Magic in the streets

There are dragons in Lowell, Massachusetts.

I spent today at the Lowell Folk Festival with a friend. It had much of the usual folk festival stuff - music from all corners of the world, food from local community associations including Laotian, Cambodian, Polish, etc, and lots of people who looked as though I knew them even though I didn't. 

And there were dragons. Gund Kwok performed, the only all women dragon and lion dance troupe in the US. They were stunning. It wasn't four women inside two costumes, it was a lion and a dragon, dancing, leaping, flirting and playing. I was completely captivated as were the hundreds of people standing around me. 

It was a wonderful thing being part of this ancient magical moment. It could as easily have been a mountaintop in ancient China as a street in Lowell. Time no longer mattered. All that existed was the dance. In that moment, it was everything.

(c) 2008 Laura S. Packer