This is a nature being art piece that looks different from different angles. From one vantage point (right) the sculpture looks like a cougar searching for prey and about to pounce. From another (left) he looks like an old, bedraggled cougar with death fast approaching.

cougar-mountain-top

This is one of the few dark images I came upon in Garden of the Gods, Colorado. He lives on the outskirts of the Grand Plaza. Birds like to sit on his head; below right four magpies face off against an elderly prairie falcon.

This mountain lives in the Garden of the Gods, Colorado. The cougar image is seen throughout the park, and seems to be a symbol of the area’s ancient energy.

Powerful, intelligent, graceful, wily, able to navigate the many cliffs as well as the many secrets of spirit –  the Nature Spirits chose the cougar as their emblem. 

Cougar with Magpies

But nature has seen some rough survival times in recent centuries and from another angle we see this is a commemorative sculpture mourning the demise of the cougar and of Native American traditions common to this area.

cougar with magpies

In the close up of this mountain top, you see an elderly prairie falcon with frayed feathers facing off against four magpies, one looking in each of the four directions. They sit on a skeletal cougar head; the head has deeply down-turned mouth and dark eye weeping tears.

Falcons are symbol of wisdoms, protection and change. Magpies, like their black and white coloring, are harbingers of the dark and of the light – symbols of the duality of opposites. They are birds of divination and the occult.

This mountain is one of the few whitish rock areas in an otherwise red rock environment.

Below you can see two other locations in the park where the cougar is honored. I’ve written about these images in other blogs.

This blog was first published in July 2020.

Mountain lion in red rock heart

Ant People