Sunday, February 18, 2018

Put yourself where Tiger can find you


Hunting Power

You say you are hunting your power
But your power is hunting you.
I’ll go up to the mountain, you say.
I’ll fast and live on seaweed
I’ll hang myself on a meat-hook
Under the hot sun. I’ll give up sex
And wine and my sense of humor.
What are you thinking of?
For you to go hunting your power
Is as smart as the mouse hunting the cat.

Go out in the garden any night
Step one inch outside the tame land
And you are near what you seek.
Open the window of your soul
Any night and your guide may come in.
The issue is whether you’ll run away
When you see what it is. To make sure
You succeed, tether yourself like a goat
At the edge of the tiger wood that breathes
Right beside your bed. He’ll come.



This poem is in my collection Here, Everything Is Dreaming: Poems and Stories by Robert Moss. Published by Excelsior/State University of New York Press.


Drawing by Robert Moss

2 comments:

Sarah Wallin said...

I am so thankful to have learned this wisdom from you that the BIG stories are hunting us and that what we seek is also seeking us. It has had a meteoric impact in my life, literally and figuratively. This wisdom has led me on incredible adventures in my daily life. I have experienced some very powerful synchronicities in connection with the Orion constellation which have naturally made me feel like Orion, the hunter, hunted me. These synchronicities were a string of events that occurred in October 2011 and they continue to blow my mind. One of the experiences I had was witnessing a fireball meteor flying high in the sky directly over my house and it came from the direction of Orion. I didn't sleep a wink this night because I was so filled with excitement and awe! Through the power of these synchronicities I feel a deep remembering about the stars and especially Orion. This makes me think of a line from Kahlil Gibran's poem 'The Prophet': "And I hunted only your larger selves that walk the sky."

Steve said...

Thank you for that poem Robert! I need constant reminders. I seem to slip into the trap of thinking that I'm hunting my power when what I really need to be doing is gaining the presence/courage to allow myself to be hunted without running away. The next layer is to give myself the space and the willingness to allow myself to remember rather than burying the experience to escape the fear of where it might lead me.

Two nights ago in the dream world I was walking down a golden sunny suburban sidewalk and a blue jay feather hunted me. It landed right in my hand and I didn't even know it was coming until I felt it and raised my palm to see what it was. Perhaps that feather is a tiger or some other fearsome creature in disguise. Or perhaps it's really a blue jay feather with the power to take me just as a tiger would!