Go Down Moses, into the Big Woods and Take Your Rest!

God created man and He created the world for him to live in and I reckon He created the kind of world He would have wanted to live in if He had been a man--the ground to walk on, the big woods, the trees and the water, and the game to live in it. And maybe He didn't put the desire to hunt and kill game in man but I reckon He knew it was going to be there, that man was going to teach it to himself, since he wasn't quite God himself yet.

WILLIAM FAULKNER, Go
 Down, Moses

Working on a new painting

Been thinking about this painting for a while now. Faulkner's "Go Down Moses" and all it contains will always be one of those milestones of influence that made me the way I am. The image of the massive Bear and the big Cur Airedale going at it to the death wasn't what I wanted to portray. I often thought about Faulkner, getting old and approaching his last day, wandering if he thought of himself as the boy Issac? wandered if he had actually experienced those "Big Woods" of his words or were they of his dreams? Wandered if he had ever been there, would he want to go back? Would he want see all his old friends, the boy Issac, Sam Fathers the General and the rest? It put me in a melancholy state and I imagined him and the Old Bear and the half breed Airedale "Lion" together at the end all frail, tired, played out, the man who had lived the tale in his mind and thankfully written it down. I saw the Bear leading the way, helping his creator find the way back down that dark trail into the "Big Woods" with the old dog Lion looking back as if to say, "No, you can't come with us this time." 

Here it is at the beginning

For Stephen Bodio over at Querencia

Teratorns are an extinct group of giant predatory birds that are classified in the bird family Teratornithidae. The name “teratorn” means “Wonder Bird,” a name given because of the size, uniqueness, and powerful nature of this group of birds. The first species of teratorn known,Teratornis merriami, was described from the late Pleistocene Rancho La Brea tar pits of Southern California, where the remains of more than 100 individuals of this species have been found. Merriam’s teratorn weighed about 13–14 kg (about 30 lb.) and had a wingspan of about 3.2 m (10.5 ft.). Two other genera of teratorns have been described from California, and other species have been described from Oregon, Cuba, and South America. The largest known flying bird, Argentavis magnificens, is a teratorn that lived about six million years ago in Argentina. This teratorn had a wingspan of 6.5–7.5 m (21–24 ft.), weighed about 72–78 kg (158–172 lb.), and had flight feathers that would have been about 150 cm (59 in.) long.

From, " The Bear" - Faulkner

There was a boy who wished to learn humility and pride in order to become skillful and worthy in the woods, who suddenly found himself becoming so skillful so rapidly that he feared he would ever become worthy because he had not learned humility and pride, although he had tried to, until one day and as suddenly he discovered that an old man who could not have defined either had led him, as though by the hand, to that point where an old bear and a little mongrel of a dog showed him that, by possessing one thing other, he would possess them both.

And a little dog, nameless and mongrel and many-fathered, grown, yet weighing less than six pounds, saying as if to itself, “I can’t be dangerous, because there’s nothing much smaller than I am; I can’t be fierce, because they would call it just a noise; I can’t be humble, because I’m already too close to the ground to genuflect;¹³ I can’t be proud, because I wouldn’t be near enough to it for anyone to know who was casting the shadow, and I don’t even know that I’m not going to heaven, because they have already decided that I don’t possess an immortal soul. So all I can be is brave. But it’s all right. I can be that, even if they still call it just noise.”

That was all. It was simple, much simpler than somebody talking in a book about youth and a girl he would never need to grieve over, because he could never approach any nearer her and would never have to get any farther away. He had heard about a bear, and finally got big enough to trail it, and he trailed it four years and at last met it with a gun in his hands and he didn’t shoot. Because a little dog—But he could have shot long before the little dog covered the twenty yards to where the bear waited, and Sam Fathers could have shot at any time during that interminable minute while Old Ben stood on his hind feet over them. He stopped. His father was watching him gravely across the spring-rife twilight of the room; when he spoke, his words were as quiet as the twilight, too, not loud, because they did not need to be because they would last. “Courage, and honor, and pride,” his father said, “and pity, and love of justice and of liberty. They all touch the heart, and what the heart holds to becomes truth, as far as we know the truth. Do you see now?”

Sam, and Old Ben, and Nip, he thought. And himself too. He had been all right too. His father had said so. “Yes, sir,” he said.

More from my friend Ron Black, Good Stuff!

Got Ron's latest publication written by George Stewart in the mail last week.

 "And There Is No Candidate For His Mantle" stories about Bobby Troughton and the Kendal Otter Hounds.

 Began reading and sent Ron a note to say how much I was enjoying it. Lots of information plucked from court records and a family history section contributed by Jean Gidman as well as incites from George Stewart all tell the story of Bobby Troughton and his life's desire to hunt Otters. A great read with historical facts depicting a well lived life, touching, humorous, and most of all giving you a sense of life and the hunting of Otters with hounds in 19th century Kendal. It's wonderful how things work sometimes to preserve these small seemingly insignificant closing windows of our past.
Thanks to George Stewart for saving this one and to Ron for recognizing it's value and spending the energy and funds.
You will be interested to know that Ron has established, "Gone to Ground Books" for the purpose of publishing these small and mighty memories of a hunting past that is sadly slipping into non existence.

This, a few words from Ron Black,

I am a native Lakelander with roots going back to 1700, the 4th generation to follow hounds, with ancestors who stood on the cold tops at dawn, moved the heavy Lakeland stone to free trapped terriers and also 'carried the horn' on occasions. I hope this site is of interest to you. Hunting will not come back in the foreseeable future, perhaps not at all, but for three hundred years hunting and the church were the central thread to many communities. This is a part of the story.

Also, Lakeland Hunting Memories, a site about the Lakeland area and the "Old Hunting" there.

I Can Always Feel It Knocking, I Can't Always Turn It Away

Hunting is not recreation, getting outside, the pursuing of game or killing. It is however an enormous tiny smouldering fragment of DNA, lingering, alive, ravenous, symbiotically occupying the fortunate soul of some. Originally placed there by God himself to be bred down through the ages demanding survival, urging perseverance, obliging the hands to create a means to an end and supporting life. I cannot tell you the why or the what of it but I do know it does not produce the latest archetype sleeping away in a tree stand guarding a pile of corn.

The enablers of this gene hold their cards close, almost never divulging the grip that holds them. They secretly assemble the strategies needed to circumnavigate commitments, creating inventive lines of conversation that smooth the edginess of departures, concealing a fact placed far to the rear of the mind for convenience, being the date of return has already been extended farther into unwritten history than originally advertised. They walk in peace while braving the wrath of wives, girlfriends and the scorn of family, gathering gear, quietly shuffling about, navigating the halls in the dark gloom of early morning, speaking in tongues to the hounds to keep silent, gently closing doors of kennels, garages, and finally the truck, smiling on the inside as the vehicle cranks, the heater roars, the favorite song comes on the radio and the mind comes to grips with another successful exit from reality thereby beginning the concentration for what is at hand and what is to come.

To feed and nurture this thing will begin the consuming of your soul, remember there will be no following a dark passage for a return to normal, no going back so you surrender to go often to commune and sacrifice.
Like a bottled musk squeezed from the glands of extinct species your baited, chummed, biting as you go, tasting the blood in your mouth metallic from the set of the hook. All the natural textures you encounter make like braille for calloused fingers, you rub your face into them, inhaling all the scents you desire as a cold wind under a bright moon brings reverent closure to the day.
Seclusion reassures as does the feeding of the hounds, the picketing of the mule, the banking of the fire, the unpacking of panniers and the ever evolving wary respect of nature adds to the weariness of the body which brings the deep slumber that is so close to death but renews the life.

Audwin McGee

Another Favorite Band living in my Backyard

Just to let you Music Minded know, you should check out the Pollies! 

Good sound! 

I been hearing about, listening to and bumping into these guys for a while around the area. For those who don't know the area, I live in North Alabama, a place known as the Shoals. One of the towns that make up the four is Muscle Shoals which has produced some of the most important music ever to be recorded in history. Look over in the (Music in my Backyard Section) to see a list. I've been gathering info about this fact for some time and will hopefully post on the subject soon, but for now I encourage you to make note of this Band and give them a listen.

"The Pollies"

 Cover of their newest Album, " WHERE THE LIES BEGIN"

The Pollies on stage.

They were down in Montgomery with myself and a few other friends this past weekend playing for an event called "Southern Makers" which was a gathering of Alabama's Artists, Architects, Designers, Chefs, Musicians, Gardeners, Beer Brewers, Craftsmen, and a couple thousand Outstanding Southerners. Needless to say "The Craic" was good!

I shared a space with my friend "Billy Reid" clothing designer, his one of a kind get it done,  go to lady "Sara Trapp" was on hand to handle things. I took a few paintings and we meshed it together right in front of the Band Stand. I want to thank the Pollies for letting "Made in the Shoals" use the song "Good for Nothing" as music for a recent short video of myself.

Stuart Mace, Philosopher of Simplification

Thanks to Henry for sharing this with me