Than Hoa - Passage through the Lion Heart

Leaving Thanh Hoa, something in the journey began to shift. The dragon was no

longer something we entered; it travelled with us. Outside the bus window, the hills

rose and fell like the back of a great body moving beneath the earth, keeping pace

with us as we moved north. What we had encountered in the caves had not been left

behind — it flowed with us – was now a part of us.

Within that movement, I felt a settling. The intensity of the previous days softened into

something more refined, more still. There was nothing to do or process, and a space

opened up within, whereupon I saw the dragon from the cave at Phong Na, smiling

and purring.

Deep, steady, unmistakable, it moved through my body before my mind could

understand it, bringing everything into coherence. It was like the calming presence

of a contented cat, and through that purr, a lion emerged in my inner vision - from

within the field itself - as though the vibration of the purr revealed it.

Gentle, steady, completely at ease, I knew that within its presence, only what was

true could remain, and with that came a quiet recognition — of course - the lion had

always been with us. At temple entrances, along pathways, carved into stone across

the land, the ancient Nghê had been standing at every threshold we had passed. We

were not meeting it for the first time. We were remembering that it was waiting for us

That evening, the journey grounded itself most unexpectedly. After

searching for something simple to eat, we sat in a small local restaurant and began

translating the menu, only to find ourselves staring at the word unicorn. We laughed,

recognising the same pattern – another mystical being - unfolding in the most

ordinary moments.

Soon after, a group of young Vietnamese people invited us to share their table and

offered us their wine — strong, fiery, unforgettable. We sat together in easy

connection, laughing and communicating beyond language, held in a shared

moment of simple humanity, and it became clear then that the sacred does not exist

separately from the ordinary.

The dragon beneath the land, the lion within the heart, and the unicorn arriving

through humour and connection were not separate experiences, but part of the same

living field.

What had opened in the heart was now ready to move toward expression as the

journey was turned inward and upward - from the heart… toward the throat.