Atop an ancient fluted boulder, the wild wind has carved a small natural tomb from the living rock.
Into this bower of stone the predatory Genet has laid it’s pellets, seemingly in a reverential manner.
This leopard like spirit of the night creates these habitual middens throughout the Dehesa. They are the markers of its territory as well as the funeraries of the dead.
Here one finds the mummified remains of the unwary and the hapless. It is a jetsam of the once living mammalia that thrive within these forests.
These are natures sky burials and are as rich in meaning as any of those found in the high Himalaya.
The small scats are the offerings of the carnivorous to this place and a sign of the never ending cycles of life.
What was once grain became rodent which in turn became Genet. Soon the Genet will become vulture and worm and so the great wheel keeps turning.
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Photo: Genet midden at Saladaviciosa. Courtesy of the author.
