Munga Metaphors: Befriending the dragon

As I promised myself in the ongoing internal conversation that occupied many hours of difficult riding on the 2024 Munga, I gave myself a celebratory tattoo.

I have drunk deep at the desert windmill that pumps the Munga cool-aid and so the artwork inked onto my right forearm by Marc at the Body Architect in Kenilworth Cape Town features a dragon emerging from a tornado like swirl (my dust devil from my Munga 2024 race report) and of course he has the Munga logo on his chest.

I’m thrilled with it.

It isn’t a symbol of conquest although it does express a sense of pride and of being pleased with myself for having completed the event. It is largely though a commemoration of a a meaningful emotional and spiritual experience. In the personal mythology of my Munga experience I am the dragon and the arduous journey across the desert is the process of befriending the this creature. I didn’t fight the dragon, I encountered him and tried to understand him. He is my ferocity, my strength, my determination, my power and equally my potential for destruction. If these qualities are not properly harnessed and corralled in service of something meaningful the dragon can become an internal enemy and a force for ill.

The Munga, as the longest and hardest physical challenge I have asked my body-mind to take on, was a lovely way to meet with and recruit this dragon into my service.

I’m going to feed him more of these long adventures. He needs them.

In other post-Munga news, there is an excellent YouTube documentary obviously made with much care and interest by Wouter. I had to laugh because I complained bitterly about the ghastly snoring that filled the rest vilage and water point sleeping spots and the only snoring that made into the Munga movie is the MAMILs. The video is well worth a watch but I’ve cued this up to the point just before the big SNORK.

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