Don’t rile the dragon and don’t mess with the scaly beast; especially if you owe it something. A dragon’s revenge is a fury above all furies. The dragon is often represented as what we, as humans, have to battle to pay the bills and make our way on the material plane. We cannot be just spirit, floating along smelling the flowers, we have to pay the rent, pay the mortgage, to get along. We have bodies that need feeding and clothing; and we require a place to call home. All of these basic necessities cost money and most of us earn that money by the fruits of our labor and the sweat of our brow.
We may have karmic debts owed from previous lifetimes and/or we may be incurring those karmic debts in this lifetime; whatever the dragon will have his pound of flesh in return. The dragon is often portrayed in literature and on the screen as a beast hoarding a treasure in his lair. Gold is the color that glints in the dragon’s eye and the stuff he craves most of all. Golden treasure to amass beneath his clawed feet and scaly wings. Lots of lucre, tons of money, shitloads of green backs, and oodles of moolah; are all concepts the dragon understands. The desire for immense material wealth sits at the base of the dragon’s approach to living.
Paying a debt to a dragon can be fraught with danger; will he, or she, burn you to a cinder just for the hell of it? Not paying a debt to a dragon and you will be hounded all the way to hell; because a dragon’s revenge is a fury above all furies. As Mrs Dragon flaps her wings and rises from the ashes of your despair to gloat over the misery incurred by your loved ones, one is reminded of the Chinese maxim, “with money, a dragon; without it, a worm.” Dragons are always associated with material wealth, whether treasure or the absence of it.
“To attract good fortune, spend a new coin on an old friend, share an old pleasure with a new friend, and lift up the heart of a true friend by writing his name on the wings of a dragon.” This is the potential of the dragon and the Chinese, great materialists they are, truly understand the nature of the dragon.