Ruthless on Behalf of the Whole
“The thing is, the lion doesn’t give a fuck about whether he’s a star, or whether he’s the MGM lion, or whether he’s this human symbol of nobility, he’s just driven from his homeland, being killed and being imprisoned and driven to extinction... There’s nothing in it for the lion being a superstar of human culture.”
Lions are ruthless, especially when it comes to food and territory. They hunt as a team but they eat as individuals, regardless of kinship. They can pivot quickly from affection to attack. In Botswana, we watched a lioness tenderly grooming her young male cub. Soon after, she was growling and snarling as she defended her portion of the pregnant wart hog the pride had just killed. She attacked the little ones as vigorously as the adults. The brothers and sisters who had been sleeping in the shade, draped over each other and purring, were now a bloody blur of tooth and claw. The lioness was teaching by example. We were witnessing ruthlessness in exchange for balance.
Lions are a keystone species. Their behavior ensures not only their own survival but that of the whole. By keeping the number of grazing animals in check, lions and other keystone predators protect vast ecotones of grasslands, forests and swamps. They hunt only when necessary and kill only what they consume on the spot. No stockpiling. No excess. Their insurance against starvation is the intactness they protect by being who they are. Instinct aligns behavior and balance.
One day at twilight, we came upon a cohort of huge males with full, dark manes. Nearby was a young male we recognized. We had seen him on several occasions, often alone, sometimes with the pride. He was a juvenile in full flower, sleek and muscled. His mane had sprouted and was beginning to fill in. Our guide explained that recently he had been kicked out of the pride so he could learn to survive on his own: it was time to hunt solo, claim his territory, and sire a new generation of cubs. He seemed ambivalent about being alone; we watched his attempts to return to the pride. For his own good, and the survival of future lions, he had to go. The older males were spoiling for a confrontation; he was about to get beat up and everyone knew it.
One evening, we found ourselves next to one of those massive, daunting males as he began to hunt, pursuing his quarry of lechwe - a beautiful reddish antelope that lives in marshes. Lechwes are important herbivores of aquatic plants. As the lion picked up speed, we heard the soft, rhythmic thumping of his paws on the sand as he loped towards the swamp. I could feel his awareness narrow as every non-essential noise and extraneous motion faded to the periphery. His senses were exquisitely tuned, constantly scanning, winnowing, as he closed in on his prey. It was a kind of sensory ferocity in motion, an uncompromising cascade of split-second discernments that helped him shed distraction.
We watched the lion devour the lechwe. We heard the tearing of flesh and the crunching of bones. Part way through his meal, he stopped eating and called out to his companions in a prolonged sequence of throaty roars. We sat mesmerized in the dusk. If you're lucky enough to be near a lion when it roars, your whole body becomes a tuning fork. The bellowing reverberates into your bones and outward again, through tissue, blood and lymph. An involuntary gasp adds to the sensation of having experienced a primal, Earth-aligned, adjustment that starts at the core and radiates outward beyond the skin.
I experienced an added, unexpected benefit. I had been struggling with a chest cold; my days and nights were filled with coughing and my pockets overflowed with soggy tissues. But the morning after the lion-roar sound bath, I woke up well. The roaring cured me. The wonder of it lives in my skin. It was a full-body teaching, a palpable reminder that natural sounds arrange our tissues for optimal health. Beyond-human voices are one of the ways that balance is maintained: roars, purrs, grunts, songs, buzzes and whirs are all essential, as necessary for ecological equilibrium as silence.
I think a lot about the bloody exchanges we witnessed and wonder at the allure of violence for humans. Violence has the seductive sheen that would have us believe that it solves the problem of other people's unacceptable behavior, quickly, once and for all; that violence is the way to get what we want, the way to dispense with the life forms we deem annoying and expendable. But violence can only bring balance if it aligns precisely with the ecotone it is designed to serve. Skillful violence arises seamlessly of, from, and for the well-being of the Whole.
The interwoven give and take of instinctive violence is part of the spiritual practice of animals in Nature. Instinctive because it arises from knowing beyond thought. Spiritual because it links the numinous and the tangible. If the ecological purpose of violence is to maintain balance lion-style, how do we (re)train ourselves to know from that place?
Perhaps we begin with rewilding the most severely degraded lands, finding ways to remove invasive species with fierce compassion. Perhaps we dismantle dams and restore rivers. In the meantime, we can follow the example of local California salmon fisherfolk who voluntarily abstained from salmon fishing last year: wild salmon are depleted because our rivers cannot receive them. Perhaps we begin by showing exquisite care for those who have been ground down by the structures that perpetuate inequality.
Realigning our understanding of the purpose of violence means having real conversations with each other, not as adversaries or even as allies, but as companions in inquiry. It means studying the Natural World to learn the ways of ruthless balance - not just study but melt into Earth's ways. Absorb. Listen. Sense. It means holding ourselves accountable to Natural Law in place of human preference.
