Hola dear friends!

The Caribbean is simply paradise.  Life in Santa Fe was questionable at best, as you may recall.  Smile.

I know its been too long.  But life has been quite incredible and requested my sincere attention.  Many changes, transformations and blessings as well as blissings. 

I trust all my friends have been well and are well.  Know I have missed you all and thought of you regularly.  My 2500 messages tell me you were quite present while I was away.  Please let me know how you are, HOWEVER.

Since my book will be released soon and BBB still demands attention, I ask you not email me anything other than personal emails.

Feel free to visit bodybybliss.com or bodybyblissmedia.com for additional information.  Book will have its own site as well I believe.

Thank you again for all your support, love and grace.  YOU ARE THE BEST.

Much love and light, Ani

Enjoy with all your heart! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aubF7v-MlMM Blissings, Ani

Taia and the Grey Lynx

Early dusk was upon us in northern New Mexico.  Christmas night is quiet and cold.  It had snowed most of the day.  The waning full moon shimmered on the fresh snow, giving it a bluish hue, and sense of silence, of peace.   Taia, my five month old kitten, bold, fresh and fearless as a Rocky Mountain storm, darted out the side porch door into the night, quicker than anyone could imagine catching her.  Straight up into the forest behind the house she ran; her predator instinct strong, wild. 

Robert, my friend, dashed off to find her as I came back into the house to complete a Christmas day’s work.  Suddenly, I hear a pounding sound.  I look to see Robert motioning me through the window to come outside.  I rush to the side porch, forgetting my coat, still in my shearling slippers, and hear him holler as I join him, “Look it’s a bobcat.  I think it got Taia.” 

My heart leapt for a moment, but only for a moment.   I knew Taia.  She is a warrior Goddess, tough, agile, quick and entirely relentless.  However, as I looked straight into the eyes of this beautiful, wild cat, I saw the grey lynx had claimed her right to our property, to our land, to her meal, to her very Being.  Sternly, I called to her to “Go away.”  She stared knowingly at me, as our eyes locked.  The lynx was going nowhere.  She was not leaving.  She was unafraid, yet cautious.  She was waiting.  The wild cat was waiting in the cold Christmas night, listening, watching, feeling.

Robert told me to get a flashlight to expose her more.  She was only 20 or so feet away from us.  I ran back into the house to get the very, very heavy flashlight, a weighty beacon that could be used for light as well as protection.  She is a wild cat I thought, capable, very capable of leaping at either Robert or me, within a split second.   The light should deter her; cause her to abandon her claim on us, on Taia, my sweet, robust kitten. 

As Robert shone the light on the lynx, her striking grey, striped and spotted, silky, thick coat, and sharply focused amber eyes stole my breath from me.  How beautiful I felt her to be.  Stunning, magnificent, daring and still, so still.  She is completely Self, utterly connected.  She is so wholly alive.  She lives her life in this very moment - moment to moment - knowing precisely what, how, where and why - without thought, without mind, without logic, with only flawless knowing of herself.   It would be a sacred gift to have her take our kitten as a meal I suddenly felt.  But no…not Taia.  She will not be the meal of a grey lynx nor of any predator.   ”GO AWAY,” I shouted loudly and intensely at her, raising my arms in the freezing night air, as Robert continued to shine light on her.  Reluctantly, slightly defeated, she looked one last time at me.  She then started to walk slowly, slowly, slowly, away, up into the snowy woods, into the moonlit, bitter night.

As she retreated, Robert and I looked for Taia with the flashlight illuming the bluish night snows under the trees.  She is gone.  The paw marks of a slight struggle with the wild cat was all we could see.  Taia escaped the paws of a hungry bobcat, living how many years in these grand mesas, these rocky mountains, by this still lake, in these thick woods, on prey smaller and larger than my baby.   My little five month-old kitten had escaped death, somehow.   But Taia was hurt.  I felt her pain ripple through me as I looked into the dark, silent, winter night. 

The cat-door!   I ran into the house and unlocked the cat-door.  I knew Taia would run to its safety, to the protection of a warm, loving home.  I knew her little heart.  Within only a few moments of searching for her, I looked again at the cat-door through the bedroom window, and there is was: evidence of the encounter.  Blood drops trailed from the cat door onto the bedroom floor, into the living room, and finally came to rest under the white sofa, at one of  Taia’s favorite sleeping spots.  Here I thought, as I gently placed my hand under the sofa, searching for her deep coat, she feels close to me as I lounge watching television some evenings, after a day of writing, of consulting, of mediation, of wonder, of joy. 

Her body is still.  I softly call her name and gently pull her from under the sofa.  The damage appears immense.  The entire right side of her precious little head is swollen to almost twice its normal size, and she’s bleeding.  Her right eye is bleeding.  I can barely see straight.  Yet, curiously I am calm, knowing Taia so well, her will to survive, to live wholly, will never allow her anything but complete recovery.  She has been this way since she was eight weeks old - always ardent for life, for all of life.  No pieces or slices for Taia.  All or nothing at all.  And right now it’s all!!!!   

Robert brings a towel to wrap and hold her as I prepare hydrogen peroxide and water to tend her wounds.  She is stunned, shocked, angry, not really in herself, I see as I sit on the guest bathroom floor with Robert and begin to touch her wounds.  I apply topical antibiotic on her eye and head wounds, now both gaping.  If only her eye is untouched Goddess I pray.  Please let her eye survive wholly, I pray, talking to her sweetly as I again spot her wounds with a washcloth drenched in antiseptic.  Her blood covers the bathroom floor, the white towel, her beautiful white and speckled coat, but only in spots, much like the grey lynx’s spots.  Has she taken some of the soul of the wild cat with her - or is it the other way around?   Taia looks into my eyes, searching.  She doesn’t ask why. 

According to Native American lore, and the work of Ted Andrews, the bobcat, or grey lynx, as it is commonly known in the Northern United States, is the keeper of silence, of secrets.  Often it’s simply called the “wild cat.”  A solitary animal, a lynx is quite happy being alone, without feeling lonely.  I could feel this in her as we stared into each other’s eyes for those fleeting moments.  She (I call her she because somehow that’s how I felt her) was downright happy being alone. 

And what a funny tail she had - quite cute!  Tails are always quite symbolic and have a long connection with sexual energies and kundalini, or energy that lies dormant at the base of the spine until activated, as by the practice of yoga, and channeled upward through the chakras in the process of spiritual perfection.  The bobcat’s tail is significant, according to Native American tradition and mythology.  The tail or the tail end is the seat of the life force in all beings.  The tip of the bobcat’s tail is black, and it’s underneath side is usually white, a contrast reflecting the ability to turn on and off the creative force as needed.  The kundalini creative force the Hindu’s named and claimed.  Bobcat medicine is this medicine - the ability to work exquisitely with divine creative energies.  I am in the process of creating many new aspects of my life, of myself, my Being.  My own ability to work gracefully with divine creation is deeply founded and real.  Its manifest in so many projects, all juicy, alive and filled with grace, power and beauty, from the seat of my very joyous soul. 

The lynx’s tail also links it to forms of sexual magic and mysticism.  I once had an email address called “bluelynxbliss,” that preceded the naming of my company BodyByBliss ^TM by more than almost ten years.  What a "bluelynxbliss" night this has been!  And I am - Goddess grace - naturally tantric.  According to Ted Andrew’s incredible work, using the cloak of darkness, of secrecy, the lynx or bobcat, can teach us how to project and utilize the life force in silent but powerful ways.  The lynx’s magic is most powerful when others are unaware of it.  Speaking of it dissipates its power - maybe I shouldn’t publish this article?  “For those with this totem, learning how to speak, how much and to whom, will be essential.” - Ted Andrews, “Animal Speak.”  Maybe I should finish my writing NOW!!!!!!

The keen sight of the grey lynx, their sensitive whiskers, and tufted ears, according to Andrews, make it one of the most superb nighttime hunters.  Ahhh to see through the dark to the light!   The lynx speaks to our effectiveness at night, and this characteristic has been also linked to most of the predominant psychic arts.  Hum, I have been exceptionally psychic since birth, but feel my skills fine-tuning and increasing exponentially as my “Crone” self emerges.   A bobcat’s eyes will allow it to see that which is hidden or concealed.  Ahhh….the deep, deep diving into my different layers of consciousness to which I find myself sacredly committed!  And the animal’s radar-like whiskers give it a kind of psychometry, or the ability to perceive impressions through objects.  Been there, done that on occasion.  Tufted-ears are connected to clairaudience and to hearing what is not said.   I have nothing to write about that ability.  Some secrets always shall remain so. 

According to Andrews, individuals with the lynx or bobcat as a totem animal find others around them uncomfortable.  “They will know you can see what they’re not showing and hear what they’re not saying.”  These skills are the skills of a dynamic counselor.  Look for that which is hidden, if a lynx comes into your life.  You will find.  Not all appears at it seems.  Look, really look.  Trust your own senses, as this regal bobcat trusted hers, so fully, so deftly.    Meditate on being alone, abundantly alone, self-sufficient, without need or want.  Know when to be alone, when to be social.  Gift yourself with yourself, your true Self.  As Andrews writes: Ask yourself: are you being too solitary, or not alone enough?  Do you need new learning opportunities?  Are you or those around you being secretive, discreet or wildly dissipating or indiscreet?  Are you trusting your inner most senses, your divine, natural instincts?  Are you allowing outer appearances to affect you?  Look, listen and know as the lynx does - true power and strength come through silence.

Taia is on the mend, but looking a bit like “Franken-Kitty” still.  So... “America’s Next Top Model” in some circles, I suppose.  She has learned her lesson, I feel, about the hierarchy of predators, and how being too bold for your britches doesn’t work well in the natural world, in the world of Real Being, of Real Self.   As I tend her wounds twice daily now Taia gifts me with kisses that only a bobcat smacked kitten can - of vast, yawning luscious love and gratitude. 

And the grey lynx: she was spotted only yesterday morning, as I wrote and looked out onto the wintry lake and North New Mexican mesas.  She was charging swiftly toward her prey on the snow-covered banks of Lake El Vado.  She is living HERSELF fully.

Blissed be, Ani  (Goddess at Play)