Going Hunting…

I’m hunting white lions. I want to capture one. After all they are the most rare and beautiful creatures on the planet. So rare they only arrive here on Earth in times of great ecological crisis, sent as messengers from God to help wake us up. So who wouldn’t want one of these fabled creatures of mythology visible to see every day…? You see I have an affinity with White Lions. They came to me originally. So the hunt is on.

There are special places in South Africa now where I can go and hunt lions. The white lions are the most expensive on the menu and all are bred for the specific purpose of being at the disposal of the hunter. I could go there, track a lion, shoot it, stuff it and have it take pride of place inside my sitting room. Then I could feel the power of owning one of the most sacred animals… a powerfully compelling thought that has hypnotised enough people to make it a very lucrative business.

So I’m contemplating how to hunt one of these — shall I use one of todays modern rifles with precision sights? After all I don’t want to put myself in any danger. I could sit a hundred metres away on the back of an open game vehicle and the lion might not even need to see me.

But what if I stretched myself a bit more, decided to face a bit of my fear and hunt like people did in the distant past? So should I use a bow and arrow or a spear? I can’t imagine a bow and arrow bringing down the King of Beasts. But a spear means I’d have to get up seriously close and personal. That option puts me in mortal danger. An uneven contest methinks. I’m pretty sure I’d be the stuffed one if I chose that route.

What is it about lions, and White Lions in particular that makes them so attractive to hunt? Considered the King of the Jungle they have a regal look about them don’t they? They walk with a swagger, an undeniable sense of power and authority. The sound of their roars and bellows shake the ground and travelling through our bodies melt our internal organs with fear. The White Lions however are in another stratosphere. The Shangaan mythology has predicted their return as a necessity to save humanity from itself. As angelic messengers from God they carry the highest authority, of the Supreme Creator himself, so if we subdue one of these, do we become as them? Do we invoke an energy within us connected to this Highness?

Power! We think we need power. But I believe this quote,

‘Power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely,’ Lord Acton

It’s not power we need but empowerment. That sense we are not victims to the pull and push of the seasons and all that external prodding and probing which besets us each day. But empowerment doesn’t mean we have to exert power over others to prove it to ourselves. Personal power means our decisions and actions come from within and are not re-actions to any external stimulus. Empowerment comes from being back in touch and in tune with our true nature, playing our instrument in time to our own song, our own roar. Most of us have forgotten the sound and sensation of our own personal roar.

‘You do not receive the power of something by killing it. You receive its power by touching it.’ Credo Mutwa

So let me put down my weapons and get in touch with my more wild and shamanic nature. Not the part of me which feels it can’t paint outside the lines of convention. But the part of me which can explore the unknown. The part of me which thrills at the roar of the lion not as prey but as an expression of wild beauty and power. Let me close my eyes, take a deep breath and drift in to the ocean of beingness where we are all connected. Let me hear the White Lion, the grunt deep in his belly, the reverberating pad of his massive paws as he lays them on the earth. And let me remember the brilliance of nature. Let me feel this energy and in so doing receive it’s power.

And then I remember the White Lions first visit to me in my dreamtime over ten years ago. In my dream I was peeking through a window in to a light and airy room, empty of furniture. Through a door in the far wall padded big cat after big cat, their paws thudding on the gleaming wooden floor and arranged themselves so they were all sitting up on their haunches in a circle. Pairs of tawny lions, leopards, cheetah and at the front (if there is such a thing in a circle) was a male and female pair of glowing white lions. I had no idea such creatures existed at that time. They were magnificent. Regally patient. And as I looked at them I thought to myself about the pair, ‘Ah that’s God!’ In that moment I woke up out of my dream. It was a good year later when I discovered they were real when I read an article by Linda Tucker who wrote The Mystery of the White Lions — Children of the Sun God and founded the Global White Lion Protection Trust.

So how shall I hunt these glorious creatures? Not with any weapon other than my storytelling.

If I hunt anything it will be the call of my wild nature, roaring to come back home.