by Graeme Cann
As a young man, however, Damon had been known by his family and his peers as a hothead. His fiery temper on many occasions landed him in deep trouble, but none as serious as the event that radically changed his life.
One day whilst still in his late teens, he was working on a barge transporting wool down the river. An argument flared up between him and another crewman, and it quickly escalated into a fight. As the other men gathered around the two protagonists, cheering them on and barracking for their favourite, one of Damon’s punches landed on the point of the other man’s chin, knocking him senseless. As the man crashed backwards onto the deck of the barge, he struck his head with a sickening thud on the corner of a crate. As he lay deathly still, blood poured from the gash in his head; panic seized the young Damon who, in that moment, believed that he had killed his mate.
Not knowing what to do and fearing the consequences of his actions, he threw himself off the barge and into the river and, with a thumping heart, swam to the shore.
When he reached the riverbank half-crazed by fear and guilt, he ran across the valley toward the rainforest almost four miles away. He did not look back, and was not even conscious of where he was going. He did not slow his frenetic pace until he had reached the forest edge. Even then he did not stop, but at a slower pace continued on, deep into the forest.
When at last he collapsed with exhaustion, he lay for a long time in a small clearing, completely unaware of his surroundings. After some time had passed, he sat up and looked around. His eyes alighted on a small deer standing only a few feet away. It was obviously just a few months old, and its golden tan skin was covered in dark spots. It stood with its head slightly to one side watching him, not fearfully but with what seemed to Damon to be amused curiosity. When the fawn took two or three tentative steps toward him, the young man was fascinated by its gentleness and vulnerability. Its feet, so softly planted, hardly impacted the forest floor, and its movement created no sound. It did not try to protect itself from this strange creature who had seemingly invaded its home. Its eyes held no fear and it gave no impression that it was about to flee at the slightest sight of danger. Damon spoke softly addressing the deer, but not expecting it to respond. “I wish, little deer, that I had been born as gentle and as harmless as you.”
In the matter of a split second, in the very place where the fawn had stood, his mother appeared.
“But you were, Damon; you were born as vulnerable, as gentle, and as harmless as this little fawn. To your father and me you were the most wonderful gift we had ever received from the Great Creator. As you grew you brought so much laughter and joy into our world.
“When you were two years old the Creator gifted us again, this time with a little girl. It was then, my son, that you changed. You seemed to be intensely jealous of your sister, often throwing temper tantrums when we were giving her our attention. You seemed to be always angry, always at war with someone. We were very afraid that one day you might in fact do the very thing that you have done today. We love you, Damon, with all our heart, but it has always seemed to us that our love was not enough.”
Through his tears he watched the image of his mother fade away and then to his left he heard the familiar chuffing sound of a tiger. Turning toward the sound, he saw, just metres away, what he imagined may have been the same tiger that had accompanied the group of Sampians who had fled to Loloma nearly fifty years ago.
The great animal sat quietly just looking at him, but the young man knew that the quiet voice he heard in his mind was the voice of the tiger. “Do not be afraid, Damon: the man you injured will not die. Already he is recovering from the blow to his head and he is accepting his share of responsibility for the fight. He will undoubtedly continue as your friend. But for you, this is the moment that you must confront your own demons. You must speak to me of your anger and your pain and I will tell you what you must do and why.”
“From the moment my sister was born, I felt that I had been rejected by my mother,” Damon blurted out. “I know that sounds crazy but it is true. I was no longer suckled at my mother’s breast. I no longer slept the whole night through in my parents’ bed, and I was no longer the centre of my parents’ attention. My sister had replaced me. No—she had stolen my place! It seemed like she had knowingly plotted against me. My mother and father were so happy with her whilst at the same time they were growing increasingly confused and unhappy about my behaviour.
“As my sister grew she constantly drew expressions of admiration even from strangers, because she was so pretty and well behaved. As a boy of thirteen I began to openly defy my parents, and soon afterwards I left the family home and lived with a group of men who crewed the barge on which I was employed. My mother and father often came to the barge with food and gifts for me. They were kind, but I could not get past what I felt was their rejection of me. I could not tell them of my anger because deep inside I knew that it was not their fault but rather, it was the fault of my sister. The hatred I had developed for her has eaten away at my heart throughout my youth, and now it has resulted in me almost killing my friend.”
The tiger had not moved, and for a moment after Damon had spoken there was silence. Then the voice in his mind began again. “A long, long time ago, when Galildra was Mother-Father of Sampa, a man called Mordeca rose up against him. Many young men followed Mordeca and they planned to kill Galildra, his son Mesila, and all the elders.
“Mesila bravely thwarted their plans, rescued his father, and then engaged Mordeca in a desperate fight to the death. Mesila was unarmed, but Mordeca was armed and skilled with a deadly blade. Mesila gave his life that day to save the whole of Sampa. As he lay on the road and Mordeca rose up believing that he had won and Sampa was his, my ancestor, the Great One of the Forest, appeared. So great was Mordeca’s fear that his heart failed and he died right there. With Galildra looking on, the great tiger breathed on Mesila’s face, and with the mortal wound still in his chest, he rose from the dead.
“Ever since then, Sampians who believed in the Great Creator have also believed that there is no evil that cannot be forgiven, because Mesila had died and been brought back to life. When we are hurt, Damon, even unintentionally, we retain our anger as a way of getting revenge. The truth is that the person we would really like to punish is not the one who suffers. It is the angry person who suffers, because they are imprisoned by their anger and are powerless to break free. Sometimes it is the people we love the most who suffer because we project our anger on them.”
By now Damon’s tears were unstoppable. He knew that the words he heard were true. He knew that although he had always felt his anger was justified, he was a helpless prisoner of his own rage. If forgiveness was about freeing others from the blame for the way he was, and if forgiveness was about setting himself free from the tyrannical mastery of anger over his life, he must do it and he must do it now.
Then, almost as if he was in a trance, he rose and crossed the ground between him and the tiger. As he approached, the magnificent cat sat on its haunches and Damon sat beside it, leaning his head against the side, weeping out all the years of sorrow, rage, grief, and guilt that had turned this gentle, vulnerable little boy into an abusive ball of driven fury. Darkness had enveloped the forest before the weeping had stopped, and as the moon rose above the trees, the exhausted young man fell into a deep and peaceful sleep.
Even before he opened his eyes, he knew that it was a new day. It seemed like every bird that had ever been created was singing its own special song. The tiger was gone but the fawn was back. It frolicked around the clearing in an unrestrained celebration of new life, and Damon had an irresistible urge to sing and dance too. He felt a freedom in his spirit that he had never felt before, and an overwhelming desire to express his love to his parents and to his sister. He rose quickly, and although part of him would remain in this place forever, he ran swiftly toward his village and his parents’ home.
Damon’s decision to release his parents and his sister from the blame
for his anger changed his entire life. Reconciled with his family, his friends, and others he had hurt through his teenage years, he quickly became known for his kindness, gentleness, and wisdom. He married the beautiful Lara and together they dedicated their lives to helping people find healing from the deep hurts that many of them carried. After Alofa died, there was no doubt in anyone’s mind that Damon should be the next Mother-Father, and in the years that followed he would be seen as the “father of community.” He understood even more clearly than Alofa the importance of building physical community on the core values of love, honour, trust, and forgiveness. He and Lara modelled these core values, and on the many occasions that the people gathered in the village square, they would frequently honour those, both young and old, who had exhibited these core values in their dealings with others.
Damon’s understanding of community had been powerfully influenced by another one of his encounters with the Great One of the Forest. On one occasion, when he had spent the whole morning dealing with some families over a dispute, he had wandered into the rainforest to find some space to refocus. As he sat by a little stream, he was calmed by the singing of two beautiful blue wrens, which busily hopped from one branch to another above his head. He was further comforted when he became aware that he had been joined by the great tiger who, in the usual manner, spoke into his mind without appearing to mouth any words.
“Men,” the voice said softly, “are not meant to be like tigers. We are solitary creatures. We prefer to live alone in carefully marked-out territories. We hunt alone and eat alone. We mate but we do not have mates. Men are not meant to be so. They have been created to live together, to help each other, and to be bound together by physical and emotional intimacy. They were not meant to hunt and kill like us, but to grow crops and livestock; to dream, and to create the things with their hands that they dream about. Tigers were given strength, speed, cunning, and instinct, and as long as nature provides us with suitable prey, we are more than capable of thriving. Men on the other hand were created to create.
“We animals are largely driven by fear. Some are driven by the fear of starvation. For some it is the fear of other animals. For us tigers, it is the fear of poachers. Fear does nothing to bring us together, but instead it drives us further apart, filling us with mistrust and hatred toward each other. Men were not meant to be like that. You have been given abilities we do not have. You have the capacity to love one another, to empathise with each other, and to care deeply for the poor and the wounded. Mankind, like the tiger, has the ability to be fierce, even lethal, but unlike us you can also be compassionate and kind.
“Since the advent of the Covenant we tigers have often protected Sampians and the people of Loloma from your enemies, but primarily such actions are the result of us choosing to live under a covenant. For us it is a choice; it does not come from love. For mankind, on the other hand, it is the total opposite. You were created to love, but you frequently choose to hate, or to be angry, or violent, or sometimes homicidal. Why do you do that? What causes a creature, which has got so much to gain through love, choose to behave in a way that mirrors the culture of wild beasts? I will tell you, Damon, because I, as a wild beast, know the answer. It is fear. Fear! Anger is rooted in fear. Aggression is the offspring of fear. Violence has its genesis in fear. All abusive words, all lying tongues, all anxious thoughts, all suspicions, all bitterness and resentment have fear as their father.
“Strangely, it seems, at least to us, that the inbuilt passion for intimacy and community that motivates people to love and trust each other is the same inbuilt passion that makes them capable of unbelievable hatred and violence toward each other.”
The voice in Damon’s mind stopped and the tiger sat watching him, obviously expecting a reply. “For many centuries,” the voice continued, “the Sampians’ whole culture was built on the truth of belonging. They belonged to the valley in which they lived, that was given to them by the Great Creator. The mountain people belonged to the magnificent hill country and the animals belonged to the rainforest. The children of Sampa belonged to the whole community, and the adults belonged to each other. No one believed that they owned anything exclusively for themselves. For them, it was not about ownership but belonging. They had nothing to fear. They did not fear desertion or rejection. They did not fear that they would be used and abused. They belonged to the Creator who had provided their valley and caused them to make a covenant with the tiger, and because they belonged, they had nothing to fear.
“But then things began to change. People began to challenge the existence of a Great Creator and began to integrate primitive beliefs in the spirit world with ‘sophisticated thoughts’ of atheism. They rejected the Covenant and began a transition from the sacred truth of belonging to the humanistic heresy of ownership. Soon men began to own their wives, parents owned their children, the people owned the valley, but it was not enough. They wanted more and they coveted the women of the mountain villages and the wealth of the rainforest. Such a thirst for ownership put them at enmity with their families, their neighbours, the mountain people, the animals of the rainforest, their faithful leaders, and even the Great Creator.”
“You see,” the voice went on sadly, “when a man owns his wife, she becomes inferior to him. He does not love her as she needs to be loved, but commands her and abuses her. When parents own their children, they do not guide them, they brutalise them. When men own the land rather than belong to the land, they rape it. When people in leadership own the right to rule, they no longer identify with the people they are meant to serve. The heresy of ownership not only leads men and women to dominate and use and abuse the people that they believe they own, but it also leads them to live in fear of losing what they believe is rightfully theirs. It was this fear that drove Rubin to build an army and to establish protected borders. The people of Sampa no longer believed that they belonged to the valley, but that the valley belonged to them. They no longer nurtured it as had the Sampians of old who loved the land. Instead they protected it, fearful that if they did not, someone else would take it from them.”
That evening, Damon sat with a group of men who often gathered in the village square at the end of a long day’s work. “Have you noticed,” he asked, “that the more you feel you belong to your family or your community, the less you have to fear? A number of the men nodded in agreement, but one said defensively, “Does not the concept of belonging infer that you are owned by someone or something else? Does it not mean that your destiny is controlled by another, and that your labour benefits them more than it benefits you? Does not belonging mean submission to another’s will and subjection to another’s rule? Does it not mean that in order to feel that I belong, I have to surrender the right for self-determination to another more powerful or more highly esteemed than myself? If ‘belonging’ means the things I describe, does it not follow that a sense of belonging may give us even more to fear?”
Another man replied, “Someone who is owned body and soul by another, as a slave may well be owned by the master who purchased him, does not feel a sense of belonging, just a sense of bondage.” The speaker was a man probably in his eighties with silver hair and startling blue eyes: “Such a man may well surrender all his rights as a self-determining individual even to a generous owner, but he will never ‘belong’ in the sense Damon is talking about. No, what Damon is talking about is being an active, participating, and celebrated part of an organism, or if you like a body, made up of many parts, or people, each of which exists to be an active part of the whole. When one part of that body has more than enough of what he or she needs, they share it with others. When part of the body is hurting, other parts hurt with it. Belonging is saying my identity is found in this community and my individuality blesses it.”
“The tiger,” said Damon, “is a solitary animal who defends its right to live and hunt alone. It marks out its boundaries carefully and then patrols them to prevent its territory from being invaded by other tigers. The prey th
at lives within the boundaries of its territory belongs to him or her alone. It owns the trees, the streams, and the rocks, and refuses to share them with others of its kind. It knows that one day another tiger larger and younger than he or she will challenge it for the right to own its part of the forest. They will fight each other, often to the death, but if it loses the fight and is still alive, it will flee from its territory and the victor will mark it with its own scent. Meanwhile the vanquished tiger will be forced to go where there is little prey and soon he or she will starve and die. What it has feared all of its life has come to pass.”
“Sometimes,” Damon continued, “men and women are more like tigers than people. It begins by them being hurt by someone they trust, and then they are possessed by a fear that it will somehow, some way, happen again unless they do something to keep themselves safe. They choose to withdraw into their own territory, and they ‘mark’ the boundaries to keep intruders out. Everything inside the boundaries they ‘own,’ and they guard it fiercely. When what they own displeases or hurts them, they withdraw into themselves further and set up even tighter boundaries. Eventually every relationship which was meant to sustain them disappears, and they starve their way to a lonely death. At last, what they had feared has come to pass.”
A thoughtful young man with a shock of black hair and deep dark brown eyes turned to Damon and said, “I understand what you mean, Father, when you say that some of us are more like tigers than people. For many years, I lived in an isolated state of my own making, but not without what seemed to me to be a very good reason. My uncle, who had been trusted by my father to teach me to fish, took the opportunity to sexually abuse me over a period of two years. I hated my uncle and I was angry at my father, first for putting me in danger and not protecting me, and then, when I was hurting, not understanding my pain. I was afraid to let people get close to me and I withdrew deeply into myself. When people crossed my boundaries, I became angry at them, even though they meant me no harm. I was so alone I began to believe that there was no reason for me to live.