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Once upon a trauma . . .

Go where it is quiet.
Get where it is still.
Touch where primal instinct wills
your body to fight or flight;
regardless detail, this dynamic plight
has triggered a process eons old--
archetypal icon stories to mold
and ceaselessly shape your character
from then through now.
Seeming pretentious . . .
you've forgotten somehow
that the blood of your ancestors
runs hot through your veins;
in you their ageless legacies remain
of risking it all for primordial fire,
rekindled once more now
waking the Tiger
to insure tomorrow's generation survives
FEEL the adrenaline rush--you are alive!

The challenge--to crouch
within appropriate bounds--
to couch your stalking
and gutturral sounds
in pillows for pounding
or free-flowing tears;
modes to abate our societies fears--
Yet, let "should" not entrap
Nature's high reverie,
embrace carpe diem;
let your Tiger run free.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

My inspiration for this is three-fold:

First, acknowledging credit, "Waking the Tiger,"
is the title, and the subject of a book by Dr. Stephen Levine, which is included in my studies of trauma resolution, instructed by Dr. William Emerson, my current mentor. Next, I believe that the lack of effective ways to
allow our pervasive stress responses to physiologically come to fulfilled completion in the body leaves chemical build-ups that lend to psychological and emotional pain and challenges.
Second: I NEARLY got a speeding ticket this morning that drove my tiger wild! (Blessings to the officer who warned me instead.) I cannot howl and pound and run wild at work--so I did this instead.