Live Wild and Free as God intended

Here in the Virginia’s Blue Ridge the country side flutters with wild life. My husband and I walk on our road three miles out and three miles back each morning in every season. We rise with the sun and set out to see what the day has in store for us. During the summer the mornings are often foggy and clears up as the sun grows warmer. One day, as we neared the end of the third mile out we came around the bend and I saw a cat in the road. At first, I thought it was a cat that perhaps the new folks that had just moved in across the street had acquired. But as we walked closer, we realized that it was not an ordinary house cat. This cat moved like a kitten yet it was the size of an average full-grown cat. Approaching closer, we saw it limping away with an injured left hind foot or leg. When we were about 10 feet from away it turned to look at us. It had the flared fur on both sides of its face proving it to be undeniably a bobcat kitten. It turned away from us to head up the steep bank on the left side of the road showing its unique bobtail.

Because of its injury it didn’t try to go far. It only went three or four steps and ducked its head behind a bit of dead grass. The grass had been recently cut so the rest of the bobcat kitten was still quite visible. His hiding skills had not yet been tested luckily for him because it was not good at hiding. He must have been too injured to get far.

I told my husband that if he was still there when we finished our three miles, we should try to help him because of his lack of hiding abilities and his injury he was in serious trouble. When we made our way back to her position he was still there.  We were near one of our neighbor’s home. Since he was not home at the time, we helped ourself to a bucket in his yard that had holes on the bottom.

He was motionless, badly hiding still under the piece of dead grass. My husband gently picked him up from behind like his mother would have. He made a small non aggressive attempt to escape. We put him in the bucket to carry him home and call the wild animal experts.

He sat down in the bucket and was surprisingly calm. He trusted us. As I held the bucket while walking his head bobbed up and down with each step. He relaxed and looked up at me. It was as if he was studying me as much as I was studying him. He had brilliant and beautiful markings on his furry face. He was spectacular.

The reality of being this close to the elusive wild bobcat made me feel edgy and alert as though I was experiencing something rare, wild, powerful, and extremely special. But not only was this a wild bobcat, it was a kitten. I had a profound moment looking into the eyes of the marvelous creature. He was wild. He did not act like an injured pet who have learned from us how to feel sorry for themselves and lick or nurse their wounds. This wild bobcat kitten sat looking up at me with complete composure. He did not feel sorry for himself at all. He was not worried or afraid. He watched with bright confidence that only a powerful being would have. Even at his young age he knew his power. Yet, he trusted us.

Here in the Blue Ridge Mountains, we are surrounded by more wild life that I have ever seen anywhere else, not even in Yellow Stone National Park. The day before the bobcat we saw a bear crossing the road ahead of us.

Daily we see deer, rabbits, squirrels, chipmunks, ground hogs and countless butterflies and birds that visit my garden and feast on nectar. But rarely do we get the opportunity to look directly into the eyes of the wild. Even more rarely do we get to be looked in the eyes by a wild thing.

I felt a warm connection with the creature, a love, a wild string in me attaching to this animal. The vastness of creation overwhelmed my senses when I looked at the magnificent markings and details of this amazing bob cat kitten, wild, fierce yet young, confident and soft.

So much of our culture and society has sought to take the wild out of all of us and make us civilized. Self esteem curriculum seeks to replace confidence that our wild adventures of physical endeavors create naturally.

What if we remembered this wildness about ourselves. We all start out just like this wild kitten strong and fierce, confident, and soft. But then we are civilized. What has civilization taught us? How to put ourselves above another or below another. How to judge ourselves and others. Civilization is nothing more than society attempting to “put us in our place.” We need order, of course. The beauty of the American Dream that has become a reality for so many of us is that here in this amazing nation we are measured by what we can and have accomplished. We can start a business, blog or organization and make it as successful and we want it to be as long as we don’t give up. There are those who will attempt to find a place for us in their little boxes of neatly lined up people that they can control. But the true American can not be controlled by the upper crust, those in power. We still have the opportunity as we always have to start and grow businesses, create books, art and music and limitless forms of expression. We are a wild country filled with wild life and wild creative and wonderful humans with so much potential and opportunities for greatness.

While we waited for the time to meet the transporter to take the little wild bobcat to the wild life center I sat on the porch and looked at him. He looked at me. Even thought he was in a cage; at the moment I knew that soon he would be free once again. I saw in him a wildness that I had lost in being civilized. He was showing me how to be in a cage yet be wild and free and confident because he still knew who he was. Instead of worry we must only realize that we are wild and free to live and love.

“I never saw a wild thing sorry for itself. A bird will freeze solid and fall from a limb before it ever feels sorry for itself.”

DH Lawrence

I saw what that looked like that warm summer day. I admired that. If only we would remember our wild hearts, free ourselves from the “civilization” of judgment and self-pity and live free as a wild thing with joy and power as God intended.

What, are you part of the “conservative Christians” and don’t believe in being wild? What about John the Baptist. That man was wild if there ever was one. He didn’t dress like everyone else. He made his clothes from camels hair that was reminiscent of their ancestor Abraham in an earlier and wilder time opposed to the “civilized” Roman era. God chose a wild man to precede Jesus, God himself manifest in the flesh. He was telling us to get back to the basics of life so we can see God in creation all around us. When we constantly surround ourselves with “man made” things we forget that ALL things come from God including us. Stop being “civilized” today for a moment to absorb the wonderful wildness that lives around us and in us manifesting all that is good in our creator. Enjoy your day being wild and free knowing your worth as a child of God with peace and joy.

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