[Shannon McCarthy]

Hi Jeff,

Wow! What an encounter! You are blessed. A mother grizzly with her cub?! I would not expect many to come back from that able to tell the tale. There’s a lot there.

Long time ago I interviewed many people in South Africa. All kinds of people. I really liked almost every single person. What made them so dear? I thought and thought for a long time, trying to figure out what they each held in common, and could find only two things: a post-apartheid country and exposure to apex predators. I began to think about this more a few years back, pondering my own childhood by the swamp full of gators and later by the sea with the sharks. We knew we could be eaten. That does something to a person. You describe it wonderfully! I’m grateful you have this beautiful story to tell.

And it fits so nicely with how Iain says the LH grabs and gets, and the RH looks all around at the whole environment. When we are at risk of becoming prey, the emissary may only then cede to the real master.