Fact/fiction. Need your insight.

[Thirtieschild]

In 2003 Tor/Forge published my husband's novel, the story of a man-eating tiger loose in the mountains of North Georgia. The heart of the book was a battle between the tiger and a hunter for the soul of a small boy. The tiger was trying to show the child what it meant to be a tiger, the hunter what it meant to be a man. The book was sympathetic to the tiger, to the the child and to the hunter.

Fast forward to Wednesday night. A mountain lion killed a man and ate him, less than two miles from our house. The week before the killing the lion had shown himself several times on our road: he'd followed one couple home, another woke up to find him on their deck. We didn't know it at the time but still another neighbor had been feeding raw chicken to the lion.

Less than a year ago a female lion was killed by a car in this area and I wonder if she left behind a youngster who hadn't yet learned to hunt. It would explain the donkey that was attacked by a lion in the hindquarters but not the neck, the housecat who was taken from a ledge with the owners sitting very close, the lion foraging through trash cans the day of the killing, a human who was killed in an area that is teeming with game. I hurt for the man, but if my what ifs are true, also for the lion. I'm trying to send light to the lion, along with a message that this is its time and that it won't be hungry again. My husband wrote so powerfully about the hunger of the tiger and I keep relating that hunger to a lion who was trying to find food in a trash can.

My husband has been sick and so didn't meet the lion. He is a death investigator, which means he investigates unattended deaths and, if he'd been well, would have been called to this one. My question is why? Why didn't he see the lion, why did a maneating lion show up in the neighborhood of a writer who had written about a maneating tiger? I wonder if, because he wrote sympathetically about a maneater, he is protected, that the Universe won't let him take a chance and so has kept him away?

As far as we know, the lion is still alive so the story isn't over. The victim's neighbors said that the lion was tracked near our road, which means he's probably coming home. Game & Fish didn't show much interest before this happened (told one caller they were going on vacation) and they quit looking after two days. (Mississippi can say thank God for New Mexico.)

I'd appreciate if any of you get a sense of what the real meaning is here. I'm so close I can't get a clear view of what it means. Just know it means something. Also - I've forgotten what sign, house, planet rules large animals. I never paid any attention to it since I never thought I'd need to know.

p.s. The book was made into a really bad movie for the Sci-Fi channel, maybe the worst movie ever made. Curiously Sci-Fi ran it again yesterday afternoon.

[Why Syzygy]

1. Wish I knew what to comment ...

Did the man-eating tiger in the story have in mind to eat the boy?

There are all kinds of possibilities for what you're observing. Did your husband manifest a lion in his reality? Did the work inspire a thought form that comes to life (can't remember the term at the moment)? Is the lion picking up on subliminal messages from your husband, which could have been sent at any time? I wouldn't know where to begin to analyze. But, I'm glad you shared.

[Thirtieschild]

6. No. The tiger wanted to teach the boy what it meant to be a tiger.

The tiger had no intention of eating the boy. In fact, in the book the hunter knew that he couldn't kill the tiger until the boy was ready to let it go.

[Celebration]

2. what a story

I have no idea what all this means. Possibly it just means that you live in an area where there are mountain lions, and that inspired the story about the tiger in north Georgia in the first place. Or it could mean something more. Whatever the reason, it certainly would be a good idea to take extra precautions. Also I hope your husband gets well soon.

[Thirtieschild]

7. We lived in Georgia when he wrote the story. No mountain lions there.

[SheilaT]

3. How about the possibility

that there is not connection between the novel about a tiger and local mountain lions.

Mountain lions (according to Wikipedia) range from Yukon in Canada to the southern Andes of South America, which is the largest of any terrestrial mammal in the Western Hemisphere and is found in every major New World habitat. As humans encroach on their habitat, fatal human-mountain lion encounters are inevitable, and no doubt have been increasing. Here's a link to an article about mountain lion attacks between 1991 and 2003: http://tchester.org/sgm/lists/lion_attacks.html The wikipedia article also includes information on fatal attacks.

And I suppose that most of the people in the neighborhood where the lion showed up also did not see the lion, so your husband's not seeing it is nothing special. Trying to find special meaning here may not be useful. Coincidences happen. Yeah, it feels weird that he wrote a book about a man-eating tiger, and now there's a man-eating mountain lion around, but apparently you live in an area where mountain lions roam. Keep in mind that we have invaded their habitat. Tigers, on the other hand, are not indigenous to North America. so presumably the tiger in the novel got there by escaping or being set loose from something, such as a circus.

Oh, and the neighbor who feeds raw chicken to the lion is an idiot, and too bad he wasn't the one attacked.

[Thirtieschild]

8. We realize we moved into their habitat but I'm not sure we invaded it.

This area is sparsely populated, plenty of game, and the lion was healthy. We are so sparsely populated, in fact, that the state highway that takes us into town, goes 35 miles into the national forest and stops at the cliff dwellings. I can see the national forest (the largest one in the country), in fact, as I sit at my desk. There are only nine houses in our particular area, and we are the only ones who didn't see the lion.

[SheilaT]

9. I suppose the difference

between moving into and invading is a very tenuous one. Nonetheless, they were here long before we were. However, it is somewhat interesting that you are the only one of the nine residences who didn't see the lion. But still, I honestly think you're reading more cosmic significance into that than is warranted.

[Thirtieschild]

10. If you knew the book you'd understand.

[SheilaT]

11. What is the title of the book?

[Thirtieschild]

12. Shikar in hardback, Maneater in paperback, Maneater as the absolutely awful movie.

I played a couple of games of Mah Jong, thought about what I'd said to you and came back to DU to clarify my somewhat snippy response and apologize for it. Came back and saw your question.

To say what I should have said to start with, my husband would agree with you that it's pure coincidence and doesn't mean anything. But then he always sees coincidence where I always - well, almost always - see significance. I'm struck by the sensitivity of the book coinciding with a real life event, an event we couldn't have imagined happening so near us. When he wrote the book we lived in Atlanta - not in suburban Atlanta but inside the city limits. And, by the way, I feel safer out here among bears and lions than I ever felt in the city. In the book the child touches the dead tiger, and this morning I picked up the dead lion's paw and held it for my husband to photograph. As I've said several times, I felt I had stepped into the pages of the book.

Soon after the book was published we got a call from a man in Oklahoma whose horse had been killed by a mountain lion. The man had put all his love and all his money into the horse and when he found it dying he was consumed by hate towards the lion. All he wanted to do was kill it. And then he read Shikar and his anger at the lion dissipated. He understood the lion's point of view. The book brought him an epiphany.

I think I resisted you saying we invaded the lion's territory because this area is so sparsely populated and the terrain is so rough. We walk down a rough dirt road (in places you have to decide whether to drive over the boulder or through the gulley), a road with far more empty space than houses. We are on the edge of the Gila National Forest and the Aldo Leopold Wilderness Area, can sit in the office and look at it. The state highway that runs past our land runs 35 miles into the forest and stops at the Cliff Dwellings. That's it. The big danger here is a forest fire, and if that happens I'll look for what I have to learn from it - probably not to move to an area where the natural disaster danger is forest fires? - but certainly won't see any universal significance in it.

We know there will always be a mountain lion here and I see no significance in living with one as a neighbor; I do see significance in living next to one who killed a man. I have tremendous sympathy for both the man and the lion. There was something wrong - lions are secretive, they don't normally show themselves to people like this one did. Now this one has been killed and DNR is hell-bent on killing another one whose tracks they found across the highway. Killing the second lion is heart-breakingly stupid. Why kill a lion just because another one became a maneater? Another one or two will just move in to replace them. As I said, there will always be a mountain lion here. We know that, just like we know there will always be coyotes and roadrunners and jackrabbits and javalina and mule deer and black bear and rattlesnakes and tarantulas and field mice and packrats and kangaroo rats and owls who take housecats and small dogs. They come with the territory and we are in their territory.

If you should read the book, I'd like to know if it moves you and if you see any significance in the confluence of the book and the events.

Finally, my apologies for not giving you a serious answer. I have Mars in Libra and don't do well with confrontations. I can be defensive too. Can be defensive? I am defensive. I've had so many emotions tied up in this, sadness for what I knew had to happen to the lion, and sadness for the man, who, his family said, was autistic and liked to go out at night to look at the stars.

[I Have A Dream]

13. ...:

:hug:

[SheilaT]

14. Perhaps starting a thread discussing

coincidence vs. meaningful event would be quite interesting. For one thing, we'd find there's a wide range of opinion? disagreement? some other word? as to what is a coincidence and what is a meaningful intersection or connection of events. But we'd certainly get a lot of examples of such things.

I'm not sure if I'll have a chance to read the book -- I'm in the process of divorcing and relocating (from Kansas to New Mexico), but I'll try to keep it in mind and find a copy.

And no need to apologize for any "snippiness". When I posted my first response I wondered if I was being disrespectful of your genuinely felt connection between the book and recent events. Finding meaning in what happens is an important aspect of what makes us tick, what makes us human. If we saw all events as random I don't know if we'd have anything that resembles culture and civilization. And even if we sometimes link events that shouldn't be linked, that's better than not linking events that should be linked.

Oh. And I often wonder, when I read or hear of authorities going after some animal that has attacked or killed a human, how can they be all that certain that they've gotten the right one. It can seem as if there's a killing frenzy on the part of the humans which is at least as bad as the original attack.

[Sanity Claws]

15. Excellent idea

I would love to see this kind of discussion. I used to ignore signs and just plow through things to try to get what I thought I wanted. Now I wonder whether I'm giving up on some things too easily because of a "sign." I would love to hear a discussion regarding sign (meaningful event) and coincidence.

[Thirtieschild]

16. In this case they're sure it's the same one.

DNR had shot at it with buckshot Thursday night, thought they'd hit it in the back. This cat had recently been hit with buckshot. Also, the paw prints matched those found at the scene, and the cat was just a half-mile from the kill site. The one across the road they are going after? That's a whole other story and makes me sick at my stomach to even think about.

[Thirtieschild]

17. Meant to ask you, where in Kansas? Where in New Mexico?

We had no idea that life went at a fast pace in Georgia until we got out here and realized that things got done there. Someone said she felt she'd moved to a third world country. Maybe not in Albuquerque or Santa Fe, but certainly down here in the remote parts of the state.

[SheilaT]

18. Overland Park

to Santa Fe.

[Callie McAllie]

4. I personally find this absolutely fascinating

I cannot believe it is just coincidence. Although I can't explain it, either.

I'm sorry your husband's ill. I hope it's not serious. Were you able to tell him about the lion attack? What did he think of it?

Also sorry about the movie!! That was one thing I thought, as I read your post, was who has the rights to this book, maybe it should be a movie. Too bad they didn't do it justice. Why sci-fi? That doesn't even make sense.

[Thirtieschild]

5. The lion is dead.

It was caught in a snare this morning and then shot and killed. I met my husband at State Police headquarters (he needed his camera) and saw the lion lying in the back of a pickup. When I picked up the paw so Husband could photograph it, I felt as if I had stepped into the pages of his novel. I'm no closer to figuring this one out, may never understand it but will always believe there is meaning in it.

Husband's health problem, btw, was fatigue, dehydration and fluctuating blood pressure. He's fine now, though needs to have an ultrasound on his kidneys. He's hiking the road again but not alone. People have been walking in groups, armed just in case.

[Shallah Kali]

19. Maybe your husband's subconscious/intuition picked up on this events ripples through space/time

It is a traumatic and unusual happening. It would not surprise me that such things send out ripples that anyone open to their innate psychic abilities, even if only for a moment, would pick up on. I am reminded of how many interviews I have read of writers and other creative people saying that an idea just peculated to the surface of their mind. It also makes me think of scientific discoveries and inventions that come out at the same time. Darwin just briefly beat another man with the same theory to publishing. And wasn't there another man who came up with a similar thing as one of Einstein's theories that again that they had both worked on for a long time and it was just luck that Einstein got published first?

So my speculation is your husband picked up on this then future event that was then made part of his novel. Oh this reminds me of the book that eeiriy predicts the disasterous Titanic published 14 years before it's sinking-

Futility, or the Wreck of the Titan
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Futility%2C_or_the_Wreck_of_the_Titan

[Callie McAllie]

20. Alexander Graham Bell and the telephone

he just barely beat out another guy for that patent, I think, as well.