OK, well, let me try to make a case for posting this topic on this forum. If the moderator doesn't agree, the moderator gets to do the moderator thing, of course!
I live in a "rural-residential" area in Texas on a beautiful hilly road with houses on acreages, with horses and cows, all along it.
One of my main meditative and de-stressing practices is to walk at least an hour on that beautiful road. You could call it a positive addiction. I also love to walk around our acre at night looking at the moon and stars through the trees--just beautiful.
That all changed, along with a lot of other things, last Fall.
First came the intuition.
I did a lot of traveling last year, doing my walking wherever I went. When I settled back in Texas in the Fall, I started down the road with my Aussie dog, and didn't get a quarter of a mile before my body just turned itself around and walked straight home. Hmmm. That's never happened before. Tried several more times, but couldn't get my body to walk down that road.
Moonlit night: started out the door to enjoy the sky. Like Balaam's donkey, my body refused to go out. What is going on here?
This went on for several weeks. One day I felt drawn to go out in the back yard and just scan the surroundings intuitively. It was a
very strong feeling that there was something that I needed to know that I didn't consciously know. I looked all around saying, "What is it? What is it that I need to know?"
Later that day, my neighbor called to talk about "our" dog--he visits her a lot. She said, "Did you hear the cougar screaming? I thought it was a woman and checked on my neighbor." She said another neighbor had a cow clawed. I said, no, I hadn't heard it.
Later in the day, I'm going, "Oh. My. Goodness! I
did too hear it!
"
I had heard a singing/screaming sound in the night, very close, and forced myself, literally
forced myself to believe it was coyotes, even though at the time, I remember thinking, "The coyotes are never
this close, and this is just
one voice...."
I had done a number on myself consciously, but my body knew better. It's hard for me to believe how deeply, but unsuccessfully, I had suppressed this primitive instinct to be aware of big cats. (My body was picking up on things several weeks before I heard the caterwauling in October. I wasn't able to walk even in September.)
I've done a lot of reading since then and am just shocked at the scope of a situation that I had only the vaguest idea existed until now.
I'm also shocked at how polarized the situation is! We will be hearing a whole lot more about this issue in coming years, I am just sure!
Meanwhile, I am trying to sort out the facts from the phobia, which isn't so easy--there are a lot of things happening out there, and more all the time.
People don't take you seriously when you talk about cougars, even in lion country--it's kind of like reporting a UFO, but it's all there.
The one site I know of that is a clearinghouse for links to cougar incidents on the Net keeps getting hacked, presumably by people who don't want the information about what's really happening to get out.
Cougars
The trackincats . com forum is currently down...again...hacked, I presume.
So, if the moderator decides to let this thread stay up, be aware that hackers may try to shut it down if I share stories and links.
I'll link to a couple of stories in my next post, but am totally prepared to honor the moderator's decision about this thread, it goes without saying.