ben's first hunt

"How could he be a hunter?" they said to themselves, "I've seen him blow mosquitos off himself so as not to harm them..."
Their ideas of hunting may have been about death. yet for this hunter the death of the deer is the responsibility for the health of that species. By taking life he commits to maintaining life. In the way that he relates with the sun, choosing the healthiest animals, those who eat the plants and medicines that he may be unable to, he incorporates all of that in to his living through that doe's flesh and organ, through her hide, that will become a drum to sing songs of praise.

He wasn't quite sure if he could share the life of hunting with his community.
He had grown up knowing hunting as death as well.
But sitting in those trees, 4 silent hours at a time, witnessing those trees turning towards sun, or away, morning and evening. Maybe a hundred silent hours watching turkey and tree, squirrel, mouse, opossum, deer, wind, nuthatch, colour! coming and leaves falling.

"In life I knew her for less than a minute, and then for hours, and then days." They had come to that tree he was standing in as dusk time neared, and his bow drew silently, that arrow flying smoothly through branches where he aimed above her elbow. She stumbled, breaking that arrow before it went through her, a timeless second and she ran.

It wouldn't be till 2:00 the next afternoon that he would find her, lying on her injured side on those coloured leaves. Leaves he understood in new ways, the difference between a drop of blood 1/4 the size of a dime and the red splash of fall colour on this year's yellow leaf.

Jon came after an hour or so of tracking in the dark, Ben's flashlight had since died and with a wind up light and ben's bike light they followed her trail under the moon, till moon set and the grass became wet they returned to the house, ben ate and they slept, 12 hours before the doe would be found.

Up before dawn, ben was back to where they had left off, with a chance muddy track and splash of blood.
by noon I had left that grassy area, traveling through wet areas, maples and forest alongside hwy 403 near brantford. I had come into that forest so slowly and quietly that a sneeze spooked two bucks, who would return to interact with me. At 1:00, after spending an hour at a pond with a bewildering track and a pool of blood where she had stopped, maybe to consider her direction, I began walking the area, as I was coming into the corner of the bush, between corn field and highway.

A turn, after consideration of the best plan, having followed a heavily traveled (deer) path, and my heart fell to the forest, those tears came to my eyes as, running, falling, touching her so that i could let myself believe, turning her over to know it was the same arrow that pierced her, i wept.





Processing, skinning, butchering, learning.
Friends came to experience this expression of god.