Sun Wukong
the monkey who outgrew his chains
fireSun Wukong burst from a stone egg, defied heaven, and was pinned under a mountain for five hundred years until a pilgrim set him free; to dream of him is to meet the wildness in you that punishment could not break, waiting for its one true task.
His golden headband tightens when his temper rises, a small pain that saves him from himself; every freedom he kept, he keeps by accepting one limit.
Born of a stone egg on the Flower-Fruit Mountain, he crowned himself king before he had a name; the stone-born of the world recognize their own.
He leapt to the very end of the universe and found five pillars there, and marked the middle one — which turned out to be the Buddha's finger; pride always travels less far than it thinks.
For five hundred years the mountain held him with only iron pellets to eat; the wildest thing in heaven was tamed by stillness, not force.