Staring Into the Eyes of a Mountain Lion
And releasing all fear
His windswept face was hard and cracked, much like the ground under his boots. The trees all around him were short and stunted as though huddled close to the ground for protection from the relentless wind. He heard no birds.
Other than the wind, all he heard was the sound of his footsteps as he walked. His mind was silent. All thoughts had left him several miles back.
He no longer had a destination. He was merely walking.
When a mountain lion appeared he stopped in his tracks.
The mountain lion had walked out from behind a boulder. It, too, stopped in its tracks.
He stared into the lion’s eyes and the lion stared back into his eyes. There was an initial jolt of fear but that dissipated as he kept stared into the lion’s eyes. The lion was no more than twenty-five feet in front of him. If he were to turn and run for his life the lion could catch up to him in a matter of seconds. He had no gun or knife on him; no weapons at all. If the mountain lion decided to eat him for lunch there was absolutely nothing he could do about it.
He surrendered to that. Fear served no purpose. If he was about to experience his death then so be it. Death by mountain lion was a far more noble way to go than…
