Where the jaguar lurks

Recently a song wouldn't let go of me. It's called "Onde o Jaguar Espreita", in English "Where the Jaguar Lurks". It was written and sung by Advan Haschi (together with Breno Stimpel), it comes from the album "Visionário Vegetal" and was released in 2020. What reached me was the remix by Quao. I won't reproduce the lyrics here, you should listen for yourself. But I can tell you what struck me.

The chorus

The jaguar arrives late. It only appears in the chorus, right where the narrator is drinking water. That's where it lurks. The narrator sees it and in the same moment calls himself a hunter. And in that instant, he says, he looks at who he is.

That's a pretty precise image. One is drinking, and so is vulnerable right now. The water keeps him alive, and that is exactly where danger waits. Another lurks. And the narrator knows both: that he is being watched and that he himself is one who watches.

Observer and observed share the same skin.

Small, but on the way

In the verses before, the narrator is a small boat at sea, a leaf in the wind. That sounds like complaining, but it isn't. It's more a sense of proportion: I am not the ocean. And yet the same narrator calls himself navigator, seeker, hunter. A leaf that knows where it wants to go, even if it's the wind that carries it there.

In Franconia we'd say: a bit small, but we're moving. I like that attitude. Humility without being a doormat.

There's mortality in it too, though the song never spells it out. The Spanish introduction speaks of serving death and of paths through the underworld. In the verses the narrator calls himself a breath, the life of a dreamer. Anyone who speaks of himself like that knows his time is limited. That's my reading, the song doesn't say it.

Being small and still being on the way. Both at once.

What I know about the jaguar, and what I'm only told

First the animal side, because it often gets short shrift. The jaguar is an ambush hunter. It creeps along forest paths, listens, waits and then attacks from cover, usually from behind. And it really does have to do with water: jaguars are good swimmers and hunt at and in the water. In the Brazilian Pantanal they mainly eat aquatic reptiles and fish. So the song is biologically right. Whoever drinks at the shore is in jaguar territory.

Then come the stories. In Maya imagery the jaguar is closely linked with night and the underworld; there is a "Jaguar God of the Underworld". Some researchers interpret him as the sun on its nightly journey beneath the earth. Others doubt it. Why the jaguar stands there is more interpretation than certainty. The idea of night is obvious: the jaguar is mostly nocturnal and crepuscular, with regional differences. In the Pantanal and the Amazon many animals are active during the day too. You often read that the Maya assigned it to night and the underworld for that reason, so it could wander between worlds. That's mostly found on travel websites. I couldn't find evidence anywhere that it was really meant that way. It's a beautiful story, nothing more.

Better documented is that ethnologists have described the link between jaguar and healer. The Austrian-Colombian ethnologist Gerardo Reichel-Dolmatoff published his book "The Shaman and the Jaguar" in 1975, about the Tukano in the Colombian Amazon. The title says it all.

The song says nothing of the Maya or the Tukano. The underworld, however, does appear, right in the Spanish introduction, together with death and the unconscious. The stories only explain why the image carries so well. You have to keep them apart, otherwise a beautiful song quickly turns into an incense stick.

Who is looking at whom

No jaguar lurks in the Reichswald. A tick at most. But there are plenty of watering places: ponds, streams, the Pegnitz. And anyone who has ever watched a deer drinking knows the image from the song. It doesn't drink in one go. Head down, head up, ears alert. For the deer that's everyday life, not drama.

We mostly drink with our phone in hand.

The song turns things around. The wild forest shows the narrator who he is. Nature isn't a backdrop here but a counterpart that looks back. That matches what I keep experiencing in the forest when I accompany people: as soon as someone stops, they are no longer a spectator. They're right in the middle of it.

The letting go I read into it

To be honest: the lyrics say not a word about ego and control. The introduction, before the verses, belongs to a voice asking who you are, who dreams your dreams and whether you can breathe. Then it invites you to open your heart and let the sound of the soul resonate.

The letting go is something I read into it. That's my reading, not the song's. Still, I think it's in there. Whoever only breathes and observes holds on to nothing. You can't drink at the water, watch for the jaguar and manage the world all at the same time.

A small exercise for your next forest walk

Find a spot by the water. A pond, a stream, even a puddle will do. Sit down for ten minutes, without your phone in hand.

First look as one who is drinking. What's behind me? What do I hear without looking? Then switch sides and look as one who observes. What is moving? What stays still?

If the question from the song comes to mind, whether you can breathe: just notice it. You don't have to do anything else. Noticing once is enough.

I can't promise you anything from it. But sometimes your head gets a little clearer.

No jaguar lurks in the Reichswald. Still, by the water you wonder who you really are. The water reflects, and that's all it takes.