The Little Tiger’s Roar

Based on a fable told
by the 19^th Century Hindu saint, Sri Ramakrishna

One day a hungry, mother tiger came down from the snowy mountain to a green valley to search for food. She hid behind a large boulder, a tiger cub at her side, and waited for a family of goats to come near.

The unsuspected goats with their bearded heads were nibbling grass as they came close to the boulder. Suddenly the mother tiger let out a roar and chased after them. The terrified goats cried out, “baaah,baaah, baaah” , as they ran away.

The mother tiger pursued the goats only a short distance before she stumbled and fell to the ground. Weakened by hunger, she had used her last strength and now was dead.

The little tiger called out when his mother did not return to the boulder. The goats heard his helpless crying  and had compassion. They approached the little tiger and one of the mother goats fed her milk to the little tiger. And so the little tiger came to live among the goats of the green valley. And as you might expect the goats taught the little tiger their own ways. They taught  him to nibble grass like a goat, and bleat like a goat instead of roar like a tiger, and eat juicy red meat.

One day another tiger came down from the snowy mountain to the green valley. This was a father tiger and he did not hide behind the boulder. He let out a great roar and the goats ran away; all ran away except the little tiger. He had some bit of tiger courage in his heart and he stood tall before the ferocious tiger.

“What is this”, said the big tiger, “a tiger living among goats?”

“Baah, baah, baah”, said the little tiger to the big tiger.

“What is this”, said the big, father tiger, “a tiger that speaks like a goat? This cannot be. I will show you that you are not a goat.” The father tiger picked up the tiger cub by the scruff of the neck and carried him to a pool of water.

“Now look into the water”, said the father tiger, “do you not see two faces, both with black and yellow stripes, long whiskers and sharp, pointed teeth?”

The little tiger looked into the water. He looked at the big tiger, but again he said, “baah, baah, baah”.

The big tiger was not discouraged by the little tiger’s response. “I will yet teach you to speak like a tiger”. Again he picked up the little tiger by the scruff of the neck and now he carried him up the snow mountain to a dark cave where he had stored juicy, red meat that he liked best to eat. He offered a bit of the red meat to the little tiger, but the little tiger was used to eating grass like the goats. He did not want to taste the meat.

“No, no, no”, said the great, father tiger patiently, “you must taste it”.   Now the father tiger put a piece of the juicy, red meat into the little tiger’s mouth.

The little tiger tasted the meat and he liked it. He ate one, two, three, four, five pieces of meat! Then for the first time, the little tiger felt a new feeling come into his belly. This feeling rose up through his chest, and suddenly there came from him a great, loud, tiger roar!

So the story tells us, the young tiger cub discovered his true voice. From that day he lived happily on the snowy mountain and never went back down to the green valley.

That Elusive, Path of Life

     It is three full weeks since I had my knee replacement surgery. This was an elective
surgery. I chose the hospital, the surgeon, and the date for the procedure. For the most part, the event came off as planned. As I imagined this event in my life, I figured it was a good time to reflect on the path of life that lies ahead of me. I figured that I would be confined to the house and unable to move about easily; it would be time to contemplate instead of being active.

      The reality, as you might expect, has been different from the imagined experience. First, I was in the hospital for only three days. The day of the operation they had me
out of bed and starting to walk. The second day I began physical therapy for the repaired knee. Since the operation, I have spent two to three hours in therapy each day.  Because I am lucky to have many people in my life, friends and family, I have spent one to two hours each day either entertaining visitors, talking on the phone or communicating by email. Because I thought I was going to be bored during my recuperation, I prepared a special project for the down time; I purchased a digital scanner to convert old slides to a digital format for sharing family history.

     There has not been much time for contemplation and reflection on the path of life. I
guess in one way this is good, I have not felt a tinge of boredom. My knee now has good extension, nearly one hundred and eighty degrees; when I bend the knee I can go twenty degrees past the ninety degrees in a sitting position. I know that friends and family care about me, that is certainly uplifting. And now more than five hundred slides have either been scanned or pitched into the trash.  I have been busy as a beaver, but my path of life is as confusing as ever!

This brings me to my one reflection that I have contemplated over the past four weeks: the path of  life cannot be charted on a map like a trip from New York to Los Angeles. The best we can hope for is that we periodically look down at our feet and sense the path is still there. The direction into the future is always fraught with poorly conceived plans and misdirected hopes and wishes. Looking backward is sometimes helpful, we can appreciate our successes in life despite the false starts and bad decisions made along the way. If we are blessed then we have learned the benefit of grace that picks us up when we fall down and allows us to start over no matter how many times we fail in living the life we have planned.

Speaking of failures, I see that the month of June passed without my completing the promised monthly entry. This month of July I will avail myself of a little grace to try again to produce two entries, one will be a good story for reading.

THE WEN, adapted from a traditional tale

Long ago there lived a  man much like you and I except that his visions of the soul took on flesh and blood form. The man was quite handsome in his youth and known to be light a foot, but as he grew older an ugly wen appeared on his face. Now this wen grew quite large over several years. He went to a healer who provided potions that were supposed to reduce the size of the wen, but nothing helped. At last the man resigned himself to living with his wen and even began telling stories about it. This is one of his wen stories.

One day the man went into the forest to cut wood for the coming winter. It was a sunny, autumn day. He enjoyed his work and did not notice a storm gathering in the west. When the first drops of rain fell, he looked up and saw the dark clouds and heard a rumble of thunder. He immediately looked about for shelter. He looked to the west, north and south, not even a charcoal burners hut was in sight. Lastly he turned to the east and saw the dark entrance to a cave.

The storm was powerful and long. It was almost evening when it had run its course. The man came out of the cave and was about to set out for home when he heard the sounds of voices, loud voices laughing and singing. The man was terrified because he knew the forest was home to demons, goblins and witches. Quickly he gathered his wood ran back to the dark cave.

Sure enough up the path came the most horrifying band of demons; some giant in size and others smaller than a human. Some had overgrown  ears, one had three eyes, another had two left feet. All had hairy hands with great, long fingernails that had never been cut. And more than one had a sizable wen attached to his or her cheek!

To the horror of the man, the band of demons came directly to the cave and entered it. The man left his wood and retreated to the dark recess of the cave where he hid behind a ledge of rock. The leader of demons immediately spotted the dry firewood.  “Well now”, he said in a deep and sonorous voice, “the gods have provided for our fire.” Soon a fire was built, meat was cooked and several jugs of wine were passed among the demons. Then a fiddler stood up and started to play. He played vigorously as several demons got up and started to dance around the fire. For the a long while, the man was so stricken by fear that he hid his face in his hands and did not look at the intruders.

Now the man was wise enough to know that he could not ignore the presence of the demons in his life. He must face his worst fear. Slowly he spread his fingers and looked at  the site before him. Fearsome shadows danced on the ceiling of the cave as the demons moved awkwardly around the fire. The demon with two left feet stumbled as he tried to keep time to the music. Another demon, with a large wen that she balanced with her hairy hands, nearly fell into the fire. Suddenly, the leader of the demons cried out, “You are all awful, is there no one here who can dance properly?” All the of demons stopped their merrymaking and looked at their leader.

The man respond to the challenge by saying to himself, “I could teach them a thing or two, but if he does not like my dancing, he will surely kill me!”

When no one responded to the challenge, the music started again. And again, the clumsy dancing followed. It lasted only a couple of minutes before a large, rotund demon stumbled and fell into the arms of the leader of the demons. Freeing himself from a tangle of hairy arms and legs the leader again cried out, “You are all awful, is there no one here who can dance properly?”

The man shook his head in agreement and said cautiously, “I could teach them a thing or two….but if he does not like my dancing, he might kill me.”

When no one answered the challenge a second time, the music started up again, but lasted only a few moments before the leader stood up and cried out a third time, “you are all awful, is there no one here who can dance properly?”

This time the man threw caution to the wind and stepped out from his hiding place and started dancing around the fire. He knew that his life depended on his dancing well, so he put his whole heart and soul into every step, and he enjoyed himself immensely!

At first the demons were scandalized at having a human in their midst, but soon they recognized his skill and began to imitate his dance steps. When the man was exhausted, there was a round of applause and a cup of wine was brought to him. The leader of the demons cried out, “indeed, you do know how to dance properly! You must return tomorrow and teach us more of your dancing!”

“I would love to”, answered the exhausted man.

“You cannot trust a human”, called one of the demons, “make him guarantee his return.”

The leader shook his head in agreement. He frowned just a moment, then a smile lighted his face as he thought of a proper guarantee. With his sharp, long fingernails the leader of the demons reached over and plucked the wen from the man’s face as easily as you might pick a ripe peach from a tree in midsummer. For you see among demons every blemish is treasured more than a king’s ransom!

It is said after that night long ago, in that place far away where vision of the soul took flesh and blood form, the man danced happily with his demons many times until his time on this earth was finished.

The Ten Year Old Teacher

People,mostly adults, think you have to old to be a teacher: the longer you live, the more you have to teach those who are younger. I don’t think that is true. I think everyone, kids and adults, are always learners and teachers. Let me tell you three stories that prove my point.

When I was three years old I lived in an apartment near Princeton, New Jersey with my Mon and Dad. My Mom worked in a hospital in that town and my Dad went to school
there.  One day my Dad and I went to town to pick up my Mom from work. We were early so my Dad took me to the graveyard in town. He liked to read the dates and names on the old tombstones. I was bored and thought that was dumb, so I started to explore; you know climbing on the tombstones and jumping off them. I remember rubbing my hands over the
tombstones, some were rough and some were smooth. When I got tired I lay down on the ground to watch an ant climbing on a tombstone.

It was just at that moment my Dad called out, “Matthew, where are you?”

I popped my head up, “Here I am.”

“Don’t go far, you don’t want to get lost”, he said as he went back to reading a tombstone.

I thought, “that sounds like a fun game”. I jumped up and ran to hide behind another tombstone.

Soon I heard my Dad call again, “Matthew, where are you?”

This time I did not answer. When he looked the other way, I got up and ran to hide behind a really big tombstone; it was like a little house. I couldn’t stop my self, I started to giggle.

“Matthew are you playing games with me?”

I giggled again and ran to hide behind another big tombstone. This time my Dad saw me and came running after me. Finally, he got the idea. That day we started our game, Lost and Found, and we played it many times in the Princeton graveyard when we had to wait for my Mom to finish work.

Teaching my Dad to play was not easy; he was always busy with thinking too much. When my Mom worked evenings at the hospital, my Dad and I would go for a walk along the canal that ran past the apartments. One afternoon we were walking along the canal, and as usual my Dad was thinking. He did not talk to me. He did not stop to look at interesting things along the way. I could not be like him. I was too curious. I saw this tree that had bark that you could peel off real easy. I learned the name of the tree later, it is called a Shag Bark Hickory. I peeled off some bark and took it over to the canal.

My Dad kept walking and thinking until he realized I was not by his side. He turned and saw me bending over the water in the canal. “Matthew, what are you doing? You could fall in the canal and drown!”

Parents, they always imagine the worst. I was not going to fall into the canal. I was making a Tubby the Tugboat and setting it off to sail to the ocean. I always liked that book.

My Dad came running back to where I was still kneeling over the water. He called out, “What are you doing? You are going to get dirty, and you could kill that tree”!

I did not say anything. I just went back and got another piece of bark from the tree. This time I picked up a fallen leaf from the tree and started to make a sail for my boat. When I was three I understood it was better to teach by example rather than by words. And I will say this for my Dad, if you could stop him from thinking, he did know how to play. We made a whole lot of boats that afternoon and told stories of their adventures going down to the sea. We did get pretty dirty. I hope we did not hurt that tree too much.

As I said teaching my Dad to play was not easy, but sometimes you play too much without any enough thinking. I learned that lesson. One evening my Mom was working at the hospital, and my Dad and I were at home alone. He was trying to study and I needed some action. I think it was a cold winter day and I had not been outside to play. I was running around the apartment with a whiffle bat and hitting things, I was pretending to kill bad guys. You know, whacking things like the sofa and chairs. Finally, my Dad hollered my name and told me to stop making so much noise. I ignored him. He hollered again, so I went into the bedroom, closed the door, and started to whack the bed as I continued my imaginary battle with an army of bad guys.

I was running back and forth in the bedroom when my Dad lost his temper. He came running into the bedroom screaming at me just as I came near to the door. He shoved the door open and I ran head first into the edge of the door. Next thing I knew I was on the floor with warm, red stuff, blood in my eyes. My Dad was crying and apologizing as he picked me up from the floor. I was scared, but I was thinking clearly enough to suggest that he called for an ambulance. I remember thinking while we waited for the ambulance, “what if all of the blood runs out of my head, will I be dead when it is all gone?” I was scared until I got to the hospital emergency room where my Mom was waiting for me.

My Dad and I both learned a lesson that night. He learned not to lose his temper. When you are big and strong, you can hurt a kid pretty easy, even though you do not mean to hurt him. I learned that I could get hurt, I could even die. I also learned that you cannot just do what you want to do without thinking of others.

There is a funny addition to this story. About a year ago my Dad and I were catching a baseball in the backyard. I threw the ball a little too high, it hit the branch of a tree and ricocheted toward my Dad. The ball hit him in the eye. He had to go the hospital and get stitches. Now we both have eighteen stitches in our heads!

My Dad and I have had some pretty good adventures together, and I have done my best to teach him how to be a kid again. I think I have done a pretty good job. You know what my Dad does to make money, now that he is finished with going to school? He tells stories to kids in school. I figure what I have taught him is just as important as anything he learned in that school in Princeton, New Jersey.

Gathering Stories while we can…

 

     We have found a tiny crack in the wall separating us from paradise, and we peer, with eager, shining eyes like children, always seeking. (Robin Moore)

     Last evening I visited Ruby. She was recovering from the flu. After two days of vomiting and diarrhea when she could barely raise her head from the pillow, she was now sitting upright in bed and intent on sharing an amazing experience. Without waiting for me to pull my chair up to her bedside, she launched into her story.

     She said: I was lying here looking at a picture on the wall. It was a picture of a woman. She looked at me and smiled. I saw her lips move, but she did not say a word. Then the wall where the picture of the woman was hanging started to move. The whole side of my room opened up and I could look up. I don’t know how high I could see, maybe seventy feet, maybe higher.

     I asked: what could you see up there?

     She said: It was gray up there. Maybe I could see all the way up to the sky. I never knew that was behind the wall.

     As she spoke, I could see that she was looking at the corner of her room where the ceiling and the wall met.

     She said: they really did a good job of putting the room back together. You can hardly see where it opened up. I sure didn’t know that was behind the wall. It is really big out there!

     During this time I had several mental responses to our conversation. At first I thought of saying: oh mother, you’re just hallucinating from being sick. I did not. I could see she truly believed in the reality of what she had experienced. I thought: she is more animated and full of life than I have seen her in a long time. Then I reminded myself: you have spent your life creating imagined worlds and sharing them with audiences. Ruby looks like a person who has just experienced a good story.

     By this time the moment had passed. The animation in Ruby’s face was gone. We returned to the everyday. We talked about how she was feeling, the story of my day and the health problems of my sister. We did not return to the wonder of what might be on the other side of that wall.

     The above story opens a journal where I recorded the relationship between myself and my mother for a period of more than a year (2009-2010). This journal tells the story of Ruby’s descent in dementia. Today, Ruby cannot complete a thought.

    

Reading the Tea Leaves

     Recently my wife, Nancy, and I were returning from Maine on Sunday evening of a holiday weekend. Traffic on the New York Truway was heavy. At one point on the highway we found ourselves on the crest of a hill looking down into a valley. Like a great undulating serpant we could see the line of red tailights stretching down into the valley and up a distant hill. The brake lights brightened and then disappeared as drivers applied their brakes and then accelerated again as the traffic picked up speed. From our position I imagined the ripple of brake lights as a shiver going through the great beast.

     I understood the shiver of bright lights because I was part of the beast. I was driving back to belly with a line of cars in the left lane. Our speed changed minute by minute as the line of cars seemed bunch up and then miraciously find open space again. One minute I was driving sixty miles an hour and the next I was braking back to twenty miles an hour. There seemed no reason for this traffic pattern; there were no accidents, no cars pulled over to the side of the road, it was simply the way the great beast lurched forward, slowly carrying all of us back to New York City, New Jersey and a few on to Pennsylvania.

     Nancy and I had started our day driving leisurely across southern New Hampshire and Vermont. We explored several towns and stopped in Bennington for a late lunch. It was past three in the afternoon when we joined a line of skiers leaving Vermont and entering New York state.  By the time we found our way to the New York Thruway it was dark. I was tired but not exhausted by the day’s activities.

     By the time I found myself part of the undulating serpent I knew it was time to concentrate and focus on survival. I have always felt comfortable driving in high speed traffic on the interstate highway. I positioned myself in the left lane and battled with the drivers trying to cut in front of me. All was fine for half an hour and then I noticed that the brake lights in front of me were becoming fuzzy. I was having a hard time telling if I was seeing seeing tail lights or braking lights. This made it difficult to judge the distance between myself and the car in front of me. Was it slowing down or accelerating? Finally I said to myself: “hey fellow, you should not be driving in the left hand lane!” I moved over to the right lane and dropped in behind a big truck that was not yo-yoing his speed like the demons in the left lane. Nancy and I arrived home a little later than we might have on another trip, but perhaps a little wiser.

     I went to bed exhausted, but as I was drifting off to sleep, I suddenly opened my eyes and turned in bed to face Nancy. I said: “you know that was crazy of me to drive in that traffic this evening. I could have got us both killed!” She agreed and said that it would not have been any easier for her to drive in it. We agreed that we need to plan in the future to not be forced to drive in similar circumstances. We do not have to stay at home, but when we travel we need to remember that we do not have the same abilities that we had twenty years ago.

     The next morning a dream was clear in my memory. In the dream I found myself on top of a mountain and the only way down was a steep rock face. There was a member of my family there who suggested I could descend the mountain by laying down and rolling over the edge of the  steep rock face. I went to edge and looked down from the mountain. It looked really dangerous to me. Then I noticed that there a kind of chair lift installed on the mountain for carrying the young and very old up and down the mountain. In the dream I decided I would use the chair lift!

     This dream confirmed my unconscious being in agreement with the wiser side of my conscious mind.  It is time to understand that I have to change the way I do many things in my life. I do not have to give them up, but I will have to make adjustments for my age.

Becoming Whole

          Once upon a time, not so long ago, there lived a man who was not so different from you and I; well, that is if you are over sixty-five with graying hair, wrinkles and an ample belly. The man in our story lived a good life. He had a wife, a true partner for life. He had children and grandchildren who loved him. He had a fine home and enough wealth to be comfortable. He was a respected member of his community and he gave of his time and wealth to those who had less than himself. By all observable measure of a human life he should have been happy; and he was happy, but in some way, some how, there was some thing missing from his life.
     One day the man decided it was time to consider this question of the thing that was missing from his life. Slowly he started to make changes in his life. He found a way to work less at earning a living. He took time to sit quietly and listen to the music that stirred his heart. Contemplation replaced action in his daily life. Slowly, ever so slowly, he began to explore the eternal questions that humans have considered since the beginning of human consciousness: Who am I? Why was I put on this earth? What will happen to me when I die?
     One night the man had this dream. He sat on a great rock by the side of a flowing river. He saw that the water sparkled with every color of the rainbow. As he contemplated the beautiful water, he heard the sound of a walking stick: a tap, tap, tapping on the rock as a someone approached him. As the tapping came closer he heard the rustling of a long satin cloak and he smelled a sweet aromatic scent that seemed to come from the Garden of Eden. The man did not turn his head from the flowing river.

      “Peace be upon you”, said the visitor.

      “And upon you the same”, said the man.
      “Do you know who I am”, inquired the visitor to his dream.
     The man pondered until this thought came to his dream consciousness…he is the one who turns the thoughts of God to humans and the thoughts of humans to God… he answered, “yes, you are Elijah the prophet, the one who intercedes between God and humans.”
     “You are right”, said the visitor, “I am Elijah, and I have been sent here for a very special purpose. God has heard the questions on your heart and in your mind. Because you have lived a life of love for family and your fellow humans less fortunate than yourself, you will be granted the answer to one question. What question is most in need of an answer?”
     The man thought of the questions he had considered in his time of contemplation…Who am I? Am I simply human, or is there a spark of the divine in me? Why was I put on this earth? Is there something I am still to do in my life? And what happens to me when I die? Which question was most important he could not decide. The man sighed as he considered which question was most important.
     The prophet Elijah smiled kindly as he considered the man’s dilemma. Finally, the prophet spoke again, “I can see that this is a difficult decision, one not easily made. Think about it for some time and I will return another night to your dreams”.
Then the man heard the rustling of the long satin cloak as Elijah rose to go. He heard the tap, tap, tapping of the walking stick going off into the distance. But the smell, like a mix of all of the scents from the Garden of Eden, seemed to linger in the bedroom after the man woke from his dream. In the early morning light he lay in bed still pondering the questions.
     Now the man and his wife had a habit of sharing dreams when they woke each morning. As they lay together that early morning the man told his wife of his dream. Eagerly he asked her advise on which question he should ask.
     “Do not worry my wonderful husband”, said the wife, “all will be for the best. The day is before us. Our grandchildren are coming for a visit. Let’s share our precious time with them in play and enjoying a good meal. Questions of the night can wait until the night returns”. So the man and his wife gave themselves over to the events of the day and neither thought for one moment on the question for God.
     That night while the man was brushing his teeth before going to bed, his wife came to him and she whispered in his ear. He smiled and said, “What a treasure I have in you! That is exactly the question to ask. You have found the perfect way to phrase it; now, if only I can remember it when I have fallen asleep”. As he lay in bed waiting for sleep to come, the man repeated the question over and over.
     It was not long before the man found himself by the stream of water again, and seated on the same great rock. He watched the beautiful, splashing water that shone with every color of the rainbow. And again he heard the tap, tap, tapping of the walking stick on the rock. He heard the rustling of the long, satin cloak, and there was the scent from the Garden of Eden. Elijah, the prophet, came and sat down next to him.
     “Peace be upon you”, said the prophet.
     “And upon you the same”, said the man.
     For a long period of dream-time, the man and the prophet sat beside the beautiful flowing river. Then Elijah spoke , “well, now it is time. I can grant only one question. Which will it be?”
     The man hesitated for a moment. He took a deep breath and he remembered in his dream world the words of his wise wife, “Is it possible, that is, may God grant, can you please tell me the story of my life: who am I, and why was I put on this earth, and what will happen when I die? If it pleases God, can you tell me the whole story of my life?”
     For a moment all was silent except for the sound of the beautiful flowing water. Then Elijah threw back his head and began to laugh. He said: “I can see that you managed to get all of your questions into one! God is enjoying this just as much as I am. And I am certain that God will see to it that the whole of your life will be revealed to you.”
     The man smiled as he heard the rustling of the satin robe and the tap, tap, tapping of the walking stick going off into the distance. But the smell, like the scent from the Garden of Eden, that sweet smell lingered after the man awoke in the early morning light from his dream.
     It is said that after Elijah’s visit, the man never lost the scent from the Garden of Eden,  and he never lost his passion to understand and communciate the sense of wholeness he experienced in his life. May the prophet Elijah visit your dreams this very night to hear your question for God… Peace be upon you.