Tiger in the Trees | Catherine Viel

By Catherine Viel, May 31, 2022

(Golden Age of Gaia)

May 30, 2022

Tyger Tyger burning bright,
In the forests of the night:
What immortal hand or eye,
Dare frame thy fearful symmetry?
~William Blake, The Tyger



The wind came up again last night. Sudden, like an instant storm. It slapped against the house, slammed doors as it roared between windows cranked wide to catch the cool air, and howled banshee-style down the chimneys.

I immediately realized how quietly content I had been, because the contentment vanished in a heartbeat, swept away on those sixty-mile-an-hour gusts.

It’s irritating, to say the least, that an outside force can instantly transform my mood—which feels like my entire being, not just “a mood“—into negativity.

Wise people say that awareness is the first step toward change. Apparently, I’m perpetually stuck at the first step. I know that every time these near-gale-force winds arise, which is quite frequently given our wildly variable weather, it can destroy my equanimity.

When the little claws of fearfulness begin scrabbling in my head, an overseer part of me looks on with pursed lips. You, again? Can’t you scurry back to the enclosure where I try to keep fear corralled?

*****



I put fear into two categories. One might be called the tiger in my face, and the other, the tiger in the distance.

I had darn well better be afraid if there’s a tiger crouched five feet away and looking at me like I’m dinner. But the tiger I can just barely see, over there at the edge of the trees? That might be coming this way, or heading back into the trees, but I can’t tell because it’s too far away? Cautiously alert, but not overtaken by fear, seems a more useful response.

When I review the situations in which I’ve been fearful over my lifetime, and ponder the times that fear crops up now, the ratio is probably five percent tiger-in-the-face to ninety-five percent tiger-in-the-trees.

So, in one hundred instances of feeling fearful, only five times is the fear related to a circumstance that is happening in the moment which requires immediate attention.

That’s both humbling and infuriating. And, if I continue down this mental path, soon I will be chastising myself for being “stupid“ to allow chimeras of fear to affect me profoundly and far too frequently.

I certainly have an extensive menu of negativity in which I could immerse myself. Judgmentalism, largely directed toward self, is remarkably persistent.

*****



The wind came and went last night. Without a whole lot of hope, I mentally recited a brief mantra that I read about in Louise Hay’s book, You Can Heal Your Life.

There wasn’t an internal clap of thunder or a rousing hallelujah, but surprisingly, putting my focus on it for just a few repetitions did change something.

The tiger that I thought was crouched in front of me, its golden eyes mesmerizing mine, was instantly transported to a glimmer of gold and black sinuously gliding through the trees over at the edge of awareness.

The wind is just wind. Could something dangerous happen? Could a downed power line spark a fire as it did two weeks ago? Could I soon be hearing sirens and the whap-whap of the Firehawk helicopter with its welcome, rescuing load of water?

Well, sure. Anything is possible.

But right now, the wind is just the wind. It’s not snarling in my face. I can watch that tiger weave its way through the trees, keep an eye on it, repeat my peaceful mantra when my imagination places it in front of me instead of in the reality where it is: over there, not a direct and immediate threat to me and mine.

Tiger, tiger, go ahead and burn bright. I will observe you from afar, but I’m not going to worry about your fangs right this moment. I have peace to cultivate and contentment to enjoy.