Tiger poem

Tiger wrote me this poem for my birthday. Well, not really, i think he found it in my new book of poetry by pattiann rogers:)
i love it so much--i feel like i am soaring when i read it.
hope you enjoy too:

WHEN RIDING A TIGER

She sits astride and rides him easily
as if traveling this way were what she
was born to do. She floats with his motion,
She a ship, he the sea. His shoulders
And haunches are an easy surf.

She needs no reins, no stirrups. Occasionally
she grasps the fur of his neck with both
hands. Her fingers disappear deep into
his pelt, hold to his beat and his current.

He moves silently in the way of cats,
not seas, like the shadow of a sea moving
with light across the day. They travel
unnoticed through the boulevards and shops
of the cities, the steam and smoke of cooking
fires in the camps. Nothing is disturbed.
by their presence. No blinds close hastily.
no child cries out. No one rises. Not even
the black monkeys or the guardian birds
in the courtyards are bothered.

Crossing the open clearings, she glances up
at the sky where she sees them both reflected
in blue like the sea. They are blue without
verge like the sky, without the boundaries
of bone or shore, without delineation. The blue
of his fur is deeper than the sea. Nothing can
infringe upon them. Like time, their journey
is the sky in the way the sky is not.

She remembers suddenly again
The moment when he swallowed her whole,
Not the memory of violence, not the memory
Of surrender, not the memory of release,
But the memory of totality like the sky.

Now she lays her head down
on his head. She stretches on her belly
the full length of his threshold, becomes
his bearing. She sees with his eyes
as they enter the blue gates of the prophecy
through which their god is passing.

Wild Places

His vision, from the constantly passing bars,
has grown so weary that it cannot hold
anything else. It seems to him there are
a thousand bars; and behind the bars, no world.

As he paces in cramped circles, over and over,
the movement of his powerful strides
is like a ritual dance around a center
in which a mighty will stands paralyzed.

Only at times, the curtain of the pupils
lifts, quietly–An image enters in,
rushes down through the tensed, arrested muscles,
plunges into the heart and is gone. (The Panther, Rilke)



I am facing a part of me that has been that panther much of my life. It has been submerged deeply enough that mostly I’ve lacked awareness of it. With awareness come waves of grief and pain and rage, but worst of all terror.

The bargains we strike when young sure don’t seem to pay off well in the long run, though I guess are critical to short-term survival. I agreed to banish the panther to some far-away cage and substituted instead a charming precocious manipulative golden child. I learned to use my mind and “power over” instead of having “power from within”. And was very “successful”, till somewhere in my late 30’s the panther started poking at me. A claw in my lower back, a mournful moan in my belly, the bars coming into focus at times.

I’ve let go of so much of the golden persona, but still feel distant from that dark panther. And there lies the terror– letting go of the power you’ve known, a certain way of being in the world, and not yet feel the stirring or burbling or growling of what will replace it. I wrote of the liminal state last week, but at times it does feel like an endless void, rather than an in-between space.

I’ve been reading the most wonderful book this week. Robert Macfarlane’s “The Wild Places”. (Get it—it is one of the most joyous magic books I’ve ever read). He tramps all about England trying to find what is left of wild places. He begins by looking at the etymology of the word “wild”....REad on at www.sensuousbroom.com

Liminal

Letting go, emptying—over and over. Some days I feel like I am that little symbol used by the email system where I used to work, for deleting deleted files. The little trash can with trash levitating out of it and drifting off to the bigger trash can in the sky or wherever. Every day something/someone else seems to leave or I let go of it. My career. My wine at night, coffee, comfort foods that don’t bring comfort anymore. Ideas I’ve held for so long. Patterns. Friends. Routines. Weight. And most humorous of all, I lost my “I”. My “I” key on my keyboard that is. The universe is such a clever trickster. Ha ha. (Growl)

Sometimes it feels scary. And lonely. I may believe from much of my reading that creation comes from the Void, that you have to make room for the new to come in by letting go of the old==but being in the midst of it is different than believing it...REad on at www.sensuousbroom.com

Help jennie the elephant

easy and quick to do.

don't ususally do these, but ths one got to me. they also have a WONDERFUL site with live video cam of the elephants at the place i n tennessee that's really cool

here is link for that

www.elephants.com


-----Original Message-----
Sent: Tue, 8 Jul 2008 8:58 am
Subject: Please help Jenny the elephant (it only takes a few seconds)...


All you have to do is enter your info in the boxes to the right (no copying and pasting of the letter) Then submit your info. and letters will go to each decision maker. Please help this 30 year old captive elephant live out her life at the Tenn. sanctuary for elephants, where she will have friends, and can live a halfway normal life, instead of being on "display" the rest of her life. Thank you! Please send this to your friends and fellow animal lovers.


Dear Ele Friend and Supporter,


A beautiful African elephant, Jenny, is about to be sold by the Dallas zoo to a Safari park in Mexico. Please click on the link below and sign the petition by IDA (In Defense of Animals) to encourage the zoo to send her, instead, to the Elephant Sanctuary in Tennessee. All you have to do is put in your information and the letter will be sent to a bunch of officials all at once!


Thank you for caring!


ga0.org/campaign/jenny



-----Original

Kites

The Sunday after there was laughter in the air
Everybody had a kite
They were flying everywhere
And all the trouble went away
And it wasn’t just a dream
All the trouble went away
And it wasn’t just a dream

In the middle of the night
We try and try with all our mights
To light a little light down here
In the middle of the night
We dream of a million kites
Flying high above
the sadness and the fear

Little sister just remember
as you wander through the blue
The little kite that you sent flying
on a sunny afternoon
Made of something light as nothing
Made of joy that matters too
How the little dreams we dream
Are all we can really do

In the middle of the night
The world turns with all of it’s might
A little diamond colored blue
In the middle of the night
We keep sending little kites. (Patty Griffin)

I was listening to Patty Griffin’s song Kites in a shining moment at the beach this week, a moment that was kite like in itself. Pure joy lifting up into boundless bliss. Surfacing from nowhere and brimming over to saturate all in a heart glow.

I had been walking down the beach listening to my new little mp3 player thingy ( a cheap version as did not want to spend the money for an ipod, and don’t really need one), an idea I have Kathleen to thank for. She asked me “are you listening to enough music lately?” And I said I don’t listen to music as much in summer as winter because I’m outside all the time and I’d rather listen to the birds. “Well that’s fine, but you need to listen to music too, because it will lift your spirits and energize you”. And she’s right. It was fun putting all the music I love on this little device and being able to plug into it at any moment. And keeping the volume low I can still hear the waves at the beach! Perfect. So I was walking along, the breeze blowing along my skin, the sand warm on my feet, occasionally stepping into the small waves to feel the cool of water foaming about my ankles and splashing my calves. And the little shells were winking and glimmering at me in all their myriad colors and shapes, the receding surf leaving shimmering patterns on the beach. I looked down the beach at all the happy kids playing and then out to the bay and up to the sky, standing by a little bird doing the same, and was filled with love and gratitude.... REAd on at www.sensuousbroom.com

These are the Good Old DAys

Feeling really sick for awhile pares things down to essentials. You kind of start with a clean slate in some ways. Not having eaten much at all for quite awhile, each food I eat now is an experience. A bowl of oatmeal in morning—warm, nourishing, slightly sweetened with agave honey—is manna. Each spoonful savored, appreciated. A slice of papaya is pure delight, lush and inviting, the taste all feminine gentle sweetness. Seeds like caviar. I say thank you to her for such grace.

I walk slowly, noticing details. There has been a tiny spider on my brugmansia each morning as I feed the birds. I go and visit him. His center is the same emerald green as the leaves. He is so little I can’t even get my camera to focus on him appropriately. Some mornings the leaves are covered in dew drops. And one morning a mothlike creature hung from a blossom, ethereal as any angel...REad on at www.sensuousbroom.com
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LIfe's a BEach

In between healing crises, Kathleen took me to the beach for a little bit to clear away some of the debris. And it did. That first sniff of salty air perked up my spirits immediately. There was a little bit of a sense of sadness with it too. To think that after living on the bay for about 10 years, I’ve barely visited it in the last three. I need to change that I think. To let go of the negative emotions that remain about what was lost after the hurricane.
The couple hours were just what I needed. Lovely breeze, warming sun, radiant sand to squiggle toes in. And being surrounded by the joy of children and dogs playing. In the past I would have been aggravated that the beach was crowded, but the me of now was happy to watch all the exuberance.
There was a dog leaping higher than I’ve ever seen...REAd on at www.sensuousbroom.com

Kything

In Madeleine L’Engle’s “A Wind in the Door”, there is a kind of exchange between people called “kything”. It’s a kind of direct communication that doesn’t need words. It’s easier for children to do because they are more open. The practice is particularly helpful to the heroine Meg when she is in a place where the body’s senses don’t work—no seeing, hearing, touching. She is battling there with the Echthroi, creatures that want to “X” everything—turn everything into nothing. She is being overwhelmed by their vortex, being pulled into nothingness, when her best friend, Calvin, kythes to her. He is right there with her, sending her a string of numbers for her to grab onto (Meg is good at math) so that she can pull herself back into herself.

As I’ve been wading through my own version of Echthroi these last few weeks, having friends to kythe with me has made all the difference. Someone who can just be there with you energetically, not trying to save you or getting caught up in your swirl, is one of the greatest gifts there is. It makes me long for this kind of relating as a bigger part of my life—not just now when I’m struggling, but ongoing. To be with people where the barriers can be let down and the energy flows in an easy way. I think much of my relating to people has been done at too high a rev and in a very yang way. You gotta slow down and become permeable to kythe....Read on at www.sensuousbroom.com

Slowing Down

Sssssssslllllllllllllllllllooooooooooooooooooooowing

Waaaaaaaaaaaaaaay

DOWWWWWWWWWWN.

I dip into the tumult, the battle, the chaos, submerge, surface, and am slower day by day. I lay for hours on the mattress grateful for the bright spots of birds, the flickering of green leaves. If I were to talk from this place of slowness, my voice would be lower and softer and more permeable. I would listen more than talk.

The prohibitions against this lack of speed are great. “Get up—DO something for god’s sake!!” “Ohmygod are you depressed?” “The house is a mess!” “How will you ever be ok just laying here?!!”

I remember a story in one of James Herriot’s books (a veterinarian). There was a cow that just wasn’t getting well. So he gave her a large injection meaning to let her ease out. He came back weeks later for another animal and the farmer was exclaiming how whatever he gave the cow, she was healthier than ever—after sleeping for DAYS....Read on at www.sensuousbroom.com

Being With My Body

“What the woman knows, she knows through her hands, her feet, her back curved, rocking on the earth.
The bird breaks the skin of the cherry open and drinks the red flowing juice. It spills onto the skin of the woman. Now she holds both the fruit and the bird in her hands. Her eyes still remain closed. She rocks back and forth, in place, a cradle to the world.
Elemental pleasures. Rest in motion. Breathing. Let me go where I have not yet been.” (Terry Tempest Williams, Leap)

In being with myself day by day, I am slowing down and noticing details. I am trying to be with my body in the same way I am with my emotions. Just as I try to hang in there with myself when terror or grief surge forth, so I am trying not to run from my physical pain. There is a tightness in my chest many mornings. If I didn’t sit with it and explore it, I could just say “oh it’s panic, it’s tension”, and then maybe do something to distract myself. But if I really be with it, I notice its qualities. It pushes out, like fists pounding at a door. It wrestles and flails. It is pressure, explosiveness confined. If I can stay long enough, sometimes it becomes roars and howls, a large dark force tied/bound/trapped.

There is a tightness in my ankles and feet also. Tightness to the point of pain. So tight the blood flow is cut off and inflammation has set in. My feet like throbbing concrete. This is harder to explore than the chest tightness. It is more dense, and I am less in touch with it. The feet are “down there” somewhere, distant, disconnected. This week I lay down in my heated bodywork room, and just breathed into my feet. No trying to make the pain go away, no expectation. Just breathing into them—letting the prana seep into the pores, the deep inhalations send trickles down the ligaments. The tightness here has a different quality than the chest. It does not push or shove out. It wants to go limp, let go, release the toe’s hold on the edge of the cliff and just fall, let the ankle go loose to slip out of the noose...Read on at www.sensuousbroom.com