THE LION WHO FORGOT HE WAS KING by Linda Somiari-Stewart
Long ago, when the world was still warm with the breath of creation, and the stars still leaned low to whisper secrets to the earth, a lion cub named Ajani was born. His first cry echoed under the sacred Baobab Tree, on a night when the moon hung heavy and golden, like the wise eye of an ancestor watching over the land.
But as the griots say, fate walks with both straight and crooked legs.
Hunters came with iron teeth and fire in their eyes. Ajani’s pride scattered like leaves in a storm. In her final breath, his mother cradled him in her jaws and carried him away from the danger. At the edge of a goat herder’s camp, she laid him down gently and closed her eyes forever.
The herder, an old man with no children and eyes that had seen too much sun, found the cub and raised him among his goats. He named him Ajani, meaning “he who wins the struggle,” though the cub did not know the weight of that name.
Ajani grew tall and golden, his mane thick like fire braided by the sun. But he walked with his head bowed low. Raised among goats, he learned their ways. He bleated instead of roared. He nibbled at grass. He ran from danger instead of facing it. The goats loved him as a brother, and he loved them as kin. Yet deep within him, behind the rib cage where breath becomes courage, something stirred, restless and unspoken.
One season, the skies turned stingy. The rains vanished. Rivers dried to dusty cracks - ribs in the belly of the earth. With thirst came hunger, and with hunger came predators. One twilight, a jackal leapt from the shadows, teeth bared, eyes wild. It lunged at the goats.
Ajani froze.
He felt the fire rise within him - the urge to strike, to protect. But he did not move. I am just a goat with strange fur, he thought. Who am I to fight?
When even the stars seemed to hold their breath that night, an old lion descended from the mountain. His mane was silver with the wisdom of many moons. His eyes held the silence of forgotten battles.
“I saw you today,” the elder said, his voice like thunder softened by memory. “You did nothing when the jackal struck.”
“I am just a goat,” Ajani replied, his voice small in the wind.
The old lion roared - a deep, ancient sound that shook leaves from trees and startled the sleeping birds. “You are no goat! You are Ajani, child of the savannah, breath of your ancestors. You were born to lead, not to hide!”
“But I’ve never hunted,” Ajani whispered. “I’ve never fought for survival. The herder feeds us. I only know how to follow.”
The elder lion lowered his head and sighed. “Then let me help you remember. Because though your mind forgets, the blood remembers.”
He led Ajani to the river’s edge. There, beneath the starlight, the water was still as polished stone. “Look,” the old lion said.
Ajani gazed into the reflection. For the first time, he saw not a goat, but a lion - majestic, mighty, and unsure.
That night, and many nights after, while the goats dreamed beneath the stars, the elder taught him. To move with silence. To strike with purpose. To walk like the king he was born to be.
Ajani began to remember, not through words but through doing. He learned to track the scent of the wind and read the silence of the trees. He hunted, roared, and took up space.
And when the jackals came again, they met a different lion.
Ajani stood between the herd and the teeth of the wild. He did not tremble. He did not run. He opened his mouth and released a roar that split the clouds. Trees bent in reverence. The jackals fled, tails tucked, their fear trailing behind like smoke.
The goats bleated with joy, but deeper than joy, there was pride, for they had always seen something mighty in their strange brother’s eyes.
From that day on, Ajani became the guardian of both prey and pride—not a lion above others, but a lion for others. A king not born of conquest, but of memory.
And so the wise ones would say:
When the world tries to make you forget your roar, go to the riverside. Find the still water. Look deep.
The blood remembers. You are not what they call you—you are what the earth made you to be.
Learn, Rise, Roar, child of Africa. Rise. Roar. Shine.