Mountain Lion illustration by the late Hal Irby
Can you feel it? Can you feel her presence? Can you feel I? Just because i can’t see them doesn’t mean they are not there! The 99% of Nature that we cannot see is to be sensed with this sensual body. i have not seen the mountain lion here, but i have found sign, and I sense her often, therefore i and I know her family is here sharing this Sacred Land with me. i have not seen the wolf, i have not heard them, but I sense them, therefore i and I know Wolf Nation is living here with me.
Recognizing, nurturing and protecting the gentle, honors, nurtures and protects the Sacred places where gentle lives. If we protect this invisible place, then we also protect all the other beings who live there. If we spend time there, then we spend time with them in the subtle Divine, where we can be reminded of the Truth of Nature, that we are all, each and every one of us, Divine! In this Sacred Place, we reconnect, remember, and attune with Nature, as we grow to know and respect Mother Universe and All of Our Relations. This is a place where disrespect does not exist!
One-way to experience the gentle is to look through the window from the visible physical into the invisible spiritual by closely observing those of our relatives who most symbolize and exemplify this subtle realm of Qi (Chi) energy. In this case, the mountain lion, felis concolor. The Ghostcat, being what conservation scientists call an “umbrella species,” depend on a large territory, 100+ square miles, to maintain a healthy and viable lion population. If we protect the place where a lion lives, then we also protect all the other grasses, shrubs, trees, bugs, birds, animals, and fish who are also nurtured and dependent on that 100+ square mile Sacred place.
In fact, this scientific umbrella species theory has been proven by the Yellowstone studies (Lords of Nature), because it documents that where lions (and wolves) are present, deer and elk are much less likely to over browse, so native streamside vegetation is allowed to more naturally grow. This prevents erosion and greatly improves the water quality of the stream for all aquatic organisms, including you and me. With lions, we have young cottonwood trees and other vegetation that holds the soil, shades streams for fish, reduces temperatures, provides shelter and food for bugs, birds and animals like the beaver, a Keystone and crucial strand of the riparian ecosystem web of life. That is why it is so unfortunate that humans have so unjustly persecuted lions, coyote, and wolves for so long, now scientifically proven to be to the detriment of All Our Relatives.
These important associations and connections are often invisible to us, especially when we are busy killing those who we judge to be useless without really thinking about what we are doing. When we really look closer and wonder why stream side degradation is happening, it becomes obviously apparent that we are damaging water quality by interfering and acting against nature with our arrogantly nonchalant (often tax payer funded) killing program euphemized as “predator control.” If we stop killing long enough to actually look at what we are doing, we will realize that doing nothing (i.e. wu wei, as described by Master Hua-Ching Ni and Mao Shing Ni, PH.D. in The Five Healths for A New Humanity, as a Chinese principle where “they consider that as their lives come from Nature they should continue to live like Nature, which essentially means to do nothing extra beyond the natural course of life.”) is much better than doing something in this case. Letting nature be, is most often much better than taking action to justify our mental concepts and bigoted judgments that we often times call “management.” And that’s what happened in Yellowstone. When we finally left Yellowstone alone for 70 years, the lions and wolves returned and so did a more natural balanced and healthy ecosystem. A balance that most of us did not even know was possible because all we knew was a Yellowstone void of some of her most primary contributors.
We can expect that the place of the gentle, the place of the subtle, encompass all of the Divine Beings who are most often invisible to our blind eye. They are there all the time, everyday, and they are as important, necessary and Divine as are we all! And that’s why and how we know we are all related. We need and depend on them! Even though we usually don’t even know how much we need each other. If we want to drink clean water full of the minerals and nutrients that we require to live and love, then we must realize that all of our actions affect All of Our Relatives! In fact, what we don’t see or know, is a space much more immense and important than the small amount of knowledge that our small minds can hold. Our real hope for change rests in this Sacred invisible place from where miraculous divinity of Nature materializes!
This subtle, this invisible place holds the Sacred energy of Qi, the universal life force. To go there we have to move into this gentle place, we have to be still, be quiet, observe, move very slowly, be very, very, gentle and realize that what we don’t know is the source of all things that we experience. This is a place that is difficult to visit in the hustle and bustle of everyday life.
When we are separated from the Sacred, then it is much easier to live and enable the great lie. The great lie that any one of us is any less than Divine. In this negative place, I am better and I know better than another. In this conceptual place, I deserve more than any other. That one deserves life and that one does not. We have to live this lie to somehow justify the killing or displacement of any other to make room for the ones who are better. To justify the killing of the lion, the wolf, the Ashe juniper, the prairie dog, and other nations of Divine Peoples, we have to devalue them as being less than Divine, less than human, or even “non-christian heathens.” No matter how embarrassing and painful this realization is, we have to admit that the United States of America was founded based on this premise and remains so today!
That is how the Doctrine of Discovery (Pagans in the Promised Land by Stephen Newcomb) was used and is still utilized today (Johnson v. M’Intosh, 1823 Supreme Court case that encoded the Doctrine of Discovery into US law) to judge others to be less than, so we can steal from them, kill them, or lock them away in our prisons, boarding schools, or reservations. We are taught from an early age that we have to judge as less in order to get what we deserve. We have to live and enable the lie. When a nation is founded and based on this lie, then that nation is immoral and operating in direct opposition to our natural (wu wei) way of living in peace and harmony with the Sacred Universal Nature.
The Doctrine of Discovery! The American Holocaust (the genocide of 100 million, …including killing women and children in their sleep, …Sand Creek, …Wounded Knee)! Slavery! Johnson v. M’Intosh! Wolf, mountain lion, coyote, Ashe juniper extermination campaigns! Jim Crow! Apartheid! Living on Stolen Lands! Mass incarceration! Boarding Schools! Torture! Drone warfare! Never ending war against beings who are judged to be “terrorist!” Continuous interference and occupations of sovereign foreign nations! Gaza! Getting filthy rich off of weapons sales! On and on and on! All allowed and enabled because we continue to live the lie that our Relatives are any less than Divine!
When we leave room for the gentle, then we protect all who are invisible and all who depend on the invisible. We protect our spirit! WE protect one another! We protect the Universal Mother!! We live the Truth of Nature, …that we are ALL Divine and created equal and have been gifted the right to live and share in peace and harmony on this Sacred Earth together!
Pay close attention!
Experience and remember the gentle. It is our response-ability! The more we remember and experience this sensuous, subtle loving erotic energy, the more sensitive we will grow, and the more we will notice the lies told by corporations, politicians and people who are doing harm to Mother Earth and All of Our Relations. And in so doing and by living the Truth of Nature, it becomes impossible for us to live or enable the lie any longer.
And instead of looking the other way, away from those whom we are directly or indirectly harming, we will recognize them as members of our Divine family, ask for forgiveness, and come together to Repair Relations for the benefit of the Generations to come. Listen to their ancient stories about the Sacred Place where you live and pass them along to your children. This way we will all reconnect with our ancestors as we are reminded everyday to experience and know the Truth, that we are all Divine! We all are connected to, and rely on the invisible Ghostcat Spirit to remain a viable, healthy, sustainable and peaceful population of Human Beings!
Don’t Kill DeLion!! Respect her as the Divine Relative that she is, and respect her right to walk among us in Peace and Well Being!
Can you feel her presence?
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