LOL, after all the lofty insights and revelations, your tiger dreams also include you being eaten by a tiger - why am I smiling - what does this sort of dream reveal about us - you have SO MANY great topics in one Reply, where do I begin? With the tiger eating Raj!

People tell me I'm no atheist, even when I "think" I believe in no such thing as god, and I have conceded there is Something, Someone, the force that through the green fuse drives the flower (you know your Dylan Thomas better than I do), the force that animated matter, that made the first electrons spin.... but is this Life Force a loving Father God who gave us a son, God incarnate, Jesus....indoctrinated from infancy with this narrative, which asks me to BELIEVE to the point that I would DIE FOR these beliefs, like the Biblical seven sons tortured and killed for refusing to renounce their God (much too disturbing to a child to hear and feel inspired by!) .....

The Muse - Steven Pressfield speaks of it in "The War of Art" -

Zeitgeist is another form of it -

You know all this! Your "mind is clear and empty" yet words flow from you - what is Inspiration: something inside us, or out, but pouring in us and through us?

Love this, and you do indeed manage it: "good poetry has to be saying the most important things in the least amount of space and in the most enchanting way you can."

And how exciting that people hear you read your poems and want to buy books!!! GO RAJ!!!