Last night I dreamed I was carrying a white tiger, past the age of being a cub but not yet grown. Her back legs dangled over my side body, toward my bum. Her front legs were more stiff and nestled in my arms. I don’t know where we were walking, but I’ve walked through it in a dream before, a dark park, with other people moving around us, as if we were elves headed to the Grey Havens, but much more ordinary, far less elegant.

Except me and my white tiger. We were elegant. I think she was afraid, she didn’t want to leave me.

As we headed toward an opening, guided by a kind and beautiful moon, she slipped from my arms and entered the water of a saltwater lake in front of us. The lake was ethereally lit with bioluminescence, and I was fascinated when I followed her in, the skirt of my dress billowing like the tail of a betta fish.

A woman tells me to watch out, there’s a tiger in the water, and I say that I know. She’s my tiger. But she says, “No, there’s a much bigger one swimming in there.”

I look closely at the glowing water until I spot her, moving steadily, unmistakably orange and giant and threatening compared to my smaller friend. I grow afraid as her face moves closer to me under the water, but I stay still as her mouth gently opens to clamp down on my forearm, her teeth, despite my awareness of them, do no harm, and she swims away.

I have lost my white tiger. I am wet and cold, suddenly aware that there are people looking at me in this lake, there are no friendly faces, but I smile wearily at them.

I was born in 1986, which is the Year of the Tiger in the Chinese zodiac. The tiger has appeared in my dreams many times, which I find utterly fascinating.

In Chinese symbolism, the tiger reigns supreme. She is courage, protection, and sharp instinct. A guardian energy. I learned that she is also a symbol associated with thresholds: appearing when something is changing and a person is being asked to trust their own authority rather than look for safety in numbers.

It’s interesting as we are emerging from the Year of the Snake: the snake’s shedding of old skins and noticing change that happens beneath the surface before it can be seen.

I think of my tiger, the one I tried to protect and ultimately lost, as something that belonged to that season, a version of myself that survived by being careful, contained, and held close.

The larger tiger, the one that moved past me in the water without harm, feels different, clearly not something I needed to (or even could) carry, not something that needed to hurt me, she’s just power… existing.

As we move toward the Year of the Horse, the energy shifts again. The horse is about motion and momentum, taking the strength that’s left after shedding. Where the tiger guards thresholds, the horse crosses them. Where the snake transforms unseen, the horse acts.

You can believe in this type of stuff or not, but if you’ve read along with me this far, it’s hard not to feel something fun. Maybe in this dream I was being shown what I no longer need to carry, or fear.

Now we run freely.