It's hunting season here where wildlife still is taken for food. The young men who painted my house want to use my property to access the wild lands in the mountains above me. It's the time of year to fill the freezers with meat for the winter. Venison and turkey. There's no question of trophy hunting, the meat of the big buck is way too tough. The deer come down into my yard each night and eat the rose bushes. The young men noticed that.
Remembering how my father also was a hunter and how our family stocked the freezer every fall with duck and partridge and deer and moose from up by the Canadian border where we lived, I told the young men yes. The deer eluded them, but that's how hunting is. I confess to a preference for the hunter over the slaughterer when it comes to taking the life of an animal for food. There's an exchange of energy between the hunter and the deer. A connection.
But that is not the theme I intended when I began to write. I meant to tell you that when I let little Mo out first thing this morning Orion still was striding across the sky. I don't see him yet at night, now that I'm going early to bed. Judging from his position this morning, midpoint in the sky, I suspect he doesn't stride over from the east until about three A.M. He's probably still up there now that the sun has risen, making his way towards the western horizon.
Grief is a hunter. That's what I thought this morning. It will be seven months tomorrow since John died. I'm hunting. I'm hungry. Sources of food elude me. I'm striding the mountains, sword in my belt, seeking a kind of being I've rarely encountered -- the one who gives life without dying. The sword I carry is not to bring death but to cut through illusion. I'm hungry for reality, for the truth, for love that is available always and everywhere.
That sounds good, but I got carried away. Hunting is often an exhausting business. Grieving is also. Hunting consists in watching for tracks, for scat, for broken twigs, and many times results in returning home empty-handed and still hungry. Tim and Clint came down the mountain the other night, thanked me and said, "Nothing for supper tonight." They can, of course, stop for an Arby's on the way home, but it's not the same.
I've seen the tracks of Being. I've wondered at the bent twigs of a perhaps knowing. A sudden cry in the woods can set my heart burning. But the hunt is still on.
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Comments: 13
How differently we grew up.
I was born in THE 'Big City'. New York. As a near infant I roamed the streets of the Bronx, where I was born and first lived, and saw a tree once in a while along with the start of the automobile evolution and revolution. My early 'anchors' into emergent realities was a (then) modern day school building made of bricks and metal and glass and BACKBOARDS and BOOKS. I loved learning -- but basically without seeing and experiencing NATURE as you saw and experienced the endless 'natural' WONDERS of IT. In some very meaningful sense you were closer to REAL LIFE than was I.
My mother used to take me food shopping once in a while, and my greatest joy was buying a 'hot dog' (from a cart peddler) smothered with mustard and sauerkraut. When I went with her into a butcher shop I noted her search for a plump (living) chicken (to be slaughtered in a back room for us) and a good (non-living) steak or three. She was a great cook and I was a great 'eater' of very diverse offerings from the STORES, not the fields or MOUNTAINS or LAKE Countries that you write about -- so beautifully.
Now 'transitioning' --------
You might be interested in a large collection of 'deliberations' going on about chaos theories, complexity theories, ergodicity theories and -- especially -- information theories as they relate to presemt problems in physics and especially PARTICLE PHYSICS. Ann H is the sponsor on gather.com. Take a look at the works of David Bohm (via Google and Wikipedia). Are the spirituality and religions and human minds and hearts and sciences converging with existent and potential existential realities -- and are we starting to understand the consequences? Our 'human sensory' capacities can tell us the answers here along with our MIRACULOUS 'hidden capacities to think, analyze and KNOW'!
The intelligent 'chaos' theories at work are carrying ALL OF humanity into our NEW and EXPANDING HUMAN CREATIVITIES. The strong appearances that the growth of the CREATIVE Collective Consciousness at the planetary level -- at least -- are there and are in the process of being more fully discovered by those who KNOW and CRAVE for REAL LIFE and UNDERSTANDING. A re-newed set of CREATIVE and CREATING 'urges' are being 'born' among and within us ALL.
Dick
I'm very much of an "urban" girl, but stars, whenever I see them, is one of the greatest joys and attractions in my life. I would never forget how I've seen the Milky Way for the first time, far away from big bustling cities and Moscow smog. To say that it was majestic would mean to say nothing... I was literally awe-stricken! :-)
Love and hugs - S.
Dick, do you see the stars where you live--the depth of stars in the Milky Way--or are they dimmed by city lights like they are for Svetlana? It is very dark here on the mountain and the Milky Way is visible almost every night (exceptions are nights of the full or almost full moon, and nights of clouds). It's amazing to stand under it and see the stars with dimensions, with depth, and that reality is particularly visible with a good set of binoculars or, better yet, a telescope.
Dick, I will take a look at that group you mentioned. It does seem to me that all the work in the many realms of knowledge and exploration in which different people engage must be aimed towards the same reality, and will finally come together.
I made a mistake. The 'article writer was Ann M. and the title of the article was "Losing Your Religion: An Ongoing Discussion (September 22, 2008 Edition)".
That said : I live in a place on the Atlantic Ocean (which is about 150 feet from my front door) and in the evenings -- weather permitting -- the skies are always full of stars, and planets and galaxiies and dark matter and dark energy (which can't be seen by any known means -- (INFORMATION specks?)). Sometimes the winds are gentle and sometimes not. But the scene across the harbor is always magnificent and when I wish to do so I can hop into my car and visit and see at close hand what I can see from my home when I'm on the other side of the harbor. Sort of a personal verification process that is not inferential or intimated by my imagination.
As an aside, I have spent lots and lots of days in Moscow. And that is a much different experience than 'living and seeing' in New York or nerby Boston. I love the visible long-term history and the glories of Moscow, and even moreso I love the many villages that I have visited in Russia in the temperate climes there as well as in their Arctic and more southern regions. I always have been enchanted by the architecture and the rustic habitations of the very old abodes in places like the autonomous regions of the Komi Republic which is very North of Moscow and East of St. Petersburg and in the Black sea region and especially regions around old Kiev.
There are glories abounding on this planet. If only we were smart and insightful enough to love the God-Given glories that we tend to ignore. There would be no need then for theologies and philosophies. We'd only need to know of and speculate about the enchantments that abound inside and outside of our personal and WONDROUS selves when we interact with one another. A sort of prayerful and constant ecstasy.
Dick
The area I live in has a lot of hunters - for the most part they go "up North" to hunt camps though.. works for me; I would hate for someone to shoot "my" moose!
But things are not all that cut and dried, a matter of only one or the other, there are an infinite amount of variables involved with everything ... especially the thinking involved which often shows up in our activities only superficially in the view of others ...
Like father like son was the norm in the beginning ... yet with variations suitable to the ego perspectives involved (mine) ... as for hunting, I eventually settled for a singular annual hunt that would be called a trophy hunt in that I picked the most rugged and trying weather and terrain, that associated with late season rifle hunting for elk ... which I would not shoot unless they were trophy "quality" ... IE had a very large "rack" of antlers ... those being the most elusive and thus the greatest "challenge" to bag ... thus that which engendered the greatest respect and envy of like thinkers ... all "ego" considerations ...
Along with all of that was the total experience of having a hidden camp in the the remotest high country where I could get to away from all other people and signs of civilization. It was reached by driving a 4X4 to the very end of the rough logging roads then hiking another 5 miles up a climbing trail which placed me about half way between Mount St Helens and Mount Adams ... isolated, cold, often very snowy, but many nights filled with the Milky Way and it's wonder ... even though I knew little of the individual constellations or what they stood for amongst those folks more aware ...
Later in life I experienced a "spiritual awakening" though, that changed much of my "thinking" about such things ... I quit hunting then because I could no longer justify an attempt to take the life of the animals ... I was then somewhat conflicted by my previous ideas but justified them with the reality of the fact that what I had really enjoyed the most was the outdoor experience and the "hunting" was just the "excuse" for it ... and that I had rarely actually killed anything because I had been so "selective" just further "justified" it all ...
Now I have been somewhat conflicted by the fact that I have a grown daughter with a hunting family ... but justify that in that they are not trophy hunters but sustenance hunters ... but because they are less "selective" they actually kill more animals ... but they eat it all ... do they have time for the stars ? ... I know not. But there is something for everyone and it all is a learning process and I have learned much yet still cannot recognize Orion even when it is in plain sight ... but I now have an appreciation for the potential of it's sentient life of "alien" realms ... all things being relative and justifiable from one perspective or another ... :-)
So there's the issue. We live in ambiguity more than in relativity. Almost never are choices clear, no matter the perspective. But we need to choose, nonetheless. Sometimes it almost drives me crazy, because with any choice of consequence, I incur a loss, a tangle, something like a sin. There used to be a saying: The saint sins seven times a day. So what about the rest of us?
Thanks, Jerry, for the chance to think about all this. And you simply must learn to spot Orion! He's wonderful the way he strides across the winter sky, hunting for . . . it's all relative, right? ;-)
Seven months and still counting. Counting Stars. Opening gates for hunters. Life goes on. Little me looking up at mighty orion. Little me knowing how big is creation and how big is God. Something is afoot in the universe. Something is going on. Creation and redemption surges forward. I was part of it. I am part of it. Only now I just don’t know what part. My foundation has been shaken. I am only just now beginning to find bearings again. Starting with orion, the hunter. So Ok I am hunting. This damned god shaped hole needs filling again. But as with the first time, you don’t look God in the face. God keeps hidden. You catch a glimpse every now and then out of the corner of your eye. You don’t find love by seeking love. Love comes in from the side. While you are feeding the poor or writing your novel. That hole will fill. That hole is being filled as we speak. Nirvana nears.
One of my students brought in a story about a Dutch school teacher, age 25, who astounded the astronomical community by finding a new thing in the skies. A ghost. A hazy round structure 1600 light years wide with a hole in the middle. She volunteered to help examine a million images taken by a telescope in New Mexico that was programmed to map the sky. Human eyes, alas, are still better than a computer for noticing something unusual. Her only link with stars prior to the discovery was when she looked up at them. Astronomers are excited. And the Hubble Space telescope has scheduled a look in 2009. Life goes on. New things are being discovered. New ways of looking are made possible with internet and computers. High tech. What will the next 40 years bring? Already we have cell phones and GPS and mobile internet access. We can all speak to one another. We can all participate in research. None of us is smart as all of us. We’re all in emergence. What the butterfly will look like is hard to tell. But I want to be part. It is god’s work. It makes me happy. It fills my longing.
Pardon the strange disjointedness. OK maybe with me, disjointedness is the norm. But this is what comes when I think of you.
Cheers.
Jim