Yesterday, for Employee Appreciation Day, our Execs cooked us a pancake breakfast and then brought in a San Francisco Lion Dance Troop to bring luck to our company for the Year of the Sheep. As the drums and gongs started to play out a booming beat to articulate the story of a Lion Dance, I was taken back to a time during elementary school when another Lion Dance Troop came to usher in the Lunar New Year at a multicultural awareness assembly. Not having seen such a loud and festive performance with giant mystical beasts before, some of my schoolmates burst into tears and covered their ears.
Noise is such a big part of the Lunar New Year: drums keep the beat for a Lion Dance, cymbals add to the music, and firecrackers are usually lit at the end of a dance or on New Year's Eve to scare away the bad spirits of the old year and to welcome in the new.
As the large dragon's head came right up to me, its eyes blinking rapidly, giant and awe-inspiring, I felt my heart beat along with the drums. I felt strength and power looming before me. And I felt, even on a continent an ocean away from my birthplace, that I was home.
How often does destiny loom before us, perhaps intimidating and even threatening? How often have we feared the change, covered our ears from the noise, and wanted to shrink back from the huge unknown? Luck and chance will come to stare us in the face with large and luminous eyes. It's up to us to recognize this, see our soul reflected by courage, embrace what's meant to be ours, and enter the dragon.
