[Martian Tigress]

Yes, my Tiger is just like a Native American totem. According to the Chinese animal-calendar, I was born in a 'Yang Metal Tiger' year, and as a kid I loved both big cats and horses. Horse is also one of the Year Animals in the Chinese 'zodiac', and Tiger natives and Horse natives are supposed to be well-suited to one another. This is interesting to me when I look back on my long-time love of both animals, because I think I was grokking bits of the Chinese animal system as a kid. What is also interesting is the way that my interaction with the energy of both animals happened in time-- I was utterly horse-crazy when I was in elementary school (in my young childhood, when the Tiger-supportive energy of Horse was important), and when I hit my teens, the big cat energy then started up in a major way. This also fits into the Chinese framework, as 'Green Dragon and White Tiger' are Chinese symbolic shorthand for 'Yang and Yin'. Thus it was completely appropriate that I 'arrived' at my very powerful birth-Tiger energy (which is considered Yin/Female) just as my own sexuality awakened.

I wound up having to suppress both my Tiger and my sexuality for quite awhile, as both of my parents were/are very puritanical about sex, and my mother had/has a rabid hatred of anything feline. When I finally did marry, I married a man who was also born in the same Yang Metal Tiger year as myself, which I now understand was in part a kind of 'energy reminder' and validation of my basic Tiger-nature. Despite the Chinese view that 'two Tigers under the same roof don't get along', we had a very happy 22-year marriage (he passed away 4 years ago) and he was totally okay with me heading off in 'strange Tiger-directions' (like taking kendo classes and joining a Wiccan coven), because he himself was a Tiger and understood my curiosity. It's fair to say that my energy really began to blossom in the company of a fellow Tiger, but I still had a truckload of unconscious repression/psychic binding to work through. While he was alive, I worked with many other animal energies but I still kind of 'ignored' my Tiger, and in the first couple of years after he died, I wound up working with a bunch of his energy (helping it to cross over, etc.), so I really didn't 'come back to myself fully' until the middle of last year.

Now that I am much more centered, the Tiger-energy has just kind of exploded within my personal space, as if it is saying 'Whew! She finally realizes I'm here! Now let's get to work...' I think the sudden upwelling of Tiger is part of the reason I am much more willing these days to open up and speak my Internal Truth, which I see as a very positive development, given where I came from psychically.

I also think that everyone has energy-threads and clues within their own lives that are like my 'Tiger-energy-thread', and that if people examine themselves and look for them, these energy-threads will guide them to situations and realizations that are of great benefit to them. I see a lot of the fear-mongering going on in the world today as a ploy to prevent people from taking the time to get acquainted with their own internal energies/guidance, and I look at it as good news of the best sort that a lot of people are seeing through the 'distraction charade' and are not falling for it.

The bottom line is that we change others by changing ourselves-- when we begin to move differently in our relationship with others and the world in general, then what is around us must begin to move differently also, because the basic change has already occurred. We are all igniting sparks, and 'me just changing my mind' about something is real power.

Peace,

Martian Tigress