.What I bring to the hunt is a visceral desire
to play my naturally evolved, ecologically sound,
and (therefore) naturally moral role as an
active participant in the most intimate workings
of wild nature. I want to live, as far as possible,
the way humans are meant to live. I want to
nourish my body with clean, lean, wild meat,
the food that made us human.
And I want the palpably spiritual bonding
with Earth and the great round of life and death
and sacramental (as opposed to commercial)
trophism that, for myself and so many others,
only hunting can provide.
When I get there and get slowed down and
tuned in enough to perceive and appreciate
even the subtlest elements of natural creation -
a warm mosaic of lichen on cold granite,
a velvety fuzz of moss on a rotting log,
the symphonic purling of a mountain stream,
the sight and sound of one leaf falling -
when I've got that good old "savage"
connection going, I'm absolutely aglow with
the joy of life, and unafraid of death.
Without the intercession of clergy, shaman,
or psychotropic drug, I have stepped
through the cultural wall and into a
primordially sacred realm.
I have entered heaven on earth.
*
David Petersen
.
