Chasing Tigers



When I was a little girl, I chased tigers.  I was fascinated by them even at the age of three.  Tigers were exotic, beautiful, elusive, buttery, and dangerous.  Especially dangerous.  The ones I chased were imaginary of course.  But that didn't make them any less exciting. 

Today those tigers are symbolic of the dreams I have for my life.  And these dreams are every bit as dangerous.  It takes courage to dream and actually believe you can make those dreams into reality.  What if I fail?  How will I be able to handle that failure?  Isn't is better to just play it safe and settle for a mediocre life instead? Hmmm.  Perhaps it is riskier to do nothing, to not try, because then I will spend my life sleep-walking and feeling nothing. Infinitely more painful isn't it?

I want to be a tiger.  Fearless.  Powerful.  Playful. Dangerous.  I want to set my world on fire.

I wrote the following poem a few years ago.  It isn't literature, but it does express my thoughts and feelings about awakening to the power of dreams and visualization that leads to manifestation. 

I am only three the first time I feel

The slap of his unvelveted paw

Batting against my nose

As if I were a mere mouse.

Awakening me to his profound existence.

At first, I indignantly exhale my profuse outrage

At this insolent flaming Fire, who has dared

To disturb my safely cool universe, uninvited.

This amberly, buttery beauty whose arrogance

Implodes my breath into a hundred thousand

Tawny-green, star-like question marks

Seeking to answer it's own breathings.

And I know if I can but capture just one

Ebonesque stripe and weave it

Into my own golden-red hair

Then I will have found the heart of my soul.

And so I continue to chase

This ever elusive tiger.

Written September 18, 2000