Colorado—A series of meditative journeys in the wilderness—called vision quests—exposes this author to the power of coming face-to-face with cougar on the animal’s terms. Inner growth is fueled as she learns to face her deepest fears.
My first awareness of cougar’s power came through the experience of another. Several women and I gathered in late May in the Rockies outside of Lyons, Colorado, to encounter our first modern version of a vision quest. Traditionally, in many American Indian tribes, vision quests were reserved for boys as they came of age. They were sent off alone to fast and pray in the hope of receiving a vision in order to better understand their place in the world. Today, there are spiritual teachers that allow people to take part in a modified version of this experience in order to clarify their purpose or deepen their connection to Spirit.
We began our experience on a 4,000-acre buffalo ranch, free from any distractions except those we carried in our hearts and minds. For the next four days our bodies would be free from food and water as we nourished our Spirits with prayer and song inside circles we marked with offerings to the Seven Directions—East, South, West, North, Above, Below, and Within—to aid us on our journey. Prior to going on our quest, we prepared offerings of herbs and prayers wrapped in cloth pouches that we tied to a cord. This cord of powerful intention would mark the perimeter of our circle. Our teacher would remain at base camp near the altar and sweat lodge. From there she would hold a strong connection to each of us by entering into a deep state of prayer and meditation. I had planned to set up my space down by the stream lined with old cottonwoods, but on my way there two rattlesnakes warned me away. I heard them before I saw them. The first one blended into the rocky path before me. I backed away slowly and found an alternate path further downstream, the coolness of the water calling me. Above the steady flow, I heard the second alarm; sharp, quick, and dry, the way I imagine a person’s last breath would sound. Coiled and closer than the first one, I backed off slowly, gratefully putting more distance between my messengers and me.
Days later, I learned that the woman who chose that particular area beside the water encountered a cougar on her first night, just after dusk. According to her, it walked straight for her, stopped silently at the perimeter of her circle, and waited until she was no longer afraid. It sat there and waited. When she finally calmed herself, it walked off into the night. I remember hearing her story with equal amounts of awe and relief. I was amazed at her power and her ability to move through her fears, and relieved that it wasn’t my story. That same night, high on the hill to the east of her encounter, I sat surrounded by buffalo mothers and their young bathed in the liquid mercury light of the full moon. My heart remembered a time when people and wildlife lived this way, in open expansive places, and I couldn’t help but feel grief for so much of what we’ve lost.
Since I had committed to four consecutive quests, the next August found me in a wilderness area outside of Pine, west of Denver. One major difference was that there was no base camp, no teacher, and no other people out there with me. This time I was on my own. Because of this, I took a tent with me and enlisted the support of friends in Denver to hold me in the safety of their prayers over the next few days. I also asked my partner to come check on me the first night.
I set up my space in a small clearing in the woods not far from a stream. My tent was exposed, with some chokecherry bushes and scrub oak separating me from a stand of large ponderosa pines to the north. The stream trickled slowly in the west. A light, refreshing rain fell at sunset. I received it with gratitude as I watched the indigo clouds drape the western sky before I retreated into my tent for the night.
The first sound I heard after the rain stopped was the sharp crackling of sticks over by the stream. I thought it was my partner trying to find my site, so I opened the tent flap and called to him. The reply I received from the dark was a cougar’s hissing growl broken only by the snapping of more kindling as it raced toward me. I froze for a second in the electric air before I jumped into the safety of my tent. The cougar slowed as it came closer, but it became more vocal as it circled me. Hissing first on one side, then the other, then around again. I crouched inside, turning with its voice. I felt as if I were prey, but the kind that couldn’t flee, or fight. I froze again, tense with fear, not breathing, just waiting.
Somehow, I remembered the woman’s story from the year before. I began to breathe. I used my breath and intention to channel my fear into the Earth. I exhaled fear, inhaled strength, over and over as the cougar circled. As I became calmer, the cat became quieter; its hisses farther apart. I wasn’t exactly sure when it left, but I sensed its absence. Not too much later, the eastern side of my tent became illuminated as the full moon rose over the ridge. I stepped outside and let myself be embraced by its light. The air was still charged, but with power instead of fear. I stood in the silence, alert and alive.
My third quest took me back up north, on Colorado’s Front Range, once again in August. Thankfully, I was in the company of others with our teacher at base camp. Just as I had each year, while preparing my prayer ties with tobacco offerings, I asked for the courage to free myself from fear so that I could live more fully. I set up my space on the side of the mountain, wrapping my ties around a strong ponderosa pine a few feet from the edge. Most of my circle consisted of an expansive rock lined with lichen that jutted out into the west-facing void. I sat in meditation that night, facing trees to the east. Just as I was focusing on my second chakra—the energy center in the belly that is typically associated with the color orange—I glimpsed the orange orb of the moon on the horizon. Simultaneously, a loud crack snapped my attention to my right. I stood and turned, my back braced against the pine tree just in time to see the cougar stop—only a few feet from my circle. We faced each other in the night. I continued to breathe, my muscles taut, obeying a memory beyond my control. Instinctively, I pulled my energy inward this time, containing it in my circle instead of projecting it toward the cougar. She responded with a sort of snort, a sound that resembled a chuckle, before she turned and walked away. I spent the rest of that night vacillating between wrestling with fear and praying for a way to finally let it go. The next afternoon brought three crows floating on thermals in the west. I saw the winds as a gift that could help me clear my clouded mind and heart, half of me anticipating another visit from the cougar. With every cell of my body, I breathed in the moist air as thunder bellowed in the canyon below. I let the storm receive all of my angst.
By the time the storm was spent, I was empty, totally open to what would come. Out of that space the idea of power coupled with gentleness was born. This became my intention for the nights ahead. Peace covered me like a soft, worn quilt and its warmth dried my damp, cold bones. It is hard to conjure an animal that embodies gentleness more than deer, which gifted me with their presence that night.
The cougar visited me one more time on that quest. It was our last night at base camp after coming out of our individual circles. I was in my tent working with my chakras again as lightning flashed outside when I felt her nearby. She seemed to come from the area where I had been sitting in my circle on the edge of the mountain. This time I was not afraid. Instead, I felt lighter than ever—as if I was literally plugged into her energy. Light began to fill the core of my body. It shifted in color from regal purple to pure white as it infused me completely before it spilled outward and spread throughout my tent. The prayer ties that surrounded me in my space for days were wrapped around a log on my lap. They, too, became illuminated and I felt the raw power of Spirit as I merged with its light. I knew in my core that I transcended the physical world and embodied the energy of cougar.
One year later, I had my last physical encounter with this magnificent cat. I was out with my teacher, but instead of holding base camp, she decided to sit in her own circle. We would go out as equals. My space was situated on the lower end of a sloped meadow with an ancient fir tree within it. The tree had been struck by lightning and now held my prayer ties around me. Exactly half of it was dead and charred while the other half was alive with soft green boughs that offered me shade. My companion was on the edge of the mountain, out of my line of vision. Later I learned that in the fading dusk, she had seen the cougar round the hillside before it began a quick descent into the meadow where I sat. Now in my sight, it pounced into the higher part of the meadow in front of me and ran from one end to the other, hissing and growling each time she struck the ground. I was reminded of my first encounter two years ago, yet I felt safer this time. My prayers came instantly, as automatic as my breath, each one punctuated by her growls. She didn’t stay long, but the night did. I sat up against the tree and watched the full moon carry my shadow in an arc across the Earth in front of me.
I have been told that the animal that comes to you on a vision quest is your personal totem or guide, that it mirrors in some way your personal gifts, and that you have an obligation to carry those gifts into the world for the benefit of all relations. The vision that mountain lion gifted me with, repeatedly, is that of power. Carrying that vision involves embracing the power to live fully: to balance strength with gentleness, to walk in the darkness and emerge into the light. To realize that although true power is of the light, sometimes we need the darkness to find it.
At last, the moon began its descent as the dawn star rose. Hours—that seemed like days—later, first light slowly put the shadows to rest. Just as the clouds alit with pink, the cougar’s screams pierced the eastern ridge. What I can best describe as a haunting combination of fox, crow, and a touch of human cry echoed through the canyon. The cat was moving quickly, farther away from two smaller cries that followed hers. It was then that I realized that she had cubs.