CATEGORY AUSTRALASIAN DENTIST 119 REALITY BITES How lucky, I thought. A fellow lover of all things weird and toothy. But the dragon dentist did not beckon to my cheerful hellos. He would not be turned from his dedication to what looked like a worse than average case of gingivitis, and some serious cosmetic and restoration work on those monstrous chops. Dragon dentists are holy in Thailand. It is work only a tiny, elite cult of monks are eligible for. The kind that must see, speak, hear no evil, including women and blundering tourist types, even if they work for dental journals and are especially reverent of the magic work at hand. Dragon dentists work uninterrupted, completely in silence, heavily tattooed, risking their lives on rusty gallows, and with a heavy caseload at Kuan Yin’s place, with its thirty or forty fang-faced serpents in line. All-day snarls take a toll on working dragons. Wear and tear from all that ferocity requires careful hygiene, restoration and tender cosmetic care, applied at dizzy heights, which the keepers of the Kuan Yin temple provide lovingly for their pet firesnakes. The goddess, pink and gold in lotus cloud among it all, gently radiates mercy, softness and a halo of quiet loving patience from the centre of her open air dental clinic for beloved beasts and monsters. Perhaps this scene, the intimate care given to a concrete beast which the dentist was lovingly tending into life, was my most precious moment, actually, in any temple, anywhere. The relics, sprung for this few hours from their kitsch entombment in Day-Glo and concrete, became what they truly are – living symbols whose massive power strikes shockingly home, riding through the gates of Ages in those wild, rare moments when the mystic opens its jaws to the mundane. It landed so beautifully upon me, the paradox of the Goddess and her Dragon – the sweetness of the world rides upon the back of the wild and fierce and is not opposed to it at all. And Why is that? We ask and ask. Because Reality, it bites. And we are wise who know it and can keep the nectar of compassion steady in the chaos. u Practice Purchase • Commercial Property • Goodwill Loans • Overdraft Facility • Home Loans • Car Loans • Equipment & Fitout Finance • SMSF Lending 1300 27 33 22 credabl.com.au The issuer and credit provider of these products and services is Credabl Pty Ltd (ACN 615 968 100) Australian Credit Licence No. (ACL) 499547. 5-star Google rating is current as of February 2024. Speed • Service • Expertise Amazing service is just the beginning. See for yourself what our clients say about their experience. Credabl finance for dentists 5 Star Google Review Ad A5_Australasian dentist.indd 1 8/11/2024 1:16:59 PM
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