Large Fierce Mammal

Not even remotely reflective of actual Hunting.

“Everything in Nature encapsulates as part of its being certain dictates that are beyond its control. These exist first and foremost to facilitate the perpetuation of its kind in keeping with all that is desirable in progressive mutation — the kind that makes something better at what it does, and at sticking around a while longer than everybody else to do it. You see, Nature doesn’t care about individuals, nor does She feel remorse over evolutionary dead ends. In a healthy and stable ecosystem, all the necessary jobs get done, and all the participating species will survive coexisting with each other. Notice I said species, not individuals, because even the best and brightest in any group will die eventually, but more likely after the inferior specimens do.

“To Nature then, and at the greatest risk of sounding political, no individual lives matter because She deals exclusively with the BIG picture. However, all deaths certainly do, for the ending of every life improves the lot, the survival, and/or the viability of another.” ~ Dark Sentiments Season 7 – Day 22: All Deaths Matter

I Am

By LFM

I am a Killer.

Over my many years upon this Earth, I have studied and practiced the methods and instrumentalities of inflicting sudden death upon fellow creatures, while learning the strengths and weaknesses of my Prey.

In this, I have willfully and willingly conspired to take every advantage in skewing the contest to my favour.

I admit to killing without remorse, and having every intention of doing it again.

Yet, I kill with Respect and Humility.

I seek not the conquest of lesser beings for within this contest they do not exist, any more than does good or evil.

There is no place within my Garniture for malice.

I do not carry Death in my hand for the sake of it, but mindful of its weight and the sacrament of its wielding in honour of Life.

I am the Best of Myself.

I am a Hunter.

To have never participated in the process by which an animal becomes food is to miss a great deal indeed. Be it on the farm or the hunting field, there is nothing trivial about it.

In the year just passed, and after some decades away, I returned to the hunting of Whitetail Deer. To the uninitiated, this may be seen as little more than dressing up in blaze orange, slinging my rifle, and heading off to the woods where Bambi’s beloved Mother awaits certain death. In Truth, and as I said, this is a decidedly non-trivial enterprise that, for me, begins in June as part of a sacred bond between Predator and Prey.

By then, the Does that were impregnated during the autumn rut have either given birth to their fauns or are about to, so the Hunter’s scouting at this time of year must be a sensitive, respectful, and noninvasive expression of presence, awareness, and most particularly, patience. It must also neither be forgotten nor discounted that the Deer as a part of the Forest does not exist alone and apart from other organisms that share its habitat and with whom it must inevitably coexist, as the Way of the Wild manifested by each will decree. So, just as a pebble dropped into a pond may cause sensitive ears to swivel in response, prey fish to flee and predatory ones to race toward it, waterfowl to take wing, and aquatic insects disturbed by the widening rings of its ripples to skate to calmer waters, so too may an animal make its presence known to the Hunter’s mind without ever showing itself to his eye.

The Hunter, likewise a part of the forest and regardless of species, is not alone in his predation, for the imperatives of competitors, his own kind and others, must be recognized and understood.

Mid-summer 2022. (LFM photo)

Each seeks a quarry that evolution has imbued with an absolute oneness with its place in the scheme of things, and that lives its life not in the expectation of being hunted, but in the absolute certainty that it is being hunted at every moment.

More on this when next we convene. For those who made it this far locked in a struggle against the urge to avert eye and mind, I will want you here most of all.