Water Lioness

            This particular Rite of Passage took place close to Samhain (Halloween,) in 2006.  Many synchronistic events led up to Halloween, and I had gone through drastic changes in my life—on the surface and internally.  I had moved out of a relationship, into a new home, opened a new office, was teaching for the first time, learning more about my internal nature, and letting go of old belief systems.  I was thinking of this phase as my leaping into the unknown—trusting that the net would appear after the freefall began.  I was seeing strong women all around me courageously leaping—me, right there, guiding them and also flying.  It was a phase about transforming fear, about falling in love with myself first, about changing the tone of my internal universe from one of fear to one of compassion and letting that radiate out to the world at large.

            Close to Halloween I went to visit a new institute/eco-resort starting up in northern California called Avalon Springs.  The first night I slept on the mesa—1/4 mile from any other human—just in my sleeping bag under the stars.  I awoke at one point in the blackness of the night and was struck by the immensity of the sky and the Pleiades were directly over head inviting me to wake and drink in the glorious canvas.

           The next night I walked back up to my sleeping bag (ignoring the concerns of friends down in the village) and felt a little nervous as I settled in for sleep.  In some ways I wanted to go back down to the hot springs, where all the people were.  I felt some old programming coming up, which had a macho flair saying, “but I slept out here by myself last night no problem… there’s no reason to freaked out, get over it!”  After much deliberation (almost an hour,) I decided to get out of my head and check in with my body—I scanned my torso; my belly was tight and frightened and the message coming from my stomach was move! Get out of here. 

            That was all the information I needed, I quickly got up, grabbing my sleeping gear.  As I stood, I heard a panicked rustle off to my right in the dark, sounding less than twenty feet away.  I sensed a big cat—a mountain lion.  I got it—the whole time I had been feeling anxious, I was literally being stalked—and my body felt it.  When I got up, I startled the big cat (because I wasn't acting like typical prey.) I now heard the cat even though it had been entirely silent, prior to this point.  I remained calm, even though I couldn’t find my flashlight, and consciously began walking slowly towards the human camp.  I felt the cat following me—I eventually found my flashlight and started swinging it around casting light in various directions, making nose, walking slowly, scattering my energy to make me seem bigger.  The mountain lion followed me all the way back to the human camp, but as soon as I passed the first cabin the stalking energy lifted; I was back in the village and the cat remained in his territory. 

            This marked my initiation into Big Cat Medicine—and also was an ultimate test of everything I had been preparing for, consciously and unconsciously, in previous months.   What an opportunity for me to stay in my center, transform fear and command my space as my space.  This night marked an initiation affirmed by synchronistic events concerning mountain lions in the days that followed.  Clients starting coming to me for cat lessons and I began meeting people who had also gone through similar initiations in the wild.

            Most rites of passage begin with a withdrawal, which in this case was everything leading up to the night I was stalked.  Symbolically, I went through a very traditional withdrawal phase by leaving my home, leaving behind everything familiar, leaving my people and going into the woods by myself.  I was prepared to have some part of myself die and I welcomed the new energies in. 

            The transition was marked by the actual initiation—the exchange between myself and the mountain lion.  There was a dance between being in my old programming of listening to the macho side of my brain, verses settling into the intuition of my body.  What a beautiful dynamic between the lion and me—while he took away what was before, he gifted me with what was to come.  I fully came into my birth name—Ariel, meaning Lioness of God.  I dropped God, and the new meaning/new name became Ariel: Water Lioness.

            Reincorporation was supported and facilitated by people and guidance “placed” in my path after this night.  I met a new lover the next day, a Mayan woman showed up who had just gone through a mountain lion initiation, a man in LA contacted me with questions about a screen play with a mountain lion theme—so much fell into line with the big cat medicine theme that it helped me feel empowered in the experience, beyond a doubt, integrating the lessons and trusting my path.  I learned that while being a powerful warrior or “hunter,” that also made me equally “good” at being stalked.  Likewise, I hold fire & water; I am very feminine & masculine.  After that night women starting asking me to Doula births and old folks began asking me to help them transition out of life…stalker & the stalked—one in the same as with birth & death.  Through this initiation, my orientation really stepped beyond duality even though dualism exists (there is night & there is day,)—I now appreciate dynamic paradoxes, the play between seemingly opposites that come together to comprise the whole.

Ariel White