inspiration
in nature,
everything serves a purpose
Long before science revealed its secrets, stories kept us captivated by the wild. Too little understanding can dampen our curiosity, but too much strips away the mystery that draws us in. It’s in this balance between knowing and wondering that the richest experience of nature lies. The story: Long ago, say the Zulu people, there lived a hunter. A lazy man with a sharp mind for doing nothing. One hot day, he set out to find food for his family. But soon he sat to rest in the shade of a tree, watching a herd of impala grazing nearby, wishing for an easier way. After a while, he noticed something moving in the tall grass. Downwind of the herd, crouched low, a mother cheetah was waiting patiently for an impala to stray. When the time was right, she leapt forward to catch her prey, and the rest of the herd scattered. The hunter was impressed. “What if she could hunt for me?” he thought to himself. “Then I could rest and my family could still eat.” He watched her drag the impala to a clearing, where three cubs were waiting to feast. Seeing
them gave him an idea: “I will steal one of those cubs and raise it to hunt for me.” He waited until the mother left, then snuck up behind them. “But why take one when I can take them all?” He grabbed the cubs and made his way back to the village. When the mother returned to find them missing, she cried and cried for days, until the tears stained her cheeks with long, black streaks. Sometime later, an old man passed by and heard her crying. “What’s wrong?” he asked. She told him what had happened. He knew the hunter from his village, and that he had stolen her cubs, and he promised to return them. He convened with the elders, who scolded the hunter for dishonouring them by abandoning the tradition of relying on their skills to hunt, and banished him. The hunter returned the cubs to their mother, but the stains from her tears could not be wiped away. And when she gave birth to new cubs, they too shared her markings. These tears have remained on the cheetah ever since, a reminder to all to be honest, never to deceive or deliberately harm nature, or take from it what isn’t needed.
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