Our trio of sturdy safari vehicles traversed the dusty meandering trails of the savanna for several hours, crossing rivers, searching ravines, and covering vast acres under the big African sun. We frequently paused to marvel at the abundance of wildlife before us: migrating wildebeests that recalled The Lion King and herds of elephants gracefully lumbering by, often close enough to touch the matriarchs constantly surrounding their suckling young.

Giraffes young and old (the older they get the darker their markings) entertained us endlessly, reaching long necks high into trees for leaves or stepping their long front legs wide apart to bring noses to the grasses beneath them as though they were preparing for a straddle forward fold.

Hyenas cooled in streams – regal and more robust than they often are portrayed – and kept wary eyes on us but did not flee.

The many species of birds and raptors with brilliant plumage, unusual feathers, and uncanny ways of finding protection for their eggs never failed to amaze.

And the zebras – oh, the zebras – each with their individual striped pattern doing exactly what our fingerprints do. The more you watch them graze, run, play, and stand guard, the more you want to bring one home (alive).

Up one trail and down another we drove for days, passing other safari makes and models and stopping for a minute so the respective guides could share information in their collective quest to give all visitors the richest experience. Rather than hoard information for their own clientele, they communally supported each other so that success could be had by as many as possible. How refreshing, I thought to myself again and again.

We’d brought nineteen hearty and trusting souls, including MB and me, on this retreat to Tanzania, a country so expansive, wild, welcoming, and teeming with life that sometimes you could not stop the tears from cascading down your cheeks and fogging up your binoculars.

In spite of the abundance before us, what we hoped for most on one particular day was this: lions. For the most part, they’d eluded us, and even here, among all that beauty and the many wild creatures we’d witnessed, we longed for that we hadn’t yet seen, human nature being what it is. As we took a bend in yet another trail, we spotted a few other safari groups in dead stop. As we crept closer, we understood why. There, just feet from the dusty path, were several male lions and a few coupled pairs, lions and lionesses leaning into each other as they panted under a sun so large that it seemed as though we might be on another planet. Our guides pulled our vehicles over and stopped the engines.

For a while, we simply stood in our trucks, heads and cameras peering through the open raised roofs and side windows. Click, click, click, the cameras murmured, punctuated by our escaping “oohs” and “ahhs” as we beheld the majesty of the kings and queens of the savanna before us.

And, then, as though on cue, first one and then another lazily rose to mighty paws and slowly sauntered toward our parked vehicles. One by one, they surrounded us, unfazed at the close proximity because they trusted their instinct that they had the upper (ahem) paw and that we would oblige them. We did.

You cannot make this stuff up: With great patience and skill, they walked steadily toward us and circled us until – wait for it – they flopped down in the shadows created by our trucks to catch a little shade, a little respite, from the blazing light and the unyielding heat.

Lions to the right and to the left, lions in front and to the rear of us, lions collapsed in whatever shade they could find. They roared, they fawned, they yawned, they rolled. (What’s next, I thought? Purring?) Some ventured so close before taking a brief siesta that we could have touched them if we’d leaned out the open windows a bit. Life came to a standstill as we waited for them to move. What else could we do?

We chatted from vehicle to vehicle; our drivers occasionally started and roared engines in the hope that the noise would prompt the lions to move on so we could, too. Yet, they knew who had the upper paw, and it certainly wasn’t the creatures in the Jeeps.

What struck me in those achingly sweet and stunning minutes – perhaps as many as 30 or 45 of them – was this: The safari-goers, from different countries and continents, suddenly formed a community, setting aside differences and shyness to share stories about their lives even as the lions themselves integrated themselves among us. Oh, I thought to myself, this is what community looks and feels like. This is the teaching of “no separation” among people and creatures in real time. This is what I’d been missing and grieving since the onset of the pandemic. More tears, more fog on the binocular’s lenses. “Are you okay,” one of our group members asked me as I forced back sobs. “I don’t know,” I replied.

And then, having cooled themselves enough, I guess, the lions moved away from us and flopped once again in the grasses several yards from the outcropping of vehicles. Most guides started their engines and began creeping forward, yet our leader – Kisana – stayed in place as one from another company stopped to have a word.

Here was the word: Our lead vehicle sported a flat tire. While the lions had removed themselves some distance away, they lay too close for comfort to nonchalantly change a tire. The distance that takes a human many multiple steps to cross takes a lion only one pounce. Making matters worse, we didn’t seem to have the correct spare tire with us. Our three guides conferred by walkie-talkie, always saying each other’s names at least twice to gain attention: “Kisana, Kisana” or “Humphre, Humphre” or “Neema, Neema”. Finally, Kisana opened his door and stepped out as the breath left our bodies and the other two guides warily watched the lions. Suddenly, the order rose from someone’s lips, and Kisana bolted back into his truck. You can’t make this stuff up.

It seemed we were stuck – no tire, too many lions, what to do?

Along came another guide from a competing safari company. True to the pattern we had observed, that caring soul stopped to speak with Kisana. Hearing our dilemma, he generously offered his spare tire, saying, “Just return it when you get back to Arusha.”

Ahh, I thought, this is what community is.

Through patient teamwork among our three guides – and with several quick sprints back into vehicles as lions would move closer with great curiosity – they replaced the flat tire, and slowly we moved away.

Later that night, lying in my comfortable mosquito-netted bed in a beautiful cabin perched on the lip of a crater, I touched a primal feeling, a longing for community so deep that the inevitable tears returned. I realized that I’d been grieving the loss of community at Green Lotus as we had known it prior to the pandemic – and in the rest of my life, too, during and since that time – that I’d carved a chasm of loss in my internal system. What intensified the feelings of grief, I came to understand, was the grasping for the way it had been, even though new ways of being in community were evolving. How fully human of me to cling for what was even though clinging increases suffering.

Here’s what I learned from being surrounded by lions: Community is where you find it and it finds you. Community is ever evolving. Community binds us humans with each other and all of life if we just get out of the way and allow it to happen. Since I’ve returned from Africa, I still occasionally catch myself wishing you’d all come back to Green Lotus, that the ties that bind us didn’t feel so frayed. I want to relive you pouring through the doors, mats in hand for yoga or towels underneath arms for a sauna, or filling events like sound baths and energy circles. I must practice patience....

What I really want to say, though, is this: Community matters, community connects, community beats back the dark forces, community is the only way to get out of the mess we are in nationally and globally. The pandemic frayed the bonds of community, and many of us are seeking ways to repair them. While I want you all back at Green Lotus, I want this more: Wherever you find community these days, grab it, partake in it, rejoice it in, ROAR your appreciation for it. Go back to schools, churches, synagogues, mosques, plays, concerts, book clubs, dinners with friends, volunteer work, healing centers and yoga studios, gyms, and clubs, even the office.

Community builds understanding, understanding builds compassion, compassion builds kindness.

And guess what? Community delivers joy – and I’m not making this stuff up.

A special THANK YOU to our fellow travelers for sharing their photos with us.

Read about the delicious food we enjoyed on our retreat and try one of the recipes that was shared by our guides.

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Marcia Appel

In 2006, Marcia, a former journalist and corporate executive, wrote the plan that launched Green Lotus. In 2007, Green Lotus opened, and Marcia and business partner Merry Beth Hovey, who joined in 2009, planted the seeds of service that are the foundation of the Green Lotus philosophy. "As teachers and healers," Marcia says, "we meet students and clients where they are. We learn and grow from each other -- and have fun doing it."