{"id":218,"date":"2012-01-31T23:48:04","date_gmt":"2012-01-31T21:48:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/gavinford.com\/thinkspot\/?p=218"},"modified":"2012-02-04T12:05:55","modified_gmt":"2012-02-04T10:05:55","slug":"the-dragons-secret","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gavinford.com\/thinkspot\/the-dragons-secret","title":{"rendered":"The dragon&#8217;s secret"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The Chinese Year of the<strong> Dragon\u00a0<\/strong>(2012)\u00a0has sunk its talons into the collective psyche of\u00a0 the western world.\u00a0So I grabbed my trusty SKEAT&#8217;s\u00a0Concise\u00a0Etymological\u00a0Dictionary of the English Language (revised edition, 1885)\u00a0to cast light upon the origin of the word.<\/p>\n<p>Dragon is derived from the Latin (draco) and the earlier Greek (drakon), meaning\u00a0&#8220;sea serpent&#8221;.\u00a0Yet the real secret\u00a0lies in\u00a0the symbolism\u00a0\u00a0unlocked by the related Greek verb: &#8220;drakein&#8221;\u00a0i.e.\u00a0&#8220;to see clearly&#8221;. From an eastern point of view, dragons are beautifully benevolent (as opposed to the demonised dragon of Christianity), representing rythmic life\u00a0and embodying uncluttered vision.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/gavinford.com\/thinkspot\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/01\/tn_redhealdry_gif.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-219\" title=\"tn_redhealdry_gif\" src=\"http:\/\/gavinford.com\/thinkspot\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/01\/tn_redhealdry_gif.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"72\" height=\"100\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>South African\u00a0billionaire and tourist cosmonaut, Mark Shuttleworth,\u00a0has a pet project \u2013 an emerging market investment group called &#8220;Here\u00a0Be Dragons&#8221;. The phrase denotes unexplored, and by association, dangerous territory, since it\u00a0was medieval practice\u00a0for cartographers to embellish\u00a0unchartered areas of maps with mythological creatures or sea (see?) serpents. What a superb tag for\u00a0the spirit of rugged and indomitable entrepreneurial exploration.<\/p>\n<p>The Johnny Nash\u00a0 song &#8220;I can see clearly now \/ I can see all obstacles in my way \/ It&#8217;s going to be a bright (bright), bright (bright), sun-shiny day!&#8221; became\u00a0the sixties tune associated with the Coca Cola brand.<\/p>\n<p>May your Year of the Dragon\u00a0bring you clear vision and light up your way. For \u2013 excuse me mixing metaphors \u2013\u00a0in the words of Leonardo da Vinci: &#8220;When you\u00a0 have tasted flight, you will forever walk the earth with your eyes turned skyward, for there you have been and there you will always return.&#8221;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Chinese Year of the Dragon\u00a0(2012)\u00a0has sunk its talons into the collective psyche of\u00a0 the western world.\u00a0So I grabbed my trusty SKEAT&#8217;s\u00a0Concise\u00a0Etymological\u00a0Dictionary of the English Language (revised edition, 1885)\u00a0to cast light upon the origin of the word. Dragon is derived &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/gavinford.com\/thinkspot\/the-dragons-secret\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[37,20,36],"class_list":["post-218","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-words-2","tag-etymology","tag-quotes","tag-year-of-the-dragon"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gavinford.com\/thinkspot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/218","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gavinford.com\/thinkspot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gavinford.com\/thinkspot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gavinford.com\/thinkspot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gavinford.com\/thinkspot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=218"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/gavinford.com\/thinkspot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/218\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":232,"href":"https:\/\/gavinford.com\/thinkspot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/218\/revisions\/232"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gavinford.com\/thinkspot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=218"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gavinford.com\/thinkspot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=218"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gavinford.com\/thinkspot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=218"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}