Year of Dismemberment

The year of the dragon. 

I had such high hopes. I could feel my flight, soaring amongst the mythic and majestic. Learning to become a more skilled dragon rider, easing my shapeshifting into the dragon form, welcoming the great gifts of dragon medicine. 

The dragon is a very lucky animal to herald a year in Asian cultures. There is much lore surrounding their auspicious gifts and good fortune. I am no stranger to dragons myself, they have long spoken with me in the subtle realms and assisted my work. Fierce and protective, and also filled with depth and portals to other worlds and times. 

What I romanticized that the magic dragon would bring in, wholly set my sights on one predetermined (by me) direction and set me up for being blindsided by the actual medicine dragon brought forth in me. 

Power animals choose to partner with us, to bring us messages, and to resource us. They each hold such vast and varied power, different dimensionalities of offerings. All of this power is a gift, all of it is medicine, all of it is what is needed – and sometimes it is the facet of their medicine that is the most bitter to taste, the sharpest to experience. Dragon, this year of 24, has brought forth just such an offering within my life; dragon has brought dismemberment. 

For me, this aspect of dragon’s power is like moldavite¹, derailing my attachments and illusions of having and needing control. Transformational. Madly confronting. Bringer of the ring of fire. It is like HAGALAZ², chaos that aims to eventually smooth. Dragon’s offering is like Kali bringing creation and destruction, fierce paradox. Dragon dismemberment means business. It is here to clean up or burn down all that no longer serves, all that is hanging out, taking up space, and needs to get out to make room for the new. Dragon is the great dismemberment ally. 

And 2024 has resoundingly reflected this.

But what comes after the burning of the fields is the fresh reset of the soils. Re-memberment with what is authentically current, after the dismemberment. Reclamation. 

Lucky indeed. 

If we are indeed multi-layered beings with physical, emotional, mental and spiritual aspects, this year I have welcomed dismemberment into each. As I have come to understand and frame each experience from a higher perspective, I have witnessed a removal of parts that no longer serve, beliefs that needed to be weeded, ruts that needed to be re-soiled so that I can proceed with new potential and empowered authenticity. It truly is the definition of shamanic dismemberment.

And what has followed is the opportunity for reclamation of soul parts, of more of my truest self. Reclamation of my path as I intended it to be with my deepest version of personal truth. 

This year has had me reaching for my dreams and visions of my life purpose, enjoying unending creative flow, being in deep partnership with inspiration, and looking for ways to share it. It has led me down elaborate pathways — and to closed doors and windows with curtains drawn. Confusing.

Elated to reach the final tasks and touches on years-long projects for the land and in the home I stewarded, then arrived the timely, yet unexpected transition in ownership — the end of these relationships. I was escorted by dragon to the release of attachment to material things.

Dragon pursued the excavation of unhappiness held locked within limiting core beliefs, grueling to re-experience and then ultimately freeing to face and set loose.

Ego has been dislodged from her golden throne, her role renegotiated. Acknowledging and accepting her, by offering a role more fit for serving my heart’s desires. 

And in the smoke and ash from the fires, dragon has underscored what it is to have children and be proud of their flight into the world while living the excruciating separation of your heart from you. 

By all accounts I should be a puddle of devastation, but dragon has also brought unending amounts of gratitude for what is, and what remains. Like seeing who are the faithful beloveds that unconditionally hold space for and with you, unruffled by their own fear or reactivity. The ring of fire has brought much clarity.

Oh all the ways that one can disrobe and dismember. And there are more, many many more. Suffice it to nod at the grief that can accompany dismemberment even when it is for an ultimate and sparkly end – or shall we say, new beginning?

And is it ever not for a transition?

Is it ever that an ending does not bridge us to a beginning?

Straddling the awkward liminality in the meantime – that is where the gifts can be absorbed, as we play the sacred witness to our own discomfort, letting it emerge, spread wings, and become something new.

Dragon has taught me about the treasure I think that I seek. As I asked for signs and symbols, for omens that indicated my desires were coming to fruition, that confirmed my path and supported my efforts — this has not been what I have received this year.

And yet it has. 

The guidance I received for months, was not what I wanted from the Great Mystery. I saw the signposts and I cast my eyes away and asked for different signs. Again, I would receive a message saying “not this way” and I would not like what it said – so I would continue that way, persistent. Persistently seeking a specific outcome, a particular treasure.

While I pondered that the Universe was testing my resilience and seeing if I would give up so easily, I simultaneously missed that this wasn’t about me giving up or not, but about me choosing what is so. Seeing the reality before me. Choosing, surrendering, accepting. That in this way, the portal doors would reveal and lead me forth. That in this way, I might align with “the divine”.

But this did not stop me from trying every knob, from testing each latch. From pressing my seeking face up to the panes and peering in to see if there might be a place within for me to belong. I subjected myself to much of this type of “dirty pain”³. And my guides, and the great dragons? – they patiently watched as I continued to run down the streets and alleyways that they had set afire. They put up detour signs again and again as I walked quite literally through them repeatedly. Avoiding dismemberment. Avoiding surrender and acceptance. 

“It could be so much easier”, they whispered. “You could let us lead you and guide you.” But stubbornness, and a very real human need to control my own destiny did not register their loving messages.

Matt Kahn speaks about the karma of control⁴ — when you believe that you must control things, you also believe that you can be controlled. It is like a relentless spiral chasing its own tail. 

Well, finally, I am done chasing my tail. I see now again, there are things that my human vantage point insists it knows, and that my guides see way more clearly.

Dragon has taught me to let the currents lead me, and to let my tail follow gracefully behind. Dragon has taught me that in the wake of the fire, there is revitalization that would not have been realized without the burning. 

The revitalization has brought me back again to a formal meditation practice, after a bit of a bend in that path. I have remembered stillness, silence, and space. Stillness, silence and space have found me again — sitting, being, aligning. 

And I sit now, within the belly of the beast, and within the burnt thicket of what I have known. Undone, and awaiting what emerges, no matter how I feel about its form. 

Moral of story? When you trust the Great Mystery, you can know that even when it isn’t what you expected, it is what you need & the great dismantlings in life create a sacred space for divine coalescence. Dismemberment is a profound gift that leads to opportunity that can only be realized through its initiatory gates. 

Hi, I am Melissa — a Spirit Medicine Coach, Healing Practitioner & Alchemist. But at the heart of it all, I am Mystic & Mage.

More about my work can be found at spiritmedicine-lifecoaching.com

Hope you enjoy the short shares, podcast style here. They sort of dance around life, experiences throughout my time here on this planet, and the work I do.

1. Moldavite is a powerful crystal, not tolerated by all.

2. HAGALAZ is a rune bearing great gifts but also often feared.

3. A concept by Dr. Steven Hayes that I learned about within Martha Beck’s book Steering By Starlight.

Martha Beck, Steering by Starlight: The Science and Magic of Finding Your Destiny (New York: Rodale, 2008), 54.

4. Matt Kahn, "Seeing Through The Illusion Of Control," Facebook Reel, accessed August 31, 2024, https://www.facebook.com/mattkahn.