April Vacation 2024, Session B: Teacup Trolls

Our 2024 April vacation mystery will involve a five-day adventure called Teacup Trolls. Monday is a regional holiday, but the program will run on that day, as well as the next four days.

Trolls are a favorite theme in Scandinavian folklore. They are inspired by shapes in nature that mimic creatures -- eyes, noses and chins jutting out of mountain sides; far off trees that appear to be walking across the land; or sleepy boulders with the shapes of animals and people.

Trolls may be as large as mountains or as small as a teacup. Dragon's Eye will explore the world of Teacup Trolls through an adventure of very small proportions. Travel will be fun, as we dive into tiny whirlpools in teacups, visiting other tea drinkers and legendary whirlpools around the globe,

We will construct our own Teacup Trolls. Please bring a vintage teacup for your troll to enjoy! The trolls prefer their cups to have a little second-hand patina -- flowers are fine for some trolls, while others may prefer one of the brown and ugly varieties. It's your troll's choice!

Summer 2024, Session I: The Windhorse

The first mystery of the Summer 2024 season is The Windhorse.

Mongolian legend and history come to life as the detectives try to prevent the Windhorse (Spirit Banner) of Genghis Khan from falling into the wrong claws. This adventure will examine the challenges of waging Peace when the Winds of War are blowing strong.

Can a mythical winged horse help our team? Only if they can reach it before it's spirited away.

We will be making Spirit Banners and shadowpuppets. Please bring a white sheet so we can construct our own Ger (a Mongolian yurt). The sheets need to be white for the shadow puppetry.

Summer 2024, Session II: Dunraven Fair

The second session of the Summer 2024 season involves a repeatable mystery called Dunraven's Fair. This is a four-day adventure, designed to accommodate the July 4 holiday. There will be no program on Thursday, July 4. Most of the case will wrap up on Wednesday. Those who come on Friday will experience a bonus mini quest with an additional trade possible.

A mysterious well in the gardens of Dunraven Castle glows with a strange light. When the Detectives investigate, they are drawn into a legendary goblin trading extravaganza known as the Dunraven Fair. This fair is normally in November, but something has drawn it into the summer months.

Can our team evade the more dangerous denizens of the fair, while trading with the merchants for magical artifacts rarely seen by mortal eyes? Only if the Floating Eyes don't find them first.

We will be making artifacts and art for trading at the fair.

Summer 2024, Session III: Nine Fallen Suns

The third session in our 2024 summer season features a mystery named Nine Fallen Suns.

This is one of two mysteries devoted to the calendar myths of ancient China. The second one is The Moonrabbits, which we are offering in Session IV.

According to Chinese mythology, Yi the Archer shot the Nine Sons of Xi He when the impish Sun Ravens climbed into the sky with their brother (Tenth Sun), threatening to burn the mortal world to a crisp. Thousands of years later, Tenth Sun is now ill, and only his brothers can restore him to health. Can the Heroes of the Dragon's Eye find the nine fallen sons of Xi He, or is the world doomed to a cold and comfortless end?

We will be making our own Sun Ravens.

Summer 2024, Session IV: The Moonrabbits

Summer 2024, Session IV presents the mystery called The Moonrabbits, a sequel to The Nine Fallen Suns.

The myth of the Ten Sun Ravens is balanced by reports of Twelve Moonrabbits. Stories of these twelve moons are not easy to find in English, so I have created one based on what I know about them.

When twelve elusive Moon Rabbits go missing, the Detectives set out in search of a lost tale from ancient China. Their journey takes them to one of the oldest libraries, and from there, into the Celestial Heavens. Good thing they have their Moon Lanterns, because the White Road is long, dark, and cold.

We will be making Moon Lanterns and Moonrabbits.

Summer 2024, Session V: The Night Wanderer

The Summer 2024 Session V mystery is The Night Wanderer.

Stories of the Night Wanderer drift through the Underworld into the dreams of dragons, leading our team on a search for this mysterious being. Why are the ghosts lining up at the River Styx? Are the black dogs friend or foe? Is the Veiled One leading the Detectives into a trap?  

Come find the answers to these questions and more, before the Shades spill into the mortal realms.

We will be making Greek Pockets Gods and Goddesses.

Summer 2024, Session VI: Crossroads of Knowledge

Session VI of the Summer 2024 season features a mystery called Crossroads of Knowledge. 

A search for a lost book will take the detectives on a tour of ancient libraries, along the secret roads used by librarians in their efforts to preserve the world's knowledge. Our story draws upon historical and mythical sources regarding the creation and preservation of knowledge, including visits with venerable individuals from Egyptian, Greek, Islamic, Irish, Korean, and Hindu traditions.

We will be making Books of Secrets and Mini Librarians.

Dragon's Eye Returns for 2024 Season

The Golden Koi
RL McNulty 2023

Dragon's Eye Adventures will return with the 2024 season. We are partnering with RSU5 Community Programs, so each mystery will be held at Durham Community School, at 654 Hallowell Rd. in Durham, ME. 

We will have two large classrooms for our program, plus use of the library, hallways, partial gym, playground, and outdoor spaces, so our stories, art and sneaking will be well-supported. This may be the best space Dragon's Eye has ever inhabited!

Winter break will feature a four-day adventure called The Winter Queen, followed by a 5-day mystery for Spring break called Teacup Trolls.

The summer 2024 season will feature a mix of old and new mysteries for children in grades 4 - 8. The Windhorse draws on Mongolian legends and myths, while Dunraven Fair taps into our November one-day events that feature the Welsh goblin markets ruled by the Raven King. Nine Fallen Suns and Twelve Moondaughters draw on Chinese calendar myths about solar suns and lunar daughters.

The Night Wanderer takes us into the realms of Greek mythology, and The Crossroads of Knowledge combines Egyptian mythology with legendary libraries from different times and places. Full descriptions and artwork for each of these pieces will be posted in January 2024, when enrollment officially opens.

Fall 2023: Plans in the Works

Fall is my favorite time of year, but never more than this year, as I move out of recovery mode into planning mode. As I write this, thiry or forty crows are sifting through the leaves in our woods, and eating the beechnuts that give our road its name. They remind me that sifting and nourishing are a part of the creative process.

I have spent my summer healing and sifting through the Dragon's Eye designs and stories, working on family ancestry and photos. This has nourished me during the healing process, and as fall sweeps over our woods, I have started the process of a return to the work world.

Dragon's Eye is on my mind -- and happily, in the works! I am laying groundwork for a return to school vacation and summer programs, and will make an announcement soon about more specifics.

With so much going awry in the world, we need programs that teach about our interconnectness to nature, to other people and to world history. We need our imaginations working on finding solutions that preserve one another's diginity and space in the world -- and we need to remember that we are one small part of a larger whole. We need to look back in order to look forward, so we can cultivate wisdom in the present.

Dragon's Eye will return, with old and new adventures. The sifting and sorting is turning to planning and building again. I hope to see my old detective friends again -- we have more myths to explore, more art to make, and more off-the-page discoveries to find.

Spring Arrival

The Summer Queen
RL McNulty 2023
Micron pen, colored pencil

 

 

 

Here is a peek at the Summer Queen. Her name is Brigid in Ireland or Bride in Scotland, and she represents the summer half of the year. 

St. Brigid's Day falls on Imbolc, which was the day she first peered out from her winter hiding place. She's a white serpent at that moment, representing the constellation Scorpio. 

Scotland and Ireland didn't have scorpions, so that's part of the reason they saw a snake rather than a scorpion. The other reason is that the curled tail is not as visible in the northern latitudes. Scorpio barely rises above the treeline, so it appears to slither along the lower part of the sky.

The Summer Queen wears her green plaid in this version, and holds a tiny rabbit. The plaid is what the Winter Queen washes in the Corryvreckan Whirlpool in the late fall. The plaid goes to white, causing snow to fall to earth.

The flowers of spring and summer blossom at her feet and the snowflakes turn to star-like raindrops around her head. The White Serpent holds the tiny winter sun, which will grow larger and warmer through the months.

As spring arrives, I am grateful to be here--grateful to be able to take pen and pencil to paper once again. It feels amazing to have energy again. The anemia is gone, and the cancer is, too -- and I have completed twenty five days of radiation, so the spring feels amazing to me. I am tired, yet energized--it's hard to explain.

I have been organizing the Dragon's Eye artwork, craft supplies and records of the mysteries, all the while thinking about the program. As I learn that last year's exhaustion was due to cancer and anemia, I am hoping to bring Dragon's Eye back in 2024. For the moment, I am content to organize, to rework and fill in gaps that are missing -- and some of those are drawings like this one.

As an artist, I have learned how much a fallow period can deepen work. All may appear quiet on the surface, but below is the quiet work in the darkness, of nutrients gathered, of messages sent and received. 

Blessings to my Dragon's Eye family and friends! I am thinking about you, and the memory of good times sustains me through this challenging year!

The Winter Queen 2023

The Winter Queen
RL McNulty, 2022
Micron Pen/Colored Pencil

Happy New Year! I thought I'd celebrate the new year with a newly-finished image of the Winter Queen.

The Winter Queen comes from Irish and Scottish legends about the Cailleach Bheur, the Blue Hag that ushers in Winter. It's helpful to know that there used to be two seasons, rather than the four we recognize today. The Winter Queen is Orion, riding her battle boar into the sky in mid Autumn, when Winter used to begin on Nov.1. She's accompanied by her storm wolves (Canis Major and Minor), who create the howling winds and biting cold of winter snowstorms.

Her counterpart is the Summer Queen, who first appears (or is born) on the sunrise horizon near Imbolc in February. She is the White Serpent, or Scorpio -- and her peak over the horizon is similar to our Groundhog Day. Either she emerges for and early spring, or she dives back in leaving the old queen to rage on into March.

Undestanding the celestial nature of the dance of these two queens really helps me understand the mythology. As I've been ill this fall and winter, I have woken up mulptiple times at night, so have been able to watch this turning of the wheel overhead. Orion creeps by my window earlier and earlier, gradually giving rise to Cancer and the Beehive, which my detectives may remember as the source of bees who bring souls and the inspiration of the Muses into the world.

Leo follows, and then Virgo lounges as she passes overhead, carried on one of the many serpents in the sky. Libra is up now and Scorpio is just about to become more visible in preparation for Imbolc. If you think of this in terms of the zodiac, a constellation must be far enough away from its month behind the sun that it can be visible again in the night sky.

There are later male versions of this story, too -- the Winter King and the Summer King fighting over a beautiful maiden. The beautiful maiden gradually grows old until she becomes the hag of winter. Like the queens, the kings are associated with the Little Sun of winter and the Big Sun of summer.

After studying stories like these, I think the Baba Yaga and Koschei the Deathless represent another set of winter/summer battle myths. The Baba Yaga travels in her mortar and pestle, creating stormy winds with her broom. She lives on the border of the underworld realm, and the solar knights of sunrise, midday and sunset emerge from her house.

Koschei strives to kidnap the beautiful maiden and the firebird--and he even has the cauldron and the skeleton knights that show up in the Celtic tales. 

In the Celtic versions, the cauldron is represented in the sky by the circumpolar constellations -- the whirling forms represent the place where the Red Bird souls enter and leave the land of the living. This is the origin of our tradition about cardinals and red birds as representing loved ones who have passed away. The Red Birds find their way by climbing the World Tree into the Sky and following the Milky Way to the Cailleach's cauldron of life and death and life again.

A very blessed new year to you all! May the Red Birds watch over you as the Winter Queen does her best to bluster her way out of the rule of the passage of time. It's good to know that in time, even she will have to give way to the new birth of the tiny solar babe that will bring the blessings of spring and summer back to us.

Dragon's Eye Update for December 2022

Dragon's Eye Adventures has been a source of deep joy for me for the ten years I was able to run. The detectives complete a creative process that starts with extensive research and development involving history, lore and myth--three of my favorite subjects to study. The stories aren't done until the children arrive -- and we move through each chapter finding those "Aha!" moments.

That spark of discovery and joy is my favorite experience in life. It may come from the piecing together of clues for an understanding that was hidden. It may come from the decoding of a cipher, the solving of a puzzle or the opening of a Dream Box.

That spark also shows up when we sew on the eyes of our little creatures. One moment, we're holding pieces of felt, and the next moment, the tiny black beads transform into eyes and a living creature is looking back at us.

Watching the creature hop, leap or dance away in the hands of a delighted sewer is pure joy. The play begins right then and there, as the children discover that their Tomte have strange powers of cantilevering on the edge of a table or their Moon Rabbits have a secret voice.

These are the true sources of magic in my life -- and the reason the detectives, Oliver and I feel so deeply about our experiences with the dragons. Exercising the imagination is one part of the magic, but discovering connections keeps us going even when the bad guys seem to be winning.

This ability to keep going in the face of adversity is a key part of the Dragon's Eye experience -- and it is this resillience that is being tested for me outside of the game.

The last year and a half have been challenging. My mother died in Aug of 2021, and my older brother died a month later. This was a time when I was going through serious health issues pointing toward cancer. This year, the cancer materialized, and I have had surgery to remove it. Radiation treatments are next, so I am out of commision when it comes to Dragon's Eye Adventures.

Looking back on the summer of 2022, I understand now why I was so exhaisted when preparing for the program in May and June. On top of the cancer, I had anemia. That has taken months of iron infusions, iron pills, and an emergency blood transfusion to correct. On top of this, I caught Covid in July, which shut down the last four adventures.

The healing from the surgery has been extra challenging, so perseverence has become my sole focus this fall. I had hoped to run two holidays in November, but that was not possible.

Right now, I am unsure of where Dragon's Eye Adventures stands. I want to thank Oliver and the children for an amazing ten years of sparkling joy and discovery. I hope that families took away as much as I did from our collective imaginings.

If stamina returns, I may pick up the adventures in the future, but for now, the dragons are quietly dreaming of "Aha!" moments.