are large serpent-like creatures, but in the European tradition they have bat-like wings. 


It is now believed that dragon myths evolved from the discovery of dinosaur fossils. There is documentation of one of these discoveries in China in 300 B.C.  How wonderful, to imagine this creature they had never seen, these giant bones, this reptilian skull.   In the movie we saw last night there were hundreds of different types of dragons, beautifully imagined and drawn, one of which looked like a puffer-fish with wings, the main character "Night Fury", a little bit like Stitch of Lilo and Stitch fame. 

Fantasy novels are filled with dragons.  I love Ursula LeGuin's creatures, and Anne McCaffrey's beautifully imagined world of human and dragon interconnection in her Dragonriders of Pern is one of my favourite series of books.   And I loved the 'dragons' in Avatar. 

Sitting on the couch in front of the fire with Matthew this evening doing more college application stuff, I was talking about how lovely it would be to ride a dragon, and he displayed great disbelief in my dragon-riding abilities.  I was slightly indignant, as he justified his conviction with the fact that I won't even go on a roller-coaster.  So I responded, "Well, a dragon is not a roller-coaster, is it?  A dragon is a real creature, and my dragon would do exactly as I said."  To which he replied, "Oh, ok, yes, I can just see you on your dragon, 'Not too high, not too fast, ok, slow down, little dragon!' and there you would be, moving at a ridiculous pace for a dragon, everyone else hurtling down cliffs and up mountains, and mom all dignified and unhurried." 

So here is my little drawing for the day, a little friendly blue dragon, with a horse's head, a fat little cow-like body, bat-wings and a long primaeval tail.  A slow and stately dragon.  (But she is also brilliant at cliff-diving, better than the red-wing starlings at the Mary and Martha mesas near Tarkastad.)