"You fool!" croaked the frog. "Now we shall both die! Why on earth did you sting me?"
The scorpion shrugged and did a little jig on the drowning frog's back. "I couldn't help myself," he said. "It is my nature." - A Fable

In the eighth-century Irish manuscript, The Book of Lismore, there is a brief mention of a board game that was played by the Romans every year around February 1st. The game pitted a wise old woman and a dragon against a young maiden and a lamb. The object of the game was for the lamb to conquer the dragon, thus turning the wise old woman back into her aspect as a virgin goddess, thereby turning the year forward to spring. Each of us contains within ourselves the equivalent of the dragon and the lamb, and they are in the constant battle to win supremacy over each other. This contention between these two facets of ourselves is in itself not so much the problem as it is the answe4r to our dilemma of discovering true balance.
Both the dragon and the lamb have a tendency to reveal their greatest weakness and most profound influence over us at the tmost inopportune moments in our lives, sending us headlong into conflicts that manifest inside of us or, even more regrettably, in our relationships or life situations. Years of hard work or building trust can be destroyed in a single moment of failure by either of these aspects of ourselves and weaken our resolve to move forward on our chosen paths. The voice of the dragon is majesty and pride, accomplishment and success. It also speaks of jealousy and suspicion, of anger and deceit, of hunger for what does not belong to us, and of the treasures that await us if we take advantage of people and their situations. The voice of the lamb is also constant and persuasive. It speaks of kindness and comfort, of gentleness and love, of peace and oneness. It also whispers of fear and panic, of stagnation and ineptness, and of the safety of just staying home and not taking chances.
We owe our most monumental triumphs and greatest moments of cowardice to the dragon and the lamb. Both of them must exist inside us to keep the other in check. Too often, however, tehy are engaged in a battle to gain prominence and claim the throne that rules our inner selves and our public personas. These conflicts arise because we have not given them a basic language with which to communicate. We have not taught them the value of cooperation. To gain teh balance and strength we need to continue on our quest, we must find a way to ressolve the conflicts between the dragon and the lamb. We must bring about a new level of balance and harmony between them.
We have all experienced it: that perfect day of peace and happiness. A day when our inner light was shining at its brightest and we were a joy to be around. A day we thought nothing could possibly ruin. But that day was suddenly destroyed in a single moment of interference that surfaced in us as anger or apathy. The dragon saw its chance to strike and took it. Our lamb had spent this day methodically trotting through the sweet green pastures in our mind, basking in the sunshine, and grazing among the sweet grasses of peace and enjoyment that we had grown for it. The dragon had spent this day observing the lamb with indignity and contempt. No one had asked the dragon's opinion of how this day should proceed. No one had thrown it so much as a bone or a scrap on which to feed. All it needed was the smalleds opening, a wrong word from a child or a coworker, a demand on our time that we saw as an interruption of our perfect day, to topple the lamb and regain dominance. The lamb, in turn, is capable of infusing our greatest moments of strength and accomplishment with doubt and indecision, undermining our self-worth, and denying our dragon the use of its claws and teeth for a time.
To bring an end to this war being waged inside us, we must become both counselor and student of the dragon and the lamb. We must discover a way to hear both of their voices at the same timeand give them what they need so they will be content and at peace in each other's presence. If a treaty can be reached and an alliance formed between the two, they will be able to reason things out between themselves and offer us the best possible advice or a solution to any given porblem or situation without conflict. Their union and cooperation can manifest a blance within us unlike anything we have ever experienced. It can allow us to truly understand ourselves and accept who and what we are. We will be able to understand our fears and weaknesses and learn how to overcome them without taking them to extremems or beating ourselves up over them.