Time to Mate. Love in the Serengeti.

That morning, deep in the Serengeti, as I ventured out on a walking safari to witness the great wildebeest migration, I joked with my guide that I felt the urge to "mark my territory," so that lions knew who’s king of the jungle, or in this case savannah. He laughed, and we wandered, stepping into the vast wilderness on foot.

As we walked, we spotted a male lion resting with two females in the distance. My guide nudged me, saying, “Let’s go, it’s getting late.” But I had a feeling something was about to happen. “No, let’s wait a bit longer,” I said, keeping my eyes on the scene.

The lions stirred. I noticed them gazing intently toward the bush in the distance, where I could see rustling through my binoculars. The male and his lead lioness got up, walking in the direction of the movement. Then, from afar, another lioness approached—likely a new member of the pride. The male without hesitation left his mate behind and lay down, waiting. And then, right there in the wide-open savanna, under the vast African sky, the moment unfolded—a raw, unfiltered display of nature's primal dance.

Afterward, she fell asleep nearby with a look of satisfaction, while he yawned and settled back into his nap. And there you have it—the scene captured in my collage above: wild, unfiltered lion romance, lion pornography as you may, shot with a Nikon D7500 DSLR and an AF-S Nikkor 80-400mm lens (f/4.5-5.6G ED VR) that I had rented for the day. Normally, I never travel with a camera larger than my pocket—usually just my phone or my Canon Powershot G9X Mark II, but today I am glad I did.

What struck me most about this encounter was its sheer spontaneity.

It seems like, in modern life, we schedule everything—including intimacy. You work all day, so does your partner, then you come home, cook dinner, clean up, take care of errands, and before you know it, it’s time for bed—only to wake up and do it all over again. And so the cycle continues until you’re 62, 65, or 67, when you finally tap into that 401(k) and collect Social Security, hoping you’re still young enough to enjoy life and mate like a lion. If you’re lucky, your body won’t betray you—no painful prostate, no waning desire after menopause.

And if, by some miracle, you want to have fun before retirement, well, it has to be penciled in like a surgical procedure. There’s all the preparation, or, rather, pretense—the lingerie, cologne, perfume, flowers, the ambiance, and the obligatory dinner—all designed to “set the mood”—so that maybe, just maybe, you’ll have a less than memorable evening under the bedroom ceiling, certainly not under the stars.

Nothing like these lions.

How starkly our lives contrast with the lives of these lions. Animals—humans included—exist within a framework of natural cycles—cycles of sleep, mating, eating, and so on. Driven by primal instincts, animals fall in “heat.” These cycles stand in stark opposition to  the rigid schedules, calendars—artificial constructs of time—and the concrete jungles that define our modern existence. This, then, is the essence of human civilization. But is it truly progress? The lions, for their part, seemed utterly unburdened by such concerns, their existence a seamless flow: sleep, eat, and love—whenever the moment calls for it, under the open sky. Perhaps there is a lesson to be learned from their example, a reminder to embrace the spontaneity of life before the opportunity slips away—or, in the words of Louis Prima, the mid-20th century jazz legend and swing king, "Enjoy yourself, it's later than you think."