but then
we shall understand as completely as we are
understood.”
The
sun rose brightly on the
Her littler of offspring were twins, one
a boy the other a girl but in the early stages of new-birth one could hardly
tell them apart.
Tsarina
and Tsaro called their cubs Anima and Kore. Anima was as beautiful as the dawn itself. She
pranced among the flowers and across the reeds of the plain as though they had
always been a part of her. She hardly noticed the dangers of the other
predators on the Plains, but in the security of the pride, where the elders
kept an ever vigilant watch, she was able to grow up in peace and without a
care.
Kore, her brother, was almost as playful, but far more
reflective for his age. He was at best a daydreamer gazing more at the sky than
the herds of wildebeest and zebra that roamed the expansive plains at the foot
of Kilimanjaro. There was something gentle about him, that which ever denied the
true nature of a lion.
The
months passed and the lion cubs grew strong and ever playful. They watched the
hunts and obeyed their elders and admired from a distance the power of the
kill. But somehow the mystery of the hunt which cast a shadow of death did not
penetrate the world of their lives.
Tsarina would bring strips of meat from
the hunt to her children and urge them to nourish themselves and grow strong.
“You must eat well if you hope someday to
become a hunter yourself,” She would tell them.
`And you, my son,`
Tsaro would say to the young cub, ‘You must be powerful so that you will someday
rule over the pride.” Tsaro said this with great
solemnity for he wanted nothing more than to pass his power on to his favored
and only son.
After a hunt the pride would gather around
the carcass of a killed beast and tear at it with violent force. Mother Tsarina
would rip off pieces of the kill to share with her children and those who were
old enough would dig in and help themselves.
The vultures and hyenas
gathered at the rim of a larger circle and waited for the lions to recede
before they would go in and clean the carcass of any remaining flesh stripping
it down to the bareness of the bone.
Unlike his sister who glowed
with excitement after a hunt, Kore found himself to be disinterested in the kill and was not too fond
of meat.
“Strange for a lion!”
thought his father.
“Very strange, indeed!”
thought his mother.
“Very, very strange!” said
all the lions of the pride.
His ever growing indifference
caused him to become thinner and weak. He ate only out of hunger and only when
necessary, never for any pleasure or sheer delight in the rewards of a kill. In
truth, he wanted more than ever to be a vegan and abstain from meat.
On day Kore,
before he was hardly a year old and towards the end of summer, wandered off by
himself to be away from the pride.
“It is dangerous out there!” his mother had
warned him. “Not all of the animals are friendly and we are often feared and
hated across the plains.”
Yes, there was danger. There were the wild
dogs and fierce hyenas, the wild baboons with needle sharp teeth and all
potential enemies who would gladly prey on an innocent cub.
But Kore was not
afraid. He was more curious than frightened. He walked slowly away from the
pride and onto the grassy plain. He had been walking aimlessly for about an hour
when he came across a gazelle and her new-born fawn. The mother was startled
and wanted to run. Her heart was beating at a pace rapid enough to send out a
warning of fear.
“Don't
be afraid,” said Kore very gently. “I will not hurt
you. I am not like the others. I do not kill.”
The mother gazelle did not quite
understand. She was not well versed in the language of the lions. She only knew
their ways. Although she sensed that he was no threat, she moved protectively
closer towards her child circling around the fawn as if to set up an invisible
shield between herself and the lion.
Kore watched her
carefully. Although he was still young he had a strange, deep wisdom which
transcended both his age and time. He saw before him another life, a life with
its own struggle, fears, strengths and weaknesses. He saw the gazelle as a beautiful
creature, one which lives on the vegetation of the plains rather than on the
flesh of its inhabitants.
“How much better they are than we!” he
thought to himself.
“Nonsense!” said Tsaro
when Kore told him about his encounter with the
gazelle and fawn.
“Nonsense, indeed!” echoed his mother.
“Nonsense, nonsense, nonsense!” echoed all
the members of the pride.
“They were born to be eaten,” said Tsarina,
“and you were born to be a lion.”
"You were born to be a lion,” his
father roared. “It is your nature to be so. You must prey upon the weaker
species to provide food for the young. We were meant to have dominion over the
plains.”
But Kore was
not impressed with dominion over anything. He was different. He wanted to rule
over no one.
Several weeks after he had spoken to his
father Tsaro, Kore went out
again onto the plains to visit the gazelles.
The smaller fawn had grown larger and was
more independent of his mother. The mother looked on protectively but gave her
child more freedom to roam this time. When she saw Kore
she moved closer to her fawn and looked coldly at him with a piercing stare.
"What do you want of us?" she
demanded.
"I want to be a friend." Kore responded innocently.
"But you are not one of us. You never
can be. Go back to your pride and, if you love us as you say, then leave us
alone.
Kore realized
that she bore within herself a deep hurt and hatred for the lions and their
pride. It was not what he had wanted to hear or hope for.
Days passed which turned into weeks which
turned into months and Kore became older but not
wiser in the ways of being a lion. In the eyes of his parents he was indeed
foolish, denying who he was in search of that which could never be attained.
He became isolated from the pride and part
of it was self-imposed. Why do I have to belong to a species which lives off
the flesh of others?" he pondered to himself.
One day while wandering away from the
pride, Kore found himself hidden in the shelter of
tall grasses but he sensed that danger was near and encroaching upon him. He
focused his senses on the danger which came to him with instinct and realized
that the danger was all around him. He was being stalked by an unseen enemy,
one with the intent to kill and he was to be the victim. He peered through the grass but saw
nothing.
When he turned around to retreat from the
fear which gripped his heart he found that he was surrounded by hyenas, a pack
of them which jumped from their hiding places in the grass and began to attack
him on all sides.
As fearsome a lion as he could have been by
nature, he was no match for the savage attack. Although he was meant to be a
king by birth, his gentle nature had little courage to ward off the fierce
bites of the wild, loathsome and thirsty hyenas. They ripped at his flesh and
his pathetic cried for help went unheard by other members of the pride. One hyena
bit into his hind legs, another tore at his back and a third reached for his
throat with a powerful grip and would not let go.
Kore’s gentle
soul offered little resistance. Halfway through the attack he realized it was
his fate to be a victim. He saw in front of his eyes a vision of all the life
that had been sacrificed on the plain so that those of his own kind could
survive. His life now took on a majestic sense of self-sacrifice which echoed
across the plain. In his final death agony he opened his throat that has been
so savagely ripped apart and uttered a soundless cry into the open sky. It was
a cry which reached the ears of the mother gazelle that he had wanted so much
to befriend; and it was not left unheard. He knew at that very moment what had
become of his fate but harbored little remorse other that a feeling of indifference
as the benign cruelty of nature and the world of the wild.
Within moments of his death the hyenas
moved in for the feast. He was ripped apart and devoured becoming part of the
intricate food chain which nourished the plains and contributed to the cycle of
rebirth and renewal.
After the hyenas has finished, the
vultures came in to clean the bones. When all that was left remained, there was
nothing more than a white skeleton, a calcified frame bereft of form and life.
The rain washed the bones, washed them,
washed them. The bones were baptized and were being transformed. A new spirit
was working itself through the marrow which had not yet dried and the spirit
began to take shape. It took on an invisible form recognized only by the air,
the wind and the rain itself. From death came rebirth in the spirit of the
soul.
Kore breathed a
new life, his lion spirit was being transformed into that of a gazelle. His
former mane had disappeared and from his head two elongated and twisted antlers
emerged, and his once pudgy face with its sharp feline teeth slowly transformed
into the graceful lines of a gazelle. His legs became slender and sleek as powerful
paws were transformed into hoofs and his former whip-like tail was now a mere
stub. His former majesty was transformed into silent grace.
His spirit grew and his transformation was
complete. In death he was given a new life, one which was invisible to the
other forms of life on the plain, but it was a life he had merited through
desire and sacrifice.
His spirit now was free and he swept across
the plains possessed by a freedom unknown to those who had loved him before.