Nine Lives Dog and Thunder God — part 2

GuZhe 瞽者, Chapter 9

Previously, from GuZhe chapter 8

“TianZun 天尊 (Nobel One), it is nice to see you again! It has been so long since last time. I have many questions for you. Will Nine Lives die soon? Meningitis said she has nine lives, and that she would come back to us even if she died. Is this true? Why do dogs eat poo? Why are they constantly on the search for food?” Thunder God made a sign, gazed at me and whispered.

“Meningitis was correct. Nine Lives will recover from this attack.” Thunder God calmed me down with his soft and affirming voice, “Instead of directly answering your questions, I’d like to tell you something about Nine Lives. Nine Lives is a descendant of my dog, HuǒDòu 火斗 (Fire Fighter).”

“That’s very interesting! I didn’t know you ever had a dog” I said.

“Well, of course she was not a regular pet. She was my most trusted and loyal assistant during the time I had the big fight with the Fire God, which decimated this region (please read GuZhe chapter 1 for details). Because she could eat fire, she helped me swallow every blast the Fire God released as he went on his rampage, bent on destroying all life.”

“Really? How strange that HuǒDòu did not get burned by the fire! How could that be?”

“Her body was made up of Fire and Earth, and I had empowered her spiritual body such that fire only fortified her power and made her that much stronger. Her stomach was like a small magical pouch, which could compress and hold all the fire imaginable deep within. We had to be careful though - when she pooped or farted, she would release fire that would burn others or even cause the landscape to catch fire!”

“I am thinking it was pretty dangerous just to be around your dog,” I said with amazement.

“Yes, she could easily cause fire accidents. Luckily, after the Fire God and I came to a peace agreement. Although the battle between Fire and Water had obliterated all life and turned the world into a watery abyss, HuǒDòu decided to dedicate her life to help me regenerate life in the new world I would create. She dove to the bottom of the Great Peace Ocean, merged her spirit with the Fire Element, and released all the fire she had held.”

“Did she die when she did that?” I asked anxiously.

“Yes and no.” Thunder God continued in his gentle and comforting tone. “As a true Fire Fighter, she knew what she could do to regenerate life energy. She let go of her physical and spiritual bodies in order to produce enough fire, or Yang Qi, to be equally matched and in balance with the Yin Qi power of the ocean water. Following the natural alchemical principle—ShuǐHuǒJìJì 水火既濟—bring Water and Fire in harmony, I used the dynamism of Water and Fire to generate Wood, or new life Qi for the previously destroyed land. The great fire energy from my dog HuǒDòu, overturned the entire ocean and the resulting towering waves reshaped the landscape of the world.

Bit by bit, Fire Fighter gradually released her physical and spiritual bodies as each new life was created. When she had been reduced to just bones, I selected a few of her leg bones and transformed them into the peak of the mountain, just over there, to support the new live energy springing forth on the newly formed land. This was also a nice way for her to be able to keep her best friend, QiLin 麒麟, company. Do you have any memory about mount QinLin? I had transformed mount QiLin into QiLin Mountain to stand over and protect all the new beings. As you may recall, on the top of that mountain, I left an imprint of my foot in the stone when I leapt back up into the Heavens, for you all to remember that I had been in this land and am leaving my wish for all beings to live together in harmony.”

Figure 1. Dog Bone Peak links to the QiLin Mountain in my hometown

“Yes, I remember the story about QiLin Mountain. Now I understand why the peak next to it is called Dog Bone Peak!“

Thunder God smiled. “As Fire Fighter was dispersing herself slowly into the fusion of water and fire, all the new life Qi she created carried with it remnants of her original life.”

“I see! Fire Fighter was physically dead but she made herself immortal through all new lives she was helping to create. But it seems then that Fire Fighter was totally gone from this world without leaving any offspring behind. I don’t understand how Nine Lives could be her descendant?” I was very curious.

“At the very end of her dissolution, I fetched the last small pieces of her bones which of course were connected to remnants of her soul, and I transformed them into a few dogs so that they and their descendants could continue to help guard this land and protect new beings to come. Even though none of them was gifted with the fire eating magic of Fire Fighter, their digestive system has carried strong fire energy within.”

With that, suddenly, Thunder God transformed into lightning and was gone!

“The Noble One…The Noble One…” I called out to the Thunder God, wanting to ask him more questions, yet all that happened was that I woke myself up with my own noise. I quieted myself on the bed and continued thinking about the answers for my questions — Why do dogs always search for food? Why do they eat poo? Why was the butcher One-Eye such a terrible guy, without any sense of humanity? It took many years of living my life and thinking about the wisdom of the Thunder God in order for me to figure out the answers.

First thing in the morning, I visited our badly injured dog, Nine Lives. I was happy to find her still alive, coiled and cozy in her kennel. Our Medicine Grandma treated her daily with chanting, talismans, and herbal remedies while we nourished her with bone broth for every meal. After just three days, Nine Lives could walk around and start searching for food and herbs on her own. In about another week, her strong vitality was back in full force, although her fur never grew back to cover the ugly scar the ax had left behind.

Nine Lives made a good life for herself over the next few more years, despite the starvation challenges we all faced, and finally passed away in 1976, BingChen 丙辰, the Year of Fire Dragon.

From a Daoist cosmological point of view, the Year of Fire Dragon is expected to be a dramatic year, full of some immense shifts in the universal energy that effects us here in our world, in both good and bad ways. I will list a few of the big events from 1976 for reference:

• Apple Computer Company and Microsoft were both incorporated, laying the groundwork for the entire tech industry we have today.

• A devastating earthquake struck Tangshan, China, killing over 240,000 people.

• Three top Chinese leaders died.

• The end of 10 years of the Great Culture Revolution in China.

After those big events, at the end of this Fire Dragon Year, Nine Lives’ the inescapable karmic calamity that awaits us all, finally arrived. She died peacefully in her kennel.

According to our ancient tradition, Sǐ gǒu mǎn hǎiliú 死狗滿海流 (Dead dogs should float in the ocean). At the next high tide, we brought her corpse to the beach and placed her gently in the water. I stood on the beach, chanting for her transition, while watching the waves take her away, as her soul reunited with the spirit of her ancestor, Fire Fighter.

How did that transformational energy of the Fire Dragon affect my life that year? Find the answer in the next chapter - stay tuned!