One sees photos of mountain lions on rocky outcrops or cliffs, for those places provide niches of security and isolation, a place to come in out of heavy rain or snow, and shelter from hot sun. What does a mountain lion need? The warmth of the sun to drowse in, prey to pounce upon, territory to patrol, and a large portion of regal solitude. Ancients believed mountain lions are a symbol of eternity, because when they sleep, they curl up into a ball with head and tail touching. What does a person with this totem need? Find a person with this totem, and you’ve found one who loves to lie in the sun. They are resilient, elusive, territorial, curious, and of course, solitary. They tend to be very sensuous with or without others around, yet often company is of the opposite sex. People with this totem have the flexible spines of a yoga practitioner. They have the slinky walk everyone loves to watch, as they move like a gracefully unfurling piece of silk.
Most active from dusk to dawn, like all felines, mountain lions sleep a lot the rest of the time. While in the dreamtime, they recalibrate the energetic links between the human, plant and mineral kingdoms, contributing to the world’s survival. People of this totem are planetary healers and teachers of mystery. Can you see it in their amazing eyes? They also balance the world from the dreamtime. Known for balance, people in this energy seem to make comebacks – land on their feet, so to speak. If you are working with this cat’s energy but are out of balance, you may be overly sensitive and easily hurt by rejection or disapproval. During periods of transformation you may contract or withdraw. The spiritual dictum of large cats like mountain lion is to amplify creative energy. They do it in a big way. Mountain lions live large. Did you know that in terms of DNA, cats are a closer genetic fit to us than dogs and other mammals, except apes and monkeys? Through blood samples humans and mountain lions can help each other understand similar disease patterns that afflict both species – without cruel testing.
In 2005, Bob Butz published a book called, Beast of Never, Cat of God: The Search for the Eastern Puma. Compelling evidence assures us that the “expert” assumption that east of the Mississippi these magnificent predators do not exist is incorrect. Scat specimens subjected to DNA testing, and plaster casts of tracks have identified them. We can understand why officials would prefer to ignore their presence. As with the wolves currently being massacred in such states as Idaho, Alaska and Wyoming, humans afraid of the truly wild and untamable tend to shoot it, poison it, trap it, or pay others to do so. They are almost extinct back East. We have forgotten that every creature is a part of Source Energy expressing Itself. Those who have lost their connection with the Earth Mother live in fear of what they cannot control, instead of learning how to live in harmony with the Earth as indigenous people have for eons. The Seminoles of Florida revered the swamp panther they call Coootchobee. In one of their sacred stories, panther saved the adopted son of Corn Mother from being eaten by wolf. Since that time, they befriend and try to protect panther. They know panther cannot do this for itself, as humans continue to alter their natural environment.
Out west where they are more common, there is a half-hearted attempt to co-exist by warning signs that tell people how to act if they see a mountain lion. Yet even in sanctuaries, they must share walking trails with humans. While writing this, a 70 year-old man, hiking with his 65 year-old wife in northern CA, were attacked from behind by a female. This is the first mountain lion attack ever reported in Humboldt county. Of course, this is everyone’s terrifying primal nightmare. The couple bravely fought off the lion with a pen and a branch. Where should we draw the line between protecting these felines and protecting humans? In balance, we must remember that it is more likely that one would be struck by lightning, or win a lottery jackpot than have a close encounter with a mountain lion. Normally, mountain lions instinctively fear humans, preferring to stay clear. The young female and her mate were killed, as are any who approach humans or livestock. Most western ranchers expect a 5% predation rate in livestock from wild animals. The autopsy revealed the female lion “hadn’t eaten for weeks”. One solution to cat attacks is to ensure that their habitat is unencroached and supplies sufficient prey. Being young, the female lion was a fairly inexperienced hunter. Unlike house cats, a mountain lion only kills for food, choosing the young or elderly. To the female lion, the man, under 5’6” and 70 years old looked like prey, when the alternative choice was starving.
Do you ever feel like a stranger in a strange land? That is how I feel when I try to fathom what joy or “sport” there might be in sport hunting. Why destroy the life of the most magnificent, the biggest, the mightiest? Counting coup I understand: I touched you and I have the power. I know it. You know it. Everyone knows it. But wonton killing? What could be the future for a world that shoots, or poisons any creature it hasn’t learned to live with? Even when listed as endangered or threatened, tens of thousands of mountain lions are legally killed by permit each year, and many more are killed illegally. The reason the magnificent mountain lion is relegated to the most remote mountains when it once roamed the entire U.S. and much of Canada and Mexico is because it has been hunted, trapped, poisoned, encroached upon or starved out of existence by the same meager-spirited, fear-mongering mentality as those who perpetrated genocide on native people. Native Americans once shared their homeland with mountain lions calling them klandagi, Lord of the Forest (Cherokee). The Chickasaw name is, “Cat of God” (it-ko-icto). The name, panther came from European explorers comparing it to African leopards. Predators are: cars, environmental toxins, human closeness and fear, deer hunting lobbies that consider them competition, mercury poisoning, disease, and inbreeding (in 1995, 8 female cougars from TX were successfully introduced into the inbred south FL population). The more we chop up and intersect their natural territory, the more interaction with humans. Though no Florida panther has yet attacked a human, it could happen any day. The odds are being determined by the ones put on the planet to be determiners for all life – us! If you honor their lives, support organizations like Defenders of Wildlife and the Mountain Lion Foundation, who are working to make agencies protect them, reduce highway fatalities, and create safe crossings for the remaining population relegated to the Great Cypress Swamp. They are also fighting to have them reinstated to their ancestral range. Once, they ranged across at least 8 southeastern states. Under the Endangered Species Act, wildlife agencies are required to recover panther territory into their historic range, yet there is tremendous opposition. Make yourself count and you just might find yourself among other “strangers” and not so alone in your love for the Earth Mother and Her creations. The time is now. You are the one!
Can you feel like a mountain lion - instinctual and clean? Journey with me into the spirit and body of one. Feel the power in your shoulder muscles and legs. When you sit on that rocky ledge surveying the world around you – you fiercely love your kittens because it is the natural order of things and you are in complete harmony with your purpose. Now imagine that you attempt to fulfill your natural instincts. You are moved by the rumble of hunger in your belly to find food for yourself and your young. Suppose that somehow you are thwarted in this. Maybe in the not too distant distance, heavy machinery is tearing down trees and ripping open the Mother’s stomach for land “development”. All the deer have run from the noise and caustic fumes. What if, behind you hunters are shooting deer? No food again. Wouldn’t you follow your nose, brave the danger of man’s smell, and bring down a goat or sheep for yourself and your babies? Think of how sensitive you are to smells, dirty air, chemicals and dirty water. You were created with heightened senses. How bewildered and confused are you as your natural rhythms are blocked and damned up at every turn? Humans are fortunate indeed that the natural world was not created to hold grudges. If they ever retaliated for the callousness, insensitivity and cruelty we have shown to them, humans not animals would be extinct.
How do you use power? How much more wonderful would our lives be if we considered that we are all held equally in our Mother’s love; if we remember that at the beginning of the 2nd world (Ice Age) the animal beings gave us their bodies, the ultimate sacrifice of their very lives so that we would survive until the plant beings grew back, so that we would have food, and fur to warm us. This is the only planet with mountain lions, eagles and dragonflies. If we exterminate them, our loss will be inestimable. In The Talking Earth, Jean Craighead George’s novel for teens, a young Seminole girl ventures into the Everglades to learn how to listen to animals like panther, turtle and otter. She learns that “we must keep the animals on Earth for they know everything: how to keep warm, predict the storms, live in darkness or blazing sun, how to navigate the skies, to organize societies, how to make chemicals and fireproof skins. The animals know the Earth as we do not.”
In some respects, mountain lion is the emblem of a subtler time, unified in a mystical union with divine rhythms. Animals let us partake of their essence, so that we would have their instinct for survival. They are stabilizing the earth in this time of Earth changes; purifying the atmosphere as quickly as they can, while humans are polluting it and intensifying global warming. Let’s get beyond fear and greed to use our creative human intellect to create greater ecological possibilities. The inexpressible sadness of the indiscriminate killing of these beautiful beings is that we are killing a part of ourselves. Bit by bit, we are killing our spirits. We were meant to be able to feel and understand the life force of each life form without being separate from it. This is the quintessential nature of the shamanic path. One day it will be our way again. A-ho.
To read Part I go to www.wisdom-magazine.com.
Postscript: The very day I sent this article in to Wisdom, (March 28th), the Greenfield Recorder in MA, ran a front-page article about an alleged cougar (mountain lion) sighting in Greenfield. Since then, I have spoken with 2 reporters and 2 wildlife officials. Sightings without the proof of DNA, track casts, or scat remain unofficial. However, I foresee, that as humans continue to make inroads into remote habitat across the nation, mountain lions and other wild creatures will come into closer contact with human populations. The penultimate question is, will we work for mutually beneficial solutions for humans and these magnificent animals? Let us use our power as determiners to work for a future of mutual co-habitability.