Monday, May 4, 2009

Meeting the Black Jaguar


I hear familiar jungle sounds as I walk through this place teeming with life. I come to some boulders, piled high. Glowing eyes peer from a small cavern created in the rocks. The eyes of a black jaguar. Our eyes momentarily lock. I turn slowly, walking back from where I came, not remembering if I should turn my back but knowing with certainty not to run. My senses are heightened. The greens of the plants, the song of the birds, the unseen clouds of wildflower fragrance are psychedelically intense.


A short ways back along my way I cross paths with a white man in his fashionable jungle garb. When I see him, I suddenly know that the jaguar needs water and that I should bring it to her. Somehow, suddenly, I am holding a large metal mixing bowl. This is the same bowl that caught my children's placentas when I gave birth. It also is what I use to bake bread. I dip it into the nearby stream. As I carefully carry it I feel the refreshing coolness of the water transmitted through the metal bowl to my hands.


When I arrive at the place of the jaguar, she is still there, eyes glowing from the shadow. Cradling the bowl in my hands, I approach her. Then I wake up.

by Terra Rafael

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