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