The Hunt Is On

Today is opening day of firearm Deer season in Michigan. This time of year is almost a holiday in Northern Michigan. The men and some women seem to go crazy with the thought of getting in the woods and killing a buck. Most never make it into the woods due to a serious drunk the night before, and many never see a deer, but some do.
I and my honey both come from a long line of hunters. It is a big part of life for our families. His family usually hunts for a couple months in the fall. Heading West to Idaho, Colorado, Montana, and so on. His family makes it a tradition to go every year. That is their respite from the daily grind of owning their own business and from the constant influx of visitors to their home. My family has hunted West too but most often stay home to hunt, only hunting West occasionally as a vacation.
In our ageing process, my other half and I have both found that we love to have the meat and the break in the grocery bill but we hate the killing. Its a very mixed thing. We live very close to the bone with regards to our financial situation and so the meat is a great benefit. We have been fortunate in that the last few years not having to kill a deer ourselves. On several occasions someone has hit one with a car in front of our house and we were able to harvest that meat rather than let it go to waste. When this happens or he shoots a deer I always remember to thank the animal for its sacrifice and the nourishment its body will provide us. I guess my Native American blood has brought that to light for me.
This all does not seem very profound to some I am sure, but let me tell you a story about this that might give you an in-sight on the power that it has.

One evening a doe was hit in front of our house and the person that hit her with the car did not stop. We went out to see what needed to be done and were thankful to find she was dead and not out there suffering in pain.
Most of the time when they are hit by a passenger car there is of course some damage to the meat but sometimes very little. If the internal organs have not been damaged you can harvest the meat that is good and what is not fit to eat can be left for the other wild creatures to nourish themselves on. This particular doe had not been damaged very badly so we put her on the pickup tail gate and hauled her to the nearby woods to clean and dress the carcase.
As we sat the doe's body on the ground I quietly thanked the little doe's spirit for her sacrifice and thanked her for the nourishment her body would provide for us and for the animals that would partake of what was left. While I was watching my other half clean and dress the deer something made me look up and over his shoulder to the hill behind where he was knealing. As I looked past him I saw a shadow standing there in the shape of a deer. At first I thought it was another deer but as soon as I spoke to tell my him to look it was gone....It was not another deer. At that moment I knew beyond a doubt that the shadow I saw was that little deer's spirit leaving this world and I knew at that moment that my thank you prayer was accepted.

Profound? You decide.