Here There Be Dragons

At a recent nature journaling workshop, I arrived with some anxiety about creating on cue.

I rely on the muse and the moment, and having to sit down and "write something" did not seem likely to inspire anything worth keeping.

In self-defense, I armed myself with a preconceived idea that might lend itself to the experience -- the ancient mapmakers' phrase that occupies the empty space of wild, unmapped territory: Here there be dragons.

Fortunately the workshop unfolded in an unexpected way, so I was never asked to create on demand.

But because I was primed to think of this preserve near Jacksonville as a medieval territory traveled by dragons and questing knights and wizards, I saw many things that fit into that frame of reference.

A young army of longleaf pine soldiers, pointy as pikes.

Provisions for a journey to come -- spring's wild blueberries, not yet ripe.

Signs that fire passed through, bringing damage and renewal.

Leaf shapes that would be at home on any shield or crest.

Nature's knotwork, more intricate than any damsel's embroidery.

Swords -- of fern.

Twisting, enchanting pathways

leading to dark waters

lined with tiny flowers called Innocence

and others called False Dragon Head.

Invitations to transformation everywhere.

Winged seeds that could pass for dragon scales.

A dragon of a smaller, less colorful sort.

Trees and sky and water dancing shifting, transparent rounds of over and under and through.

Are the drowned leaves held in the heart of the tree, like Merlin imprisoned by Nimue?

Or does the water give them back again to the sky?

Here there be dragons? Not likely that you'll encounter any.

More likely that you'll leave your own dragons behind to live happily ever after here, where the map goes blank.