Rayna was done with school. For good. It was the end of the year and school had failed. Again.

People had told her over and over and over that it would get better. Now, at the end of sixth grade, she was over it. There was no way this was going to get better. It felt more like it was just getting worse. She couldn’t tell which was most exhausting: explaining to her parents why school was wrong for her, explaining to teachers what was wrong with their curricula and pedagogy, or explaining to her peers (and administrators, occasionally) what was wrong with the whole system.

Fortunately, she was going to get a change of scenery. She was traveling to spend the summer with her grandmother, who had recently retired from her career as a university dance faculty member. Rayna loved being with her grandmother. She seemed so much more alive than anyone else Rayna knew. She figured it had something to do with all the movement and dancing.

The same afternoon she arrived, Rayna poured her heart and thoughts out to her grandmother over a cup of tea on the porch. They sat facing West. Her grandmother listened closely, moving back and forth gently in a rocking chair. 

After a long pause, Rayna asked, “So… what do you think I should do? What’s the right thing to do when the whole system feels wrong?”

Her grandmother smiled, looked to the North, and took a deep breath of summer air.

“It is not easy to find words to say what is right and wrong, Rayna, because words are so limited in their capacity to describe reality. I’m going to tell you a story. It was written by a dear friend on the university writing faculty, and the proudest moment of my career was when I helped to choreograph a dance piece inspired by it.”

Rayna’s grandmother closed her eyes and Rayna felt a kind of tingling in her arms and her back as she spoke.

“Long ago, people understood their deep connection to dragons. They knew of the Great Dragon in the sky, unseen and unknowable, immeasurable and ineffable, a celestial symbol of the Divine. They knew that each time a Great Dragon scale fell imperceptibly from the Heavens, it found its way into the hearts of children as they swam in the ocean of their mothers’ wombs. This dragon scale then grew into a dragon spirit that dwelled patiently in children’s hearts. 

“As the children grew, their dragon spirits were nurtured by play, freedom, laughter, and unconditional love. As the dragon spirits grew stronger, they became a more and more powerful source of the child’s courage, creativity, and compassion. But in the presence of mistreatment, demands of conformity, and judgment, the dragon spirits retreated into their caves within their child’s heart. If the child was continually exposed to mistreatment, censure, and judgment, it would eventually erupt from the cave as a demon, fueling the child’s anger, greed, and indifference to the suffering of others. It was well understood by most people that demons were not evil, but rather dragon spirits that had suffered mistreatment and abuse, and so there were rituals and healing practices to help people transform their demons back into dragon spirits.

“When the world became obsessed with material gain, conquest, and violence, the flowing, ever-changing balance that existed between most human minds and their dragon hearts was completely lost. As people warred, enslaved, abused, murdered, and subjugated one another, many people became completely disconnected from their dragon spirits and the Divine.

“But there is hope that someday a group of young people will come together, guided by the wisdom of their elders and their ancestors, and the human world will begin to wake up to how much it has become addicted to its own self-destruction.  

“Slowly at first, then with greater and greater force, like a rising tide, the dragon spirits of children will begin to sing to one another across vast distances, calling them to one another. They will begin gathering and sharing, instigating and imagining, creating and co-evolving in ways that adults could not possibly have foreseen. They will begin to build another, better world right on top of and within the existing one that has so completely lost its course. They will move beyond and transcend arguments, discourses, and all dichotomies. They will show people a way of being that has to be felt and experienced, not described. People will marvel at what they are able to achieve, but when asked how they did it, they will simply say, “We did not know what to do. We just listened to our hearts. They told us everything we needed to know.”

Rayna’s grandmother opened her eyes and smiled. Rayna was smiling too, but with tears rolling down her face.

She spoke through her tears, “I still don’t really understand.” She half-sobbed and half-laughed as her grandmother placed her arm around her shoulder. 

“You don’t need to understand. And you don’t need to go back to school. But you do need to find your people.”

Rayna laughed. She could not wait.