doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com OT- "The faces in the trees"

Have you ever noticed how some folks in your family take to hunting and some folks don't? In my family, certainly in the 50s and 60s, most of them hunted (rural Pennsylvania didn't offer many healthy or even moral distractions for menfolk then) but, really... only just a few were really smitten with the idea of it. By the 70s and onward, very few members of my family took to the woods and streams. That trend has continued on to the point where I'm about it now (the jury is still out on my son). A sad commentary on where we are as a society now, eh? But I digress...the ones that were very interested in their time afield, seemed to have a deep connection to nature and to the loose idea of a "Great Spirit", much as the native Americans did. In my family, the one that seemed the most connected to the traditions of the outside world was my paternal grandfather. He was fascinated with American Indian history, and certainly with the very early history of Western Pennsylvania. In our quiet moments (I lived with him for several years after the passing of my grandmother, it was very good for both of us!) he would talk about his hunting and his almost spiritual view of it. He would relate how he would occasionally hear the whispering of something akin to a Great Spirit before game would appear, or how a section of cover would call to him and prepare him for the inevitable launch of a bird or a deer. I dismissed this concept then as the ramblings of an old man. I presumed that over time he had observed enough situations of "cause and effect" to draw his own conclusions as to what cover was best and when to expect to see his targets. He would also mention a more chilling and darker component of these whisperings...he called it "talking to the faces in the trees". When he was deeply troubled by the events in his world, he related that he could sometimes see faces in the bark of the hardwoods of those forests and that they could help him resolve painful decisions that he might have to make. Has anyone here ever heard tales from their hunting forebears that mention this sort of event? I have casually researched the subject and have found nothing remotely even close to it. He might have been pulling my leg a bit but...it didn't seem to be the case for me at those times. I loved him very deeply and took him very seriously...and he knew that. He was always frank and deeply honest with me about everything else in life. For him to not be completely honest with me here would be very-much out of character for him. In later life, I too have found myself drawn to certain places or covers that have invariably produced game for me. I feel something that does not seem so cut and dried as mere observation and I hear what can only be described as "whispers" in my head...and my heart. In my personal life now, since recovering from a long-term & life-threatening illness, I hear those whispers in places other than just the woods and streams, and they seem to be nothing but beneficial to me. I work very hard now to be alert to them, and to honor them when I do receive them. Am I loosing my mind here or am I onto something?

To a born again believer, following the Lord, those whisperings may well be the Holy Spirit giving counsel and guidance. But, not always. We must study the scriptures to be knowledgeable in the Word, and also to help us understand that not all voices are for our good. The enemy can disguise himself "as an angel of light", and be very detrimental to our well being. Satan can be everything from subtle as a lamb to arrogant and powerful, as the worst enemy we can imagine. But ...............he is not more powerful than the one I serve. He is a defeated foe who hates us with a vengeance, because we are made in God's image. And, he is not.

Excellent question, Lloyd. Anyone who does not believe there are powerful spirits at work in the unseen realm is being deceived.

Best to you, SRH

LOL, I wouldn't call it losing your mind but.....

Lloyd, you grew up enjoying the forests of PA. I grew up on the wide open, flat plains of southern Manitoba. Those are the places where each of us formed our earliest memories regarding nature and hunting.

I know the woods hold little charm for me. I go into them to hunt ruffed grouse or turkey but spiritually they do nothing for me. On the other hand, when I get to the plains, something happens to my brain. It's a different feeling than I get from anything else or any other environment (except being far from land on a sailboat). I'm home.

I'm not sure I can do justice to your thoughts, but I hope someone else can.

Romans 1:20
"Since the creation of the world God's invisible qualities - his eternal power and divine nature - have been clearly seen..." in His creation, providence, and His gracious and merciful dealings with man.
and
Ecclesiastes 3:11
"He has also set eternity in the hearts of men"

There is NO people group in the world that does not have some sense of the "other", above them and outside them, and tries to reach, appease, influence, reconcile with that power; usually by a sacrifice - animal, child, a virgin. And most of these people groups have some sense of holy places; ie. Native Americans, but this idea is almost universal throughout the world; holy mountains, groves of trees, a river, "high places".

God's complete revelation is in His word (the Bible), and in the Word, Jesus, who became the ultimate and efficacious sacrifice for our sins, and through Him we can be reconciled with the one true God, and have confident assurance in life after this world.

As Stan said, there is however the great deceiver, Satan, who is a liar and whose goal is to kill, steal and destroy, frequently through counterfeit signs and wonders 2 Thessalonians 2:9

It is meaningful that almost every people group attempts to represent this evil through very similar masks. How can that be?
http://www.picturetrail.com/sfx/album/view/24456820

I too have sensed the presence of God in a place, and have also clearly felt in my spirit the presence of Satanic forces. The Holy Spirit within us enables us to tell the difference, if we have Him, and are listening.

Like canvasback, for me it the prairie. A little girl homesteading in the Dakotas in the 1800s said "The sky is filled with the mind of God."



https://sites.google.com/site/anotherdaysjourneybackhome/attributes-of-god/consider-god-s-wonders

You're sound as can be, you and your grandfather. Everyone is listening and searching, one way or another. I admire people who have figured life's mysteries with greater certainty than I have. The most penetrating quote I can bring to this is from the great Canadian critic and writer Northrop Frye:

"The knowledge that you can have is inexhaustible, and what is inexhaustible is benevolent. The knowledge you cannot have is of the riddles of birth and death, of our future destiny and the purposes of God. Here there is no knowledge, but illusions that restrict freedom and hope. Accept the mysteries behind knowledge: It is not darkness but shadow."

Frye's The Great Code is considered one of the most provocative books ever written about the Bible---lots about voices. "No one has set forth so clearly, so subtly, or with such cogent energy as Frye the literary aspect of our biblical heritage," said the The New York Times Book Review. Viking. Published 1990.

Hi Lloyd,
My spiritual underpinnings are a subtle and intensely private part of my life, shared with basically no-one. My family that hunted is/was two people-Dad, and myself. Almost to a one, every single boyhood friend that was involved, has moved on. My Brother got a few deer in his life, but, sans his left foot, amputated from the effects of diabetes, his desire to hunt these days is at a low ebb.
It was never much more than that. Simply being honest, not critical.
It is, just me, afield, except, when it is you and me. The jury is out on my Son, as well, but, I have hopes.
When afield with gun, and, more importantly, dog, I feel an inner peace. I have explained to many around me that it is my church, and, to a one, they look at me like some perfectly useless gift given at Christmas by an aunt who is just out of a long stay at the asylum, again.

Except, one other soul. You.

I always believed you �got it� when we hunted. The �voices�, to me, are just as real, but I sense a heightened sense of life, of time, of those who went before, and of my place in the picture of the environment.
Don�t ponder it too hard, would be my suggestion, I guess I put it on the level of an individual who hears the call to the priesthood, or my Fathers call, very real to him, to serve his country, for most of a lifetime, in the military.

You, my friend, are not crazy.

Best,
Ted

Truly, "A picture that no human artist could ever hope to paint!"

You're one lucky man Lloyd.

I'd call it just part of being a woodsman...

I once saw Satan's face on tree hiding behind a posted sign he was tempting me...

Satan said go ahead jOe it'll be okay.

Sorry but I don't see anything he wrote having anything to do with a religion from the Middle East

Things change. When I was a teenager I invited the local Presbyterian minister duck hunting. He came and killed a couple green heads. No preacher would dare to hunt these days because half the church members would be up in arms.

Hunting is a way I connect with my past, my family, both here and long gone. This year I watched my middle son recover a cripple black duck in the same blind I watched his great grand father recover a canvasback cripple 51 years earlier. In the end he got it just like grandfather did. Don�t know if his son will hunt with him but I�ll make sure the land stays in the family for all to hunt. I�ll also share memories about family and friends who hunted here before them.