Bobcat--Lynx Rufus

Constellation of the Month: Lynx. Johannes Hevelius is credited with the creation of this constellation saying that anyone wishing to study the stars in this area would need the eyes of a Lynx.

Wikipedia. The Lynx teaches us that even the smallest can succeed in life, and that the world can unfold itself to those who stop and listen. The lynx is not a guardian of secrets so much as the one who knows them, especially when it comes to those secrets that are either obscured by time and space or are completely lost to the world. A lynx may guide the listener to a secret, whether it be a lost object or a hidden truth that is somehow relevant at the present time.

I've been dreaming about that old bobcat whose eaten all of my chickens, geese, and one very good barn cat. I find myself searching for bobcat tracks in the mud. In the snow. Both in my waking and sleeping. I'd pretty much resigned myself to the idea that it's highly unlikely I'll actually lay eyes on this elusive cat who's been dubbed the keeper of the secrets of the forest by so many since, I don't know, the dawn of time or whenever it actually was we began to tell such stories.

Until I found out that I can see him in the night sky. If I really look.

I've spent so much time thinking about the bobcat, I wonder if there's something he's trying to teach me? Is it a "meaningful coincidence" that a critter embued with such mythological significance has crept out of the wild and into my waking life during a time when I've been stretched nearly to the limit of my often very small capabilities? I'm starting to think so.

With my ex now showing an interest in J.'s equestrian vaulting and her love for horses, I've had to acknowledge what until recently has been a hidden truth, or more factually--one to which I've been highly resistant. That is, that even people I don't like much and who've done unpleasant things to me have a spark of the divine in them too. The concept isn't just limited to people I like, agree with, or get along with. I'm a gnostic, and if you don't know what I mean by all this "spark" business, then my grandma J., who was a Southern Baptist, would have summed it up neatly by drawling, "We're all God's children."

When I made the conscious decision to embrace this idea a while ago and to try and live it, when I began thinking of the divine spark in each and every man, woman, and child, well, that's when the bobcat came strolling out of the forest and into my barnyard.

I find myself now all of a sudden on Sunday afternoons in the company of my daughter's dad. This is exceedingly weird and uncomfortable, I can tell you. But, I am able to hand him a brush and have him groom the vaulting horse while the kids warm up. I find that I can make small talk about the vaulting horse, about vaulting, about the equipment, about how J. is doing with the vaulting, and I discover, to my utter and compelte amazement, that I can treat this man with whom I've had so much history, so much bad blood, exactly the same way I would treat any parent who shows up for vaulting.

And I'm no longer so afraid.

I see what this means when I look in my daughter's eyes. It must be a terrifying thing for a kid to have parents who are at great odds with each another. Maybe like the bottom of the whole world could fall out from under you at just about any time.

This may not seem like a lot to you or anyone else. I'm not talking about miraculous reconciliations or anything like that. I'm not talking about Christ-like forgiveness, although I'm working on that (but not all that confident it will happen in this lifetime, although I seek to be liberated). What I'm talking of here is mere civility. What I'm talking about is that I can say, "Isn't it cool that your dad showed up to watch you vault?"

What's happened is the old bobcat, the guardian of the secrets, has taken his claws and rended the very fabric of me to expose a little more light. That constellation of stars is almost impossible to see in the pitch black night sky, say the astronomers. Says the part of me that can't see her way in the dark at times. Says the part of me who's constellated some of her thoughts and feelings into a hard lump of cole, a dark star, a black hole.

I stand on the front porch of my ranch house in the middle of the night, searching the sky until I find it where the elusive stars shine outside and inside, thinking that maybe I'm developing the eyes of a Lynx. Just a little. I'm not completely certain.

But I know that old bobcat is more than a chicken eater, that's for sure.