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?
Last edited by Lloyd3; 02/09/19 04:23 PM.
