power

There was a pair of two wild tigers living on one side of the river banks deep in central India with their tigress cub. As part of their quotidian routine, they walked their baby riverside taking that time to train and teach her. She discovered her silent and stealth tiger ways on these walks as she periodically turned her head toward her parents for approval. In unison, both parents would slowly nod ‘yes’ so that she would grow to know her place and power.
One day during their walk there was a streak of tigers on the other side of the river. A family with two cubs vocalizing these terrifying noises like grunting, growling, snarling and roaring! And more terrifying still when they ran toward the bank of the river to fiercely protect their side.
Mama tigress heard these noises like a cacophony of deafening threats and began to shake. Her greatest fear would be to witness her young being mauled by other tigers with nothing she could do. The helplessness was beyond frightening and all she could do was quicken the pace on her side of the river to get ahead of the crew on the other side.
Her male escort became super irritated with her fear, knowing that he could protect them if need be and secretly knowing that the litter across the way would not cross the water. As this was something the tigress knew nothing of, her fearful response seemed unnecessary to him, and annoying. But he, in turn, did not know that she had witnessed a deadly mauling years before their union that crept out of her memories in moments like these. Memories that made her shake to the core.
The prey, predator response is big in these animals as the possibility of being prey meant doing something to survive or else. So, the tiger reproached the tigress for her reactive fear diminishing her to a freeze response, silent and quasi- immobile. She could still quicken her pace, enough to short cut their way back to the lair with her young. She remained like this for several hours, the length of time it takes to flush the adrenaline and all the physical changes that happen from deep inside her tiger brain to the muscles of her strong legs.
Only after all were safely home in their den could she speak without fear or the biological shame of the shutdown response. The conversation between the tiger and his tigress was a small snippet of predator prey too: ‘You should have done this, I did not know how, and you could have done that, to why should I have to.’ This was just as distressing as the threat to her young whelp’s life. She shook none-the-less allowing her body to release the fear response in its most natural way, then took a big yawn, a long rest, and returned to her normal demeanor.
She concluded that there is no escape from these predator prey relationships. The tiger could not see the dilemma of his tigress without judgement and the tigress could not understand why her mate was so uncaring. Stale mate. Stale. Mate. Perhaps the tigers’ ways are more about form and function than emotional intelligence, the tigress lamented.
Meanwhile, the baby girl cub felt and watched this impasse, feeling empathy for her mama and papa. She made a silent and bold claim to do at least one thing differently in her mature lifetime. “You just watch and see she roared.”