Finbar the Dragon Slayer
My work in Ireland introduced me to some amazingly creative children. One of them was a little boy called Finbar. I only saw him twice but he taught me that children are able to quickly gain what they need in a space free from judgement and expectation with a variety of versatile props to allow them to express themselves creatively.
Finbar was seven years old, the only child of parents who lived in a cottage deep in the Irish countryside. Finbar’s mother was a healer who used alternative therapies and astrology to solve her difficulties in life. She was warmly expressive and colourfully dressed with long dark hair and olive skin. Finbar’s father was gentle voiced of slight build with long wispy hair which fell onto his collar. At home and school, Finbar refused to sit on the toilet and refused to have his hair cut. In a previous interview his mother told me that she was concerned about Finbar’s preference for girlish things and desire to play the female role and he had difficulty maintaining friendships because of his toilet phobia .
When I first met Finbar, I was working in a small hotel room, filled with two large arm chairs and a coffee table. A full length mirror was on the back of a door leading to a small bathroom.
From my selection of materials and dressing up clothes, Finbar chose a piece of indigo silk to wrap around his waist like a long skirt and a piece of turquoise diaphanous material, which he wanted to wear as a cloak. He wrapped a narrow golden scarf across his forehead and asked me to tie it to the side so that the ends hung down over his right ear. Looking at himself in the mirror, he stared in silence. I lifted his hair up from his shoulder and scooped it back from his face in a knot at the back of his neck and asked what he thought as he continued to gaze in the mirror. “Cool” he said! He told me that his Daddy had long hair. I asked him if he would want short hair if his Daddy had short hair. He said he would but that his Mummy teased his Daddy because he had a bald patch.
I commented that Finbar looked like a prince and he quickly corrected me by saying that he was a King not a prince and proceeded to cover one of the arm chairs with a piece of blue material. At my request he had brought some favourite music, two CD’s, one classical and one Celtic. He chose to play a track from the classical CD, which he said was ‘scary and happy as well’. Finbar told me that as king he was sad because there was a dragon in the kingdom, which had to be killed. When I asked where it was, he said “It’s in there” pointing to the door leading to the toilet and bathroom (Finbar didn’t know what was behind the door.) Wondering if there was anyone who could help him, I asked and he said the Queen could and informed me that I was the Queen and chose a piece of golden yellow chiffon for me to wear as a cloak.
Finbar said that we also needed a fire sword and selected a length of orange material as his sword. He found a
length of red felt to represent my sword. I told Finbar that there was a specific sound called a tone that corresponded with the orange colour, which, if we made it loudly would probably frighten the dragon away. I demonstrated the Sacral Chakra Tone /O as in home/ which resonates with the sacral chakra and corresponds to the vibrational frequency of the colour orange and Finbar happily imitated the Tone. His strong, resonant voice surprised me. He led the way into the bathroom and pointed to the toilet indicating that that was where the dragon lived. We called the orange tone Finbar’s tone and we made the tone in unison as we brandished our fire swords together to frighten the dragon away.
After a pause, Finbar lifted the lid of the toilet to show me where the dragon had lived. I told him that the dragon would now need to be washed away with clear water. Finbar agreed and created a waterfall of blue material, which flowed into the bathroom and around the base of the toilet, he then pulled the toilet chain as a climax to our activity. Having thoroughly washed away his dragon he rolled the material waterfall back to its source and then spontaneously bathed the whole room in swathes of golden yellow material. He framed the door of the bathroom in golden yellow and he suggested that we make a rainbow in the centre of the room as a sign that the dragon had gone for good. To end the session he drew a picture of the story he had created. As he drew his picture he told me that he wanted to be an artist when he grew up.
A week later I met Finbar’s mother to discuss his progress. He had told her about his story and she said it was the first time she had known him cast himself in a male role as a King because he usually wanted to be a Queen, also, Finbar and his father had both had their hair cut. She also said that Finbar was talking about his feelings more and the Bach flower remedy of chicory was helping them to be less attached to each other. Finbar was now willing to return to his own bed in the middle of the night. He made the orange tone while sitting on the toilet and his mother felt that this was taking away his fear.
Each evening before bed, Finbar’s mother and father made Finbar’s tone with him. His mother told me that in some strange way she felt that making the sound together was helping them all. I told her that Toning was a powerful and ancient method of healing withn the voice and it would cement a positive bond between them all. Native American Indians had chanted tones to bind the people together in unity and courage. Toning also releases tension within the bowel and lower digestive tract. Regular practice meant that Finbar was no longer suffering from constipation and each time he spontaneously sat on the toilet he was given a golden star for his box.
