Knowing full well how many of you visit Hoarded Ordinaries looking for the lastest word on fashion, let me be the first to tell you. The hottest look on the runways of Keene (hotbed, we all know, of high couture) is, yes, blaze orange.
Yesterday I walked the dog at the Dillant-Hopkins Airport in nearby Swanzey, NH. Keene’s municipal airport is one of my favorite places to walk during the winter months. Although the runways themselves are fenced and thus inaccessible to walkers, the mile and a half stretch of road leading from the terminal parking lot to the Regional Wastewater Treatment Plant offers a relaxing there-and-back stroll overlooking the airport runways as well as surrounding fields, marshes, and woods. Closed to vehicular traffic on weekends and holidays, Airport Road is a favored place for locals to jog, roller-blade, walk, and let dogs run off leash. So although I haven’t (recently) strutted my stuff on any high fashion runways, yesterday the dog and I walked near some runways.
It’s currently deer hunting season here in New Hampshire. Although you might think that a nature lovin’ Zen Mama like Yours Truly would be an adamant animal-rights touting, anti-hunting (and anti-gun) zealot, let me be the first to set you straight on all counts. Although many of my Zen-friends are vegetarian, I eat meat, and I have no illusions about where beef, chicken, and pork come from. Even when I was a vegetarian, I never condemned hunting per se: predation is a natural aspect of any balanced ecosystem, and it doesn’t make sense to condemn people for doing something that comes naturally to wolves, mountain lion, bobcats and the like. Mother Nature herself makes no qualms about killing, so neither do I. Responsible hunters and so-called “gun nuts” love nature just as much as tofu-eating Zen-heads: in fact, many of my citified, eco-sensitive Zen friends know substantially less about the actual wild than do even neophyte hunters.
So these days when I’m driving on the outskirts of Keene and see trucks and SUVs parked on the side of the road, I don’t rail against their drivers’ butchery. Instead, a part of me wishes I had the time, know-how, and wherewithal to pull over myself, striking out into woods and fields without heed for established trails and parking lots. (For the record, this is one time of year when I don’t believe in trespassing: when the signs say “Posted: No Hunting” or “Private Property: Keep Out,” that’s a signal to be heeded regardless of whether you’re toting a gun or not.) These days when I see a group of hunters hefting a deer into a pickup truck or field-dressing a deer strung up in a tree, I don’t shake my fist in anger or exclaim “Ewww! Gross!” Instead, I’m savvy enough to know that eating and, yes, killing are a part of survival, and for many Granite Staters, deer season is one way to cache an inexpensive stockpile of food for the winter.
Instead of condemning hunters and hunting, I try to be smart and prepared. Although the municipal airport itself is closed to hunters, the surrounding fields, marshes, and woods are fair-game. On Friday, Reggie and I took a quick jaunt up Pitcher Mountain, the first time we’ve been hiking anywhere remotely “wild” since the start of hunting season. Seeing other hikers in their blaze orange stocking hats, vests, and ball caps, I came home afterwards and dug out my orange hat and the dog’s orange vest. It’s easy to forget to be prepared…but it’s just as easy to keep season-appropriate togs in the car, close-at-hand for any impromptu walk.
None of the two other walkers, their black long-haired German shepherd, or the lone jogger I saw on Airport Road yesterday was wearing blaze orange…but the pair of walkers I talked to mentioned they’d seen hunters down the road, and they wished they’d thought to wear orange as well. As the saying goes, it’s better to be safe than sorry. On the trek back to the car, I heard a rapid-fire succession of gunshots coming from a distant field: here’s hoping someone bagged this winter’s stockpile. And after hunting (unsuccessfully) for the beavers responsible for this fierce bit of arboreal predation, I spotted an equally wild sight: two bow-hunters in full, head-to-toe camouflage gear returning to their parked trucks on bicycles. Dress for success is the law of the wild, it seems. If you know there are hunters afoot, wear blaze orange; if you know deer and turkey lurk in a place where you can’t drive your truck, break out your bicycle. It’s smart to be prepared no matter what color your cap.
Nov 28, 2004 at 3:55 pm
Tomorrow is the Big Day in PA – the beginning of regular rifle deer season. Although I don’t have the patience or marksmanship to be a good hunter myself, i do strongly support the tradition (and I love the meat). It’s inspiring to see the close bond that many hunters have with the land. And I’ll be the first to admit that most of them are more observant than I am by far.
It’s good to hear an appreciation of hunting from a Zennist. I do suspect that meditation has its ultimate origin in the hunter’s watchful trance (though the gatherer’s less focused, more general awareness might also come into play).
Nov 28, 2004 at 8:52 pm
Beautiful post, beautiful photos — thank you.
I doubt I could hunt, myself. I am so charmed by animals (even familiar farm animals I’ve seen a million times) that I doubt I could pull the trigger.
But I’ve nothing against hunting. On the contrary — in Texas where I grew up, as here in New England, deer populations exceed edible grassland-area, and “wildlife management” isn’t just a euphemism. I think I’d have a hard time slaughtering the lambs at the organic co-op farm we belong to, but I’m happy to sign up for a quarter of a sheep; I doubt I’d be a good hunter myself, but if friends bring venison over, I will praise them and cook it happily.
A few years ago we hosted a Tibetan monk for dinner. Knowing only that he was a Buddhist, and believing (foolishly) that all Buddhists were vegetarians, we made a vegan groundnut stew. At the end of the night, he tried to press money on us; his translator, giggling, explained that he had assumed we were dirt-poor because we obviously couldn’t afford meat for our stew!
Nov 29, 2004 at 11:28 am
Well I don’t agree with you at all about hunting, Lorianne. Killing animals to eat and survive is one thing and I have no problem with that (indeed I’m only a sporadic vegetarian myself). But chasing and shooting them for fun and male bonding seems to me quite different (even if time appreciating nature and the development of quiet concentration are also involved). How interesting, though, that you don’t take the ‘expected’ line on this.
Nov 29, 2004 at 7:38 pm
Fun? Male bonding? I’ll have to ask some of the female meat-hunters I know how they feel about that stereotype.
Nov 30, 2004 at 7:26 am
okay, okay, I know it’s a stereotype!
Nov 30, 2004 at 10:18 pm
Dave, I’d never thought of associating meditation with human hunting, although I’ve often thought of meditation as being akin to the predation of herons or cats, who are able to be 100% alert without tension. Zen Master Seung Sahn said meditators have to “have a mind that is wide like space and as sharp as the tip of a needle.” Maybe this combination of sharp alertness and patient receptivity is “hunting mind” accurately defined.
Rachel, I myself have never hunted, so I don’t know if I could do it, either. But I can’t condemn folks who kill their own food given the fact that I don’t have the heart to kill mine. I guess a wild deer felled by a hunter has as good (if not better) a life as a cow fattened in a feed lot then killed in a slaughter house. Every one of us relies upon other living creatures to survive: not one of us is getting out of life completely guilt free.
Jean, I share your qualms about sport hunting: I don’t support big game safari-style hunting where rich guys (or gals) pay to have semi-tame game animals released into pens where a clean shot is almost guaranteed. By the same token, though, I don’t necessarily have a problem with male-bonding per se (or female bonding, either!). I guess in my mind, it all depends on whether the emphasis is on killing for “fun” or killing for food. Most of the hunters here in NH eat what they kill, so even though the hunt might be “fun,” it’s also a serious way for normal, non-privileged folks to feed their families. If nothing else, I guess survival is a complicated thing without clear black & white morals.
Thanks, everyone, for the thought-provoking comments on this admittedly provocative issue!
Dec 1, 2004 at 5:05 am
Oh lord! I don’t have a problem with male (and certainly not female) bonding, honestly! Only if they do it over killing something. I mean, I might tease male friends about it sometimes, but really… (think I’m protesting too much…)
Dec 1, 2004 at 11:50 am
Jean, I’m playing devil’s advocate with the male-bonding thing: if it’s okay for women to bond over cooking food, I don’t see a problem with men bonding over killing food. But this entire discussion relies heavily on stereotypes of what is typically male, typically female, typically hunter, typically vegetarian, etc. I simply wish to suggest that things are more complex than that: if we’re going to eat meat, *someone* has to kill it, and at least here in the States, the conditions under which many beef cattle are fattened don’t allow for a dignified death. So in my mind, a wild animal that is quickly, mercifully killed hasn’t “suffered” any more than an animal raised for the slaughter, regardless of whether the ranchers or hunters engage in “bonding” over their work.
But again, I’m splitting hairs while playing devil’s advocate: a dangerous ploy all around!