Our newest design just arrived, and dare I say, we are obsessed! As with all of my other designs, I was feeling inspired by the tiger, but wasn’t sure why. So just went with it. I do this in order to not feel overly influenced by what I read about an animal. Once finished I explore the significance of the tiger as a totem animal, its characteristics, and how different cultures revere them. As usual, this animal strikes a cord. Symbolism of the tiger includes courage, personal strength, and willpower. Now I am sure we could all use a touch of that am I right?!  I think of these as the primary symbolism. Then when I go deeper, into that there is so much more to what each of those can really mean in life. I will also say that I think of all of the totem animals that come to me as ultimately positive. Although there can be negative connotations with any animal that are conjured up, usually that is just to show us something we need to see and face.

When it comes to courage and my own strength the tiger is ideal. Over the past year I personally have been dealing with the recovery from an intense birth of my second child and emotionally and physically recovering from my cancer surgery. These two things have created the intense anxiety and depression. And during all this I have been watching my dad go through his chemotherapy for his cancer.  The crazy thing is these merely scratch (bad pun intended) the surface of the crazy I feel that keeps popping up and we are only half way through the year. So yeah,  phew…ok give me all the tiger possible.

This also happens to be the year of the tiger in the Chinese Zodiac! There is so much to know here, and I don’t even know where to start, so check out this awesome link to more on the Year of the Tiger.