February 17, 2024- The melanated jaguar responded excitedly to the sight of his keepers approaching with his chicken lunch. He leaped to his feet, trotted over to the gate, where they would, carefully and methodically, enter his enclosure. He was just barely patient enough to enter his safe inner cage, whilst a keeper hoisted the carcass of the chicken onto a dead tree and cleaned the outer enclosure. Once the humans were safely out, and all the gated locked, Notch, the jaguar, was released from his inner cage and trotted over to the tree, sniffing the air and gazing up at the chicken. He then trotted over to look at his spectators, laid down and seemingly contemplated a game plan, for getting his meal. After about eight minutes, he sprang into action, scooted up the tree, dragged the carcass down and zipped off to his lair, meal in jaws. Varying degrees of privacy ensued, but the gist was-“Folks, it’s impolite to watch someone else eating”. Notch gulped his meal down, a bit at a time. Jaguars do not taste their food, nor do they masticate it. They eat to live, rather than living to eat.

Animals in the wild are very good about standing their ground. Carnivores are up front about killing their prey, or at least scavenging the kills of others. Herbivores are equally up front about putting up a fight, to stay alive. Nature, on its own, tends towards balance.

Humans can, fairly often, go their whole lives without facing deadly challenges. We do, however, encounter challenges to our dignity, well-being and health. Those of us who live in developed nations quite often don’t even need to worry about the latter. My life, at least since I left alcohol dependency behind, has largely been on an upward psychological and spiritual progression. It gave me the strength to serve Penny as her primary caretaker, whilst at the same time helping me to get rid of old psychological baggage. A fairly brief challenge to those, from October, 2018-April, 2019 was the exception to this state of being, but I see that now as more of a “final examination” in standing my ground.

My time living in Prescott has, for the most part, been free of unpleasant individuals trying to cut me and my loved ones down. Tonight, though, I had to speak up, when someone made a cutting remark about my friend in the Philippines, whom no one here has ever met. While our relationship is in its early stages and there is no guarantee of anything, I will still not let slights and derogatory comments about this devout and honest woman go unchallenged. Neither will I let myself be put down, no matter how “prominent” or “popular” the speaker happens to be.

I chose to attend the celebratory dinner, at which the comment was made to the end, rather than leave early and rush down to Phoenix, so as to get into a dance party, towards which I contributed. It seems like this was a good thing,though, as it put those in attendance on notice, that K is off-limits to armchair detractors and xenophobes, and that I am not a doormat for their hate. One person got a calm and measured response, which he found reasonable. The other was silenced immediately, and nervously changed the subject.

Bob Marley had it right.