I love that so many of you wrote back last week suggesting that perhaps the meaning of the Tiger Synchronicity I shared was that perhaps there was a kitten in my future.
I’m open so…Yes, that’s a definite…maybe.
I do have another meaning for it, however, one that feels right to share now.
(And it definitely predates Netflix’s Tiger King by many years.)
A lifetime ago I was in the middle of a…difficult….(and that’s putting it mildly)…situation with a very challenging….(and that’s putting it VERY mildly)….person.
And all I could think of was Siegfried and Roy.
For those of you who aren’t familiar, in 2003 during their legendary Vegas act, Roy was mauled by a white tiger named Montecore, then dragged offstage by the throat, which caused a simultaneous stroke.
Yet apparently, even as he was being rushed to the ER, Roy stated:
“Montecore is a great cat.Make sure no harm comes to Montecore.”
Was this some very complicated version of Stockholm syndrome when victims identify with their abusers…or was he dead-on right and just taking responsibility for the situation?
In other words, did he finally realize that if you keep getting into cages with tigers, eventually you’re going to get mauled?
For me, this was a lesson I could abstract and apply to my own life:
I realized that that’s what I’d done in that situation:
I’d gotten into a cage (more than once) with a particularly lawless tiger.
So was it the tiger’s fault I got mauled?
Sorta…but not really.
As Paulo Coehlo said so well:
Everything happens for a reason.
But sometimes the reason is that you made bad decisions.
(Sigh)
In the end, who’s more at fault for the bloodshed?
Mantecore…or Roy?
As is often the case, there’s something empowering about taking responsibility, particularly when you have an illuminating metaphor to guide you.
And as a creativity junkie, metaphors are everything to me.
Thus, I began watching several tiger documentaries, including the extraordinary 3-part BBC documentary series TIGER SPY narrated by the great British naturalist David Attenborough.
(Just FYI, his elder brother Richard played the scientist in Jurassic Park, so besides the great voice and accent, perhaps there’s a family attraction for large, dangerous beasts, both modern and sci-fi / prehistoric.)
There’s so much that’s amazing in the series but let’s start with its fundamental uniqueness:
It’s filmed with elephant-cams.
That’s right, cameras disguised as logs conveniently deposited and repositioned by actual elephants within a few feet of a new litter of 4 tiger cubs.
Tigers, you see, almost never attack an elephant.
Yes, tigers are the alpha predator in their domain, and really only need to fear two things: other tigers and, unfortunately, humans.
Elephants are wary of tigers but they are rarely attacked by them.
Simply put, a 400-pound predator is no match for a nine-foot-tall, 6,000-pound herbivore.
Elephants, in other words, are above it all, exempt from the danger and the drama.
That’s why they make the best possible jungle film crew.
Sidebar…
Just FYI, here’s another super-fun fact: Tigers occasionally saw themselves in the elephant-cam lens and had uncertain reactions.
They recognized that something mysterious was afoot.
This ultimately inspired one of my great decorating innovations for Belle, “Dog Mirrors.”
Belle was so beautiful, I thought it was a great shame she couldn’t ever see herself, so I placed mirrors around our apartment at her level.
(This is obviously just common sense and you can feel free to adopt the practice within your own homes for your animal family.)
I’m now about to switch back to the original narrative, but be forewarned at this point things take an interesting Plot Twist.
During my troubled time, I received some heartfelt acknowledgment from a Creative Client I’d helped on a project.
She ended her appreciations with a question:
“Do you know what my favorite thing about working with you is?”
“What?” I asked.
“That you have this beautiful Tiger Energy. I feel it every time we meet.”
When invited to expand, she talked about how for her this meant focus and intensity, and flexibility and grace as applied to her project…but I was taken aback, nonetheless.
Had I mislabeled the metaphors for the players in my drama?
Perhaps I’d ignored the lessons of the supremely helpful Dark Side of the Light Chasers by Debbie Ford.
Rather than externally-caused victimization, was a denied, unactualized part of myself coming back to bite me?
Perhaps the Universe was nudging me to recast the role of the tiger in this particular narrative.
As well as for Belle, maybe I needed to place some mirrors at my own level…?
Rewatching TIGER SPY this week, I gained even more insights.
First, raising four tiger cubs is the most exhausting job imaginable.
(Seriously, it demands the endurance of a marathon runner and the patience of a saint.)
Second, I was struck by how often the hunts ended in disappointment.
Even though she was the alpha predator, most of the mother tiger’s attempts were nonetheless failures, ending empty-handed.
She succeeded but it was always a challenge.
(It depends on which zoologist you ask, but many say only 5% of their pursuits result in a successful kill.)
And the cubs were of course worse, genuinely terrible hunters at first.
For a long, long time, they were disasters, not just at hunting but in constantly putting themselves in insanely dangerous situations the moment their mother’s back was turned.
Given that 50% of tiger cubs do not survive their first year, remarkably, all four survived to adulthood.
And somehow, all of this gave me hope.
Back to the present…
I’m not saying I’ve closed down the discussion of getting a kitten.
I can imagine that being quite delightful.
(Although I think a puppy is more likely in my future––please stay tuned.)
I simply wanted to share what the Tiger Synchronicities meant to me and the meaning I’ve drawn from them.
To summarize:
First, years ago I learned that if you keep getting into a cage with a Tiger, you need to stop blaming the Tiger for the outcome.
Second, maybe you’re actually the Tiger…and that it just takes a really long time to learn how to be a successful one.
And Third…and this I only got while rewatching Tiger Spy this week….
At the end of the day, maybe you can try being the elephant…
The bigger creature, in other words, utterly unflappable, fully present yet––literally and metaphorically––serenely above it all.
Namaste for Now,
