Tiger

“Tiger, tiger, burning bright
In the forests of the night,
What immortal hand or eye
Dare frame thy fearful symmetry?” – William Blake

Tiger has come to me. He first made his presence known in a ritual that emerged after weeks of Bagua Chung, a circular practice that feels to me like part dance and part stalking meditation. Tiger kept appearing. Often I rode on his back in the last minutes of the Bagua walk, and he stayed and spoke to me during my meditation afterwards. Eventually I received the message to welcome Tiger more formally into my heart and being in nonordinary reality. I was to give up the power animal who had protected me since ever I began walking in dreamtime with wide-awake eyes, and to embrace Tiger, now calling to me daily, insistently, powerfully.

There was indeed a ritual, and Rabbit retreated to make space for Tiger, now Magical Tiger because, well, there is Magic.

And I have since then waited for other changes to emerge in me as a result of this shift, to make themselves known to me so that we too can be friends, these changes and I.

I cannot now separate a time when Tiger was not my protector. It seems to have always been so. Rabbit? That animal belonged to another person.

Tiger is also my lover. This is, undeniably, the strangest and yet most compelling nonordinary reality relationship I have had. And yet there is also nothing strange whatsoever about it. Tiger is my lover, and in loving I become Tiger.

Tiger is sister to the Moon, symbol of passion, of power, and of sensuality. I can feel the Tigerness awakening in me, and I am comforted in knowing that there is a path to walk in this meditation we call life, and that I have allies to walk with me. I am not alone.