Waking The Tiger Quotes

I shoved him. "Kishan. Kishan! Wake up!" He woke only halfway and pulled me closer. "Shh, go back to sleep. It's not morning yet." "Yes, it is morning." I pushed against his ribs. "Time to wake up. Come on!" "Okay, honey, but how about a kiss first? A man needs some motivation to get out of bed." "That kind of motivation keeps a man in bed. I'm not kissing you. Now get up.

In waking a tiger, use a long stick.

Each of us carries a sleeping tiger inside, and we can’t predict when that cat will wake, stretch, and sharpen its claws.

The body has been designed to renew itself through continuous self-correction. These same principles also apply to the healing of psyche, spirit, and soul.

Dr. Peter Levine, who has worked with trauma survivors for twenty-five years, says the single most important factor he has learned in uncovering the mystery of human trauma is what happens during and after the freezing response. He describes an impala being chased by a cheetah. The second the cheetah pounces on the young impala, the animal goes limp. The impala isn’t playing dead, she has “instinctively entered an altered state of consciousness, shared by all mammals when death appears imminent.” (Levine and Frederick, Waking the Tiger, p. 16) The impala becomes instantly immobile. However, if the impala escapes, what she does immediately thereafter is vitally important. She shakes and quivers every part of her body, clearing the traumatic energy she has accumulated.

Trauma can be prevented more easily than it can be healed.

Learning to know yourself through the felt sense is a first step toward healing trauma.

This leading-edge research echoes what ancient wisdom has always known: that each organ of the body, including the brain, speaks its own “thoughts,” “feelings,” and “promptings,” and listens to those of all the others.

Resilient strength is the opposite of helplessness. The tree is made strong and resilient by its grounded root system. These roots take nourishment from the ground and grow strong. Grounding also allows the tree to be resilient so that it can yield to the winds of change and not be uprooted. Springiness is the facility to ground and ‘unground’ in a rhythmical way. This buoyancy is a dynamic form of grounding. Aggressiveness is the biological ability to be vigorous and energetic, especially when using instinct and force. In the immobility (traumatized) state, these assertive energies are inaccessible. The restoration of healthy aggression is an essential part in the recovery from trauma. Empowerment is the acceptance of personal authority. It derives from the capacity to choose the direction and execution of one’s own energies. Mastery is the possession of skillful techniques in dealing successfully with threat. Orientation is the process of ascertaining one’s position relative to both circumstance and environment. In these ways the residue of trauma is renegotiated.

Animals do not view freezing as a sign of inadequacy or weakness, nor should we.

If we feel inclined to focus on memories (even if they are basically accurate), it is important to understand that this choice will impair our ability to move out of our traumatic reactions. Transformation requires change. One of the things that must change is the relationship that we have with our “memories.

Trauma has become so commonplace that most people don't even recognize its presence. It affects everyone. Each of us has had a traumatic experience at some point in our lives, regardless of whether it left us with an obvious case of post-traumatic stress. Because trauma symptoms can remain hidden for years after a triggering event, some of us who have been traumatized are not yet symptomatic.

When a young tree is injured it grows around that injury. As the tree continues to develop, the wound becomes relatively small in proportion to the size of the tree. Gnarly burls and misshapen limbs speak of injuries and obstacles encountered through time and overcome. The way a tree grows around its past contributes to its exquisite individuality, character, and beauty. I certainly don't advocate for traumatization to build character, but since trauma is almost a given at some point in our lives, the image of the tree can be a valuable mirror.

Because the symptoms and emotions associated with trauma can be extreme, most of us (and those close to us) will recoil and attempt to repress these intense reactions. Unfortunately, this mutual denial can prevent us from healing. In our culture there is a lack of tolerance for the emotional vulnerability that traumatized people experience. Little time is allotted for the working through of emotional events. We are routinely pressured into adjusting too quickly in the aftermath of an overwhelming situation. Denial is so common in our culture that it has become a cliché.

Physicians and mental health workers today don't speak of retrieving souls, but they are faced with a similar task—restoring wholeness to an organism that has been fragmented by trauma. Shamanistic concepts and procedures treat trauma by uniting lost soul and body in the presence of community. This approach is alien to the technological mind. However, these procedures do seem to succeed where conventional Western approaches fail.

In order to stay healthy, our nervous systems and psyches need to face challenges and to succeed in meeting those challenges. When this need is not met, or when we are challenged and cannot triumph, we end up lacking vitality and are unable to fully engage in life. Those of us who have been defeated by war, abuse, accidents, and other traumatic events suffer far more severe consequences.

If democracy and self-rule are the fundamentals, then why should people give up these rights when they enter their workplace? In politics we fight like tigers for freedom, for the right to elect our leaders, for freedom of movement, choice of residence, choice of what work to pursue— control of our lives, in short. And then we wake up in the morning and go to work, and all those rights disappear. We no longer insist on them. And so for most of the day we return to feudalism. That is what capitalism is— a version of feudalism in which capital replaces land, and business leaders replace kings. But the hierarchy remains. And so we still hand over our lives’ labor, under duress, to feed rulers who do no real work.

Although we rarely die, humans suffer when we are unable to discharge the energy that is locked in by the freezing response. The traumatized veteran, the rape survivor, the abused child, the impala, and the bird all have been confronted by overwhelming situations. If they are unable to orient and choose between fight or flight, they will freeze or collapse. Those who are able to discharge that energy will be restored. Rather than moving through the freezing response, as animals do routinely, humans often begin a downward spiral characterized by an increasingly debilitating constellation of symptoms.

Some things must be dealt with at the roots. Trauma is one of these things.

Every trauma provides an opportunity for authentic transformation. Trauma amplifies and evokes the expansion and contraction of psyche, body, and soul. It is how we respond to a traumatic event that determines whether trauma will be a cruel and punishing Medusa turning us into stone, or whether it will be a spiritual teacher taking us along vast and uncharted pathways. In the Greek myth, blood from Medusa’s slain body was taken in two vials; one vial had the power to kill, while the other had the power to resurrect. If we let it, trauma has the power to rob our lives of vitality and destroy it. However, we can also use it for powerful self-renewal and transformation. Trauma, resolved, is a blessing from a greater power.

Fran laughed. “I still feel like we’re kids, but just pretending to be adults. I thought there would be this turning point where you would just wake up one day, and bam! You’re mature!

Until we understand that traumatic symptoms are physiological as well as psychological, we will be woefully inadequate in our attempts to heal them. The heart of the matter lies in being able to recognize that trauma represents animal instincts gone awry. When harnessed, these instincts can be used by the conscious mind to transform traumatic symptoms into a state of well-being.       Acts

I accept it, and warmth spreads up my fingertips and through my body. A small part of me perks up, smiles. And I'm not sure the smiles reaches my face, but maybe this is how healing starts - small bits of happiness waking up inside you, until maybe one day it spreads through your whole self" -Lily

The king who stepped into the ballroom wearing a green velvet robe and bejeweled crown was none other that the tiger-man who'd prowled through my nightmares and nearly every waking moment for the past two days. Chorda.

NOW this is the Law of the Jungle — as old and as true as the sky; And the Wolf that shall keep it may prosper, but the Wolf that shall break it must die. As the creeper that girdles the tree-trunk the Law runneth forward and back — For the strength of the Pack is the Wolf, and the strength of the Wolf is the Pack. Wash daily from nose-tip to tail-tip; drink deeply, but never too deep; And remember the night is for hunting, and forget not the day is for sleep. The Jackal may follow the Tiger, but, Cub, when thy whiskers are grown, Remember the Wolf is a Hunter — go forth and get food of thine own. Keep peace withe Lords of the Jungle — the Tiger, the Panther, and Bear. And trouble not Hathi the Silent, and mock not the Boar in his lair. When Pack meets with Pack in the Jungle, and neither will go from the trail, Lie down till the leaders have spoken — it may be fair words shall prevail. When ye fight with a Wolf of the Pack, ye must fight him alone and afar, Lest others take part in the quarrel, and the Pack be diminished by war. The Lair of the Wolf is his refuge, and where he has made him his home, Not even the Head Wolf may enter, not even the Council may come. The Lair of the Wolf is his refuge, but where he has digged it too plain, The Council shall send him a message, and so he shall change it again. If ye kill before midnight, be silent, and wake not the woods with your bay, Lest ye frighten the deer from the crop, and your brothers go empty away. Ye may kill for yourselves, and your mates, and your cubs as they need, and ye can; But kill not for pleasure of killing, and seven times never kill Man! If ye plunder his Kill from a weaker, devour not all in thy pride; Pack-Right is the right of the meanest; so leave him the head and the hide. The Kill of the Pack is the meat of the Pack. Ye must eat where it lies; And no one may carry away of that meat to his lair, or he dies. The Kill of the Wolf is the meat of the Wolf. He may do what he will; But, till he has given permission, the Pack may not eat of that Kill. Cub-Right is the right of the Yearling. From all of his Pack he may claim Full-gorge when the killer has eaten; and none may refuse him the same. Lair-Right is the right of the Mother. From all of her year she may claim One haunch of each kill for her litter, and none may deny her the same. Cave-Right is the right of the Father — to hunt by himself for his own: He is freed of all calls to the Pack; he is judged by the Council alone. Because of his age and his cunning, because of his gripe and his paw, In all that the Law leaveth open, the word of your Head Wolf is Law. Now these are the Laws of the Jungle, and many and mighty are they; But the head and the hoof of the Law and the haunch and the hump is — Obey!

In moving through apprehensive chills to mounting excitement and waves of moist tingling warmth, the body, with its innate capacity to heal, melts the iceberg created by deeply frozen trauma. Anxiety and despair can become creative wellspring when we allow ourselves to experience bodily sensations, such as trembling, that stem from traumatic symptoms. Held within the symptoms of trauma are the very energies, potentials, and resources necessary for their constructive transformation. The creative healing process can be blocked in a number of ways—by using drugs to suppress symptoms, by overemphasizing adjustment or control, or by denial or invalidation of feelings and sensations.

when we cling strongly to the concrete version of memory we are re-stricted to doing what we have always done in relation to it. The dilemma is that unresolved trauma forces us to repeat what we have done before. New and creative assemblages of possibilities will not easily occur to us.

In many ways, the felt sense is like a stream moving through an ever-changing landscape. It alters its character in resonance with its surroundings. When the land is rugged and steep, the stream moves with vigor and energy, swirling and bubbling as it crashes over rocks and debris. Out on the plains, the stream meanders so slowly that one might wonder whether it is moving at all. Rains and spring thaw can rapidly increase its volume, possibly even flood nearby land. In the same way, once the setting has been interpreted and defined by the felt sense, we will blend into whatever conditions we find ourselves. This amazing sense encompasses both the content and climate of our internal and external environments. Like the stream, it shapes itself to fit those environments.

Peter Pan has to be the book of my childhood. Come to think of it, it's the book of my adulthood too. It's a book which, in the reading of it, takes me back to editions that I've had and lost, with various illustrators' work in them. It brings back moments sitting reading it with my mother. It brings back my first contact with the Disney cartoon. It brings back standing in the play-yard when I was a kid, when the wind was really blowing, and closing my eyes, spreading my arms and pretending I could fly. It brings back childhood dreams of flying. It brings back the first encounter I ever had with an invented world... Never Never Land was really the first journey I took to an invented world which I believed in wholly and completely. I remember the immense solidarity that I felt with the Lost Boys, with Peter, with the Indians - how much I wanted to be a Red Indian - how much the saving of Tiger Lily meant to me as a kid, how much I wanted to one day wake up and save an Indian squaw from drowning.

Today, our survival depends increasingly on developing our ability to think rather than being able to physically respond. Consequently, most of us have become separated from our natural, instinctual selves—in particular, the part of us that can proudly, not disparagingly, be called animal. Regardless of how we view ourselves, in the most basic sense we literally are human animals. The fundamental challenges we face today have come about relatively quickly, but our nervous systems have been much slower to change. It is no coincidence that people who are more in touch with their natural selves tend to fare better when it comes to trauma. Without easy access to the resources of this primitive, instinctual self, humans alienate their bodies from their souls. Most of us don't think of or experience ourselves as animals. Yet, by not living through our instincts and natural reactions, we aren't fully human either. Existing in a limbo in which we are neither animal nor fully human can cause a number of problems, one of which is being susceptible to trauma.

Trauma is so arresting that traumatized people will focus on it compulsively. Unfortunately, the situation that defeated them once will defeat them again and again. Body sensations can serve as a guide to reflect where we are experiencing trauma, and to lead us to our instinctual resources. These resources give us the power to protect ourselves from predators and other hostile forces. Each of us possesses these instinctual resources. Once we learn how to access them we can create our own shields to reflect and heal our traumas.

Life sometimes has his own truces. When it can look itself in the mirror, half smiling, loosened, half partnered, not asking for anything but to be alive and feel good in it's own skin, while listening the sound of the night bird. But those truces are rare: tigers, which live in various machines of our beings, wake up soon and start to tear each other apart.

He’s hooked up to about seven different machines. Nobody’s expecting him to wake up anytime soon.” “Have they tried switching him off then switching him on again?

Acts must be carried through to their completion. Whatever their point of departure, the end will be beautiful. It is (only) because an action has not been completed that it is vile. —Jean Genet, from Thiefs Journal

If you bring forth that which is within you, Then that which is within you Will be your salvation. If you do not bring forth that which is within you, Then that which is within you Will destroy you. from the Gnostic Gospels[1]

In Lucy’s fondest dream, the one she doesn’t want to wake from, she braves no dragons and tigers. Finds no gold. She sees wonders from a distance, her face unnoticed in the crowd. When she walks down the long street that leads her home, no one pays her any mind at

healing of trauma in its many forms. The most common of these forms are automobile and other accidents, serious illness, surgery and other invasive medical and dental procedures, assault, and experiencing or witnessing violence, war, or a myriad of natural disasters.               I

Sometimes, traumatized individuals have an investment in being ill and may form a kind of attachment to their symptoms. There are innumerable reasons (both physiological and psychological) to explain why this attachment occurs. I don’t think it’s necessary to go into detail on this subject. The important thing to keep in mind is that we can only heal to the degree that we can become unattached from these symptoms. It is almost as if they become entities unto themselves through the power we give them. We need to release them from our minds and hearts along with the energy that is locked in our nervous systems.

Traumatic re-enactment is one of the strongest and most enduring reactions that occurs in the wake of trauma. Once we are traumatized, it is almost certain that we will continue to repeat or re-enact parts of the experience in some way. We will be drawn over and over again into situations that are reminiscent of the original trauma.

Fortunately, because we are instinctual beings with the ability to feel, respond, and reflect, we possess the innate potential to heal even the most debilitating traumatic injuries. I am convinced, as well, that we as a global human community can begin to heal from the effects of large-scale social traumas such as war and natural disaster.

If healing is what you want, your first step is to be open to the possibility that literal truth is not the most important consideration. The conviction that it really happened, the fear that it may have happened, the subtle searching for evidence that it did happen, can all get in your way as you try to hear what the felt sense wants to tell you about what it needs to heal.

The Law of the Jungle NOW this is the Law of the Jungle — as old and as true as the sky; And the Wolf that shall keep it may prosper, but the Wolf that shall break it must die. As the creeper that girdles the tree-trunk the Law runneth forward and back — For the strength of the Pack is the Wolf, and the strength of the Wolf is the Pack. Wash daily from nose-tip to tail-tip; drink deeply, but never too deep; And remember the night is for hunting, and forget not the day is for sleep. The Jackal may follow the Tiger, but, Cub, when thy whiskers are grown, Remember the Wolf is a Hunter — go forth and get food of thine own. Keep peace withe Lords of the Jungle — the Tiger, the Panther, and Bear. And trouble not Hathi the Silent, and mock not the Boar in his lair. When Pack meets with Pack in the Jungle, and neither will go from the trail, Lie down till the leaders have spoken — it may be fair words shall prevail. When ye fight with a Wolf of the Pack, ye must fight him alone and afar, Lest others take part in the quarrel, and the Pack be diminished by war. The Lair of the Wolf is his refuge, and where he has made him his home, Not even the Head Wolf may enter, not even the Council may come. The Lair of the Wolf is his refuge, but where he has digged it too plain, The Council shall send him a message, and so he shall change it again. If ye kill before midnight, be silent, and wake not the woods with your bay, Lest ye frighten the deer from the crop, and your brothers go empty away. Ye may kill for yourselves, and your mates, and your cubs as they need, and ye can; But kill not for pleasure of killing, and seven times never kill Man! If ye plunder his Kill from a weaker, devour not all in thy pride; Pack-Right is the right of the meanest; so leave him the head and the hide. The Kill of the Pack is the meat of the Pack. Ye must eat where it lies; And no one may carry away of that meat to his lair, or he dies. The Kill of the Wolf is the meat of the Wolf. He may do what he will; But, till he has given permission, the Pack may not eat of that Kill. Cub-Right is the right of the Yearling. From all of his Pack he may claim Full-gorge when the killer has eaten; and none may refuse him the same. Lair-Right is the right of the Mother. From all of her year she may claim One haunch of each kill for her litter, and none may deny her the same. Cave-Right is the right of the Father — to hunt by himself for his own: He is freed of all calls to the Pack; he is judged by the Council alone. Because of his age and his cunning, because of his gripe and his paw, In all that the Law leaveth open, the word of your Head Wolf is Law. Now these are the Laws of the Jungle, and many and mighty are they; But the head and the hoof of the Law and the haunch and the hump is — Obey!

Dog Talk … I have seen Ben place his nose meticulously into the shallow dampness of a deer’s hoofprint and shut his eyes as if listening. But it is smell he is listening to. The wild, high music of smell, that we know so little about. Tonight Ben charges up the yard; Bear follows. They run into the field and are gone. A soft wind, like a belt of silk, wraps the house. I follow them to the end of the field where I hear the long-eared owl, at wood’s edge, in one of the tall pines. All night the owl will sit there inventing his catty racket, except when he opens pale wings and drifts moth-like over the grass. I have seen both dogs look up as the bird floats by, and I suppose the field mouse hears it too, in the pebble of his tiny heart. Though I hear nothing. Bear is small and white with a curly tail. He was meant to be idle and pretty but learned instead to love the world, and to romp roughly with the big dogs. The brotherliness of the two, Ben and Bear, increases with each year. They have their separate habits, their own favorite sleeping places, for example, yet each worries without letup if the other is missing. They both bark rapturously and in support of each other. They both sneeze to express plea- sure, and yawn in humorous admittance of embarrassment. In the car, when we are getting close to home and the smell of the ocean begins to surround them, they both sit bolt upright and hum. With what vigor and intention to please himself the little white dog flings himself into every puddle on the muddy road. Somethings are unchangeably wild, others are stolid tame. The tiger is wild, the coyote, and the owl. I am tame, you are tame. The wild things that have been altered, but only into a semblance of tameness, it is no real change. But the dog lives in both worlds. Ben is devoted, he hates the door between us, is afraid of separation. But he had, for a number of years, a dog friend to whom he was also loyal. Every day they and a few others gathered into a noisy gang, and some of their games were bloody. Dog is docile, and then forgets. Dog promises then forgets. Voices call him. Wolf faces appear in dreams. He finds himself running over incredible lush or barren stretches of land, nothing any of us has ever seen. Deep in the dream, his paws twitch, his lip lifts. The dreaming dog leaps through the underbrush, enters the earth through a narrow tunnel, and is home. The dog wakes and the disturbance in his eyes when you say his name is a recognizable cloud. How glad he is to see you, and he sneezes a little to tell you so. But ah! the falling-back, fading dream where he was almost there again, in the pure, rocky weather-ruled beginning. Where he was almost wild again, and knew nothing else but that life, no other possibility. A world of trees and dogs and the white moon, the nest, the breast, the heart-warming milk! The thick-mantled ferocity at the end of the tunnel, known as father, a warrior he himself would grow to be. …

Tunnelling through the night, the trains pass in a splendour of power, with a sound like thunder shaking the orchards, waking the young from a dream, scattering like glass the old mens' sleep, laying a black trail over the still bloom of the orchards; the trains go north with guns. Strange primitive piece of flesh, the heart laid quiet hearing their cry pierce through its thin-walled cave recalls the forgotten tiger, and leaps awake in its old panic riot; and how shall mind be sober, since blood's red thread still binds us fast in history? Tiger, you walk through all our past and future, troubling the children's sleep'; laying a reeking trail across our dreams of orchards. Racing on iron errands, the trains go by, and over the white acres of our orchards hurl their wild summoning cry, their animal cry…. the trains go north with guns.

The changes can be extremely subtle: something that feels internally like a rock, for example, may suddenly seem to melt into a warm liquid. These changes have their most beneficial effect when they are simply watched, and not interpreted. Attaching meaning to them or telling a story about them at this time may shift the child’s perceptions into a more evolved portion of the brain, which can easily disrupt the direct connection established with the reptilian core. Bodily responses that emerge along with sensations typically include involuntary trembling, shaking, and crying. The body may want, slowly, to move in a particular way. If suppressed or interrupted by beliefs about being strong (grown up, courageous), acting normal, or abiding by familiar feelings, these responses will not be able to effectively discharge the accumulated energy.

But Lucy liked to hear about the next territory, and the next one, even farther East. Those flat plains where water is abundant and green stretches in every direction. Where towns have shade trees and paved roads, houses of wood and glass. Where instead of wet and dry there are seasons with names like song: autumn, winter, summer, spring. Where stores carry cloth in every color, candy in every shape. Civilization holds the word civil in its heart and so Lucy imagines kids who dress nice and speak nicer, storekeepers who smile, doors held open instead of slammed, and everything—handkerchiefs, floors, words—clean. A new place, where two girls might be wholly unremarkable. In Lucy’s fondest dream, the one she doesn’t want to wake from, she braves no dragons and tigers. Finds no gold. She sees wonders from a distance, her face unnoticed in the crowd. When she walks down the long street that leads her home, no one pays her any mind at

If healing is what you want, your first step is to be open to the possibility that literal truth is not the most important consideration. The conviction that it really happened, the fear that it may have happened, the subtle searching for evidence that it did happen, can all get in your way as you try to hear what the felt sense wants to tell you about what it needs to heal.

Royal Ontario Museum, Toronto. by Keith Schengili-Roberts Stuffed heath hen specimen at Boston Museum of Scienceby C. Horwitz Barbary lion from Algeria. Photographed by Sir Alfred Edward Pease. Thylacine in Washington D.C. National Zoo, c. 1904 author E.J. Keller, Baker Wake Island rail by W. S. Grooch Tecopa pupfish by Phil Pister Department of Fish and Game, State of California Caspian Tiger at Berlin Zoo, 1899 by unknown author (retouched) Golden toad of Costa Rica by Charles H. Smith U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Imperial woodpecker reconstruction at Museum Wiesbaden by Fritz Geller-Grimm

One young man, sexually abused as a child, had over a dozen serious rear-end collisions within a period of three years. (In none of these “accidents” was he obviously at fault.) Frequent re-enactment is the most intriguing and complex symptom of trauma. This phenomenon can be custom-fit to the individual, with a startling level of “coincidence” between the re-enactment and the original situation. While some of the elements of re-enactment are understandable, others seem to defy rational explanation.

Nature responds, thank goodness, by immediately creating a counter-vortex-a healing vortex to balance the force of the trauma vortex. This balancing force instantly begins to rotate in the opposite direction of the trauma vortex. The new whirlpool exists “within” the banks of mainstream experience (Fig. 3).

There exists now a third option-one that I call “renegotiation.” In renegotiating trauma, we begin to mend the ruptured bank by circling around the peripheries of the healing and trauma vortices, gradually moving toward their centers. We begin by riding the warble (wobbly oscillation) created by these two opposing forces, experiencing the turbulence between them. We then move slowly and rhythmically, back and forth, from one to the other in a figure-eight pattern. By beginning with the healing vortex, we pick up the support and resources needed to successfully negotiate the trauma vortex. By moving between these vortices, we release the tightly bound energies at their core as if they were being unwound. We move toward their centers and their energies are released; the vortices break up, dissolve, and are integrated back into the mainstream. This is renegotiation (Fig. 4).

Transformation requires a willingness to challenge your basic beliefs about who you are. We must have the faith to trust responses and sensations that we can’t fully understand, and a willingness to experience ourselves flowing in harmony with the primitive, natural laws that will take over and balance our seemingly incongruous perceptions. Traumatized people must let go of all kinds of beliefs and preconceptions in order to complete the journey back to health. Remember, letting go never happens all at once.

There are two kinds of memory pertinent to trauma. One form is somewhat like a video camera, sequentially recording events. It is called “explicit” (conscious) memory, and stores information such as what you did at the party last night. The other form is the way that the human organism organizes the experience of significant events for example, the procedure of how to ride a bicycle. This type of memory is called “implicit” (procedural) and is unconscious. It has to do with things we don’t think about; our bodies just do them.

Trauma has a frightening potential to be re-enacted in the form of violence.

Dreaming and waking, on land and on water, I wandered, lost, in a landscape peopled with gods and animals unseen, a character in a story told in a language I could not understand.

Maybe nothing is too weird in the middle of the night. Spirits might slip into these moments, between waking and dreaming—but love does, too.

A year later, I wake thinking about the story by Jorge Luis Borges, about something which, once touched or seen, can never be forgotten, and which gradually so fills our thoughts that we are driven to madness. My Zahir is not a romantic metaphor - a blind man, a compass, a tiger, or a coin. It has a name, and her name is Esther.

The body is the shore on the ocean of being. —Sufi (anonymous)

You are not alone. You are not crazy. There is a rational explanation for what is happening to you. You have not been irreversibly damaged, and it is possible to diminish or even eliminate your symptoms.

If you bring forth that which is within you, Then that which is within you Will be your salvation. If you do not bring forth that which is within you, Then that which is within you Will destroy you.

I began to piece together the puzzle of healing trauma. The key I found was being able to work in a gradual, gentle way with the powerful energies bound in the trauma symptoms.

Trauma need not be a life sentence. Of all the maladies that attack the human organism, trauma may ultimately be one that is recognized as beneficial. I say this because in the healing of trauma, a transformation takes place—one that can improve the quality of life.

If one understood history's laws, then one could control history's chronology, wresting it away from capitalism, already intent on monopolizing time. We wake, work, eat, and sleep according to what the landlord, the owner, the banker, the politician, and the schoolmaster command, Man had said. We accept that our time belongs to them, when in truth our time belongs to us. Awaken, peasants, workers, colonized! Stir from your zones of occult instability and steal the gold watch of time from the paper tigers, running dogs, and fat cats of imperialism, colonialism, and capitalism!

this is how healing starts—small bits of happiness waking up inside you, until maybe one day it spreads through your whole self.

cruelty and neglect can result in symptoms that are similar to and often intertwined with those of shock trauma. For this reason, people who have experienced developmental trauma need to enlist the support of a therapist to help them work through the issues that have become intertwined with their traumatic reactions.

The feelings we experience are typically much more subtle, complex, and intricate than what we can convey in language

therapies employing the felt sense are generally more effective than those that don’t.

When you face the vampyres, you fight with passion, because you can see a new sunrise beyond their darkness. A life beyond their misery. And you’re going to make sure everyone else wakes up with you to see it.

Maybe it’s hungry,” she suggested, her voice low but definitely goading now. “Do you keep kitty kibble around?” Silence

At its base, the male, whether human, animal or Breed, has a core nature equal to that of a sullen child denied a favored treat. And the male can react accordingly—

Victims of a devastating trauma may never be the same biologically. [emphasis added].” Trauma

Trauma evokes a biological response that needs to remain fluid and adaptive, not stuck and maladaptive. A maladaptive response is not necessarily a disease, but a dis-ease—a discomfort that can range from mild uneasiness to downright debilitation. The potential for fluidity still exists in maladaption, and must be tapped for the restoration of ease and full functioning. If these trapped energies are not allowed to move, and trauma becomes chronic, it can take a great deal of time and/or energy to restore the person to equilibrium and health.

The Rebel, Within the Rubble From the rubble, arises the rebel, Embarking on the freedom struggle. Lost and frustrated, survival is slim Yet the fire of the cause burns from within Our people melt, our people burn Our people shelled, our stomachs churn The world is cold, the world is grim Our people hang, on their last limb Billions more, from the IMF Don’t hear our cries, cos they claim deaf Rape, torture, and abusive camps Thamils die in government clamps 1400 now die in a camp each week All because of the language we speak Each day I wake up, more havoc they wreak Each day I wake up, the situation looks bleak The Phoenix arises, from the ashes This Phoenix surmises, previous clashes Beware of our youth, they burn with the truth Merciless, and furious, you will get the boot The Eelam pride, I will never hide, The Thamil side, is forever my guide The Tigers died, with cyanide They collide, for us to reside, In the land where we were denied Forevermore, they have cried, Forevermore, we’ll bring this worldwide! Thamilarin Thaagam, Thamileela Thayagam!

Wake up! There’s incredible beauty all around you. I’m absorbed in writing this book but I managed to look closely at a tiger swallowtail butterfly in the garden yesterday. Did you know there are gorgeous shades of red and blue among the black streaks at the bottom of the wings? It looks like nothing other than cathedral windows, a quarter inch high. Yet if you’d asked me, I would have said that butterfly is yellow with black stripes. If I can see that, with less than two weeks to go before my deadline, you can discover something beautiful today, too. Open up to your senses. Become a connoisseur of small pleasures.

Those who live with insomnia and who consider sleep both an enemy and a gift will understand the following. Some of us cannot comprehend how anyone except the very good or those who have no conscience at all can sleep from dark to dawn without dreaming or waking. We hear William Blake’s tiger padding softly through a green jungle, his stripes glowing, his whiskers spotted with gore. Psychoanalysis does no good. Neither does a health regimen that induces physical exhaustion. The only solution that is guaranteed is the one provided by our old friend Morpheus, who requires our souls in the bargain.

Wait a minute,” Jasmine said. “First you wake me up, then you bombard me with questions.

regularly

The primary task is to pay attention to how things feel and how the body is responding. In short, opportunity revolves around sensation. A traumatized child who is in touch with internal sensations is paying attention to impulses from the reptilian core. As a result, the youngster is likely to notice subtle changes and responses, all of which are designed to help discharge excess energy and to complete feelings and responses that were previously blocked. Noticing these changes and responses enhances them.

Animals follow the rhythms of nature-mating, birthing, feeding, hunting, sleeping, and hibernating in direct response to nature’s pendulum. So, too, do the responses that bring traumatic reactions to their natural resolution. For human beings, these rhythms pose a two-fold challenge. First, they move at a much slower pace than we are accustomed to. Second, they are entirely beyond our control. Healing cycles can only be opened up to, watched, and validated; they cannot be evaluated, manipulated, hurried, or changed. When they get the time and attention they need, they are able to complete their healing mission.

Children who are encouraged to attend to their instinctual responses are rewarded with a lifelong legacy of health and vigor.

One of my clients, while working through his childhood abuse at the hands of “barrio” gang members, said it this way: “I don’t have to justify my experience with memories any more.

As in the Greek myth of Medusa, the human confusion that may ensue when we stare death in the face can turn us to stone. We may literally freeze in fear, which will result in the creation of traumatic symptoms.

Unlike wild animals, when threatened we humans have never found it easy to resolve the dilemma of whether to fight or flee. This dilemma stems, at least in part, from the fact that our species has played the role of both predator and prey.

This uncertainty has made us particularly vulnerable to the powerful effects of trauma. Animals like the agile, darting impala know they are prey and are intimate with their survival resources. They sense what they need to do and they do it. Likewise, the sleek cheetah’s seventy-miles-an-hour sprint and treacherous fangs and claws make it a self-assured predator. The line is not so clearly delineated for the human animal

Traumatic symptoms are not caused by the “triggering” event itself. They stem from the frozen residue of energy that has not been resolved and discharged; this residue remains trapped in the nervous system where it can wreak havoc on our bodies and spirits. The long-term, alarming, debilitating, and often bizarre symptoms of PTSD develop when we cannot complete the process of moving in, through and out of the “immobility” or “freezing” state.

initiating and encouraging our innate drive to return to a state of dynamic equilibrium.

However, we can thaw by

To help visualize the power of this energy, imagine that you are making love with your partner, you are on the verge of climax, when suddenly, some outside force stops you. Now, multiply that feeling of withholding by one hundred, and you may come close to the amount of energy aroused by a life-threatening experience.

When we are unable to liberate these powerful forces, we become victims of trauma. In our often-unsuccessful attempts to discharge these energies, we may become fixated on them. Like a moth drawn to a flame, we may unknowingly and repeatedly create situations in which the possibility to release ourselves from the trauma trap exists, but without the proper tools and resources most of us fail. The result, sadly, is that many of us become riddled with fear and anxiety and are never fully able to feel at home with ourselves or our world.

I now know that it was not the dramatic emotional catharsis and reliving of her childhood tonsillectomy that was catalytic in her recovery, but the discharge of energy she experienced when she flowed out of her

passive, frozen immobility response into an active, successful escape. The image of the tiger awoke her instinctual, responsive self. The other profound insight that I gleaned from Nancy’s experience was that the resources that enable a person to succeed in the face of a threat can be used for healing. This is true not just at the time of the experience, but even years after the event.

When we are unable to flow through trauma and complete instinctive responses, these incompleted actions often undermine our lives.

Unresolved trauma can keep us excessively cautious and inhibited, or lead us around in ever-tightening circles of dangerous

Trauma sufferers tend to identify themselves as survivors, rather than as animals with an instinctual power to heal.

Nature has not forgotten us, we have forgotten it.

It is through this connection with our felt sense that we are guided on our individual paths towards transformation.

The Rooster taught me to wake up early and be a leader. The Butterfly encouraged me to allow a period of struggles to develop strong and look beautiful. The Squirrel showed me to be alert and fast all the time. The Dog influenced me to give up my life for my best friend. The Cat told me to exercise every day. Otherwise, I will be lazy and crazy. The Fox illustrated me to be subtle and keep my place organized and neat. The Snake demonstrated to me to hold my peace even if I am capable of attack, harm, or kill. The Monkey stimulated me to be vocal and communicate. The Tiger cultivated me to be active and fast. The Lion cultured me not to be lazy especially if I have strength and power that could be used. The Eagle was my sample for patience, beauty, courage, bravery, honor, pride, grace, and determination. The Rat skilled me to find my way out no matter what or how long it takes. The Chameleon revealed to me the ability to change my color for beauty and protection. The Fish display to live in peace even if I have to live a short life. The Delphin enhanced me to be the source of kindness, peace, harmony, and protection. The Shark enthused me to live as active and restful as I can be. The Octopus exhibited me to be silent and intelligent. The Elephant experienced me with the value of cooperation and family. To care for others and respect elders. The Pig indicated to me to act smart, clean, and shameless. The Panda appears to me as life is full of white and black times but my thick fur will enable me to survive. The Kangaroo enthused me to live with pride even if I am unable to walk backward. The Penguin influenced me to never underestimate a person. The Deer reveals the ability to sense the presence of hunters before they sense you. The Turtle brightened me to realize that I will get there no matter how long it takes me while having a shell of protection above me. The Rabbit reassured me to allow myself to be playful and silly. The Bat proved to me that I can fly even in darkness. The Alligator/crocodile alerted me that threat exists. The Ant moved me to be organized, active, and social with others. The Bee educated me to be the source of honey and cure for others. The Horse my best intelligent friend with who I bond. Trained me to recover fast from tough conditions. The Whale prompted me to take care of my young ones and show them life abilities. The Crab/Lobster enlightened me not to follow them when they make resolutions depending on previous undesirable events.

Without Awareness We Have No Choice

When you are not in your body, you are dissociated.

Through transformation, the nervous system regains its capacity for self-regulation. Our emotions begin to lift us up rather than bring us down. They propel us into the exhilarating ability to soar and fly, giving us a more complete view of our place in nature. Our perceptions broaden to encompass a receptivity and acceptance of what is, without judgment. We are able to learn from our life experiences. Without trying to forgive, we understand that there is no blame. We often obtain a surer sense of self while becoming more resilient and spontaneous. This new self-assuredness allows us to re-lax, enjoy, and live life more fully. We become more in tune with the passionate and ecstatic dimensions of life.