Hiking the Marshlands

Remember this: Standing on a bank, observing the world, has never hurt a crab. One swoop of the federal pen and it could be ruined.

I was scheduled to attend a special event. Being the wayward gal I am, I decided to pull into this little non-descript hiking trail off a major highway. Going in, it is a short road, littered with houses. I parked and collected my backpack; never leave home without it because of the all-important mosquito spray. 

It was a cool day. The mosquitoes where out still, while trying to suck the life’s blood out of me. One thing I noticed about these mosquitoes is: Marsh mosquitoes will bite you, causing a small, red irritation to your skin, with no pain or raised area on the skin versus inland mosquitoes biting you, giving you extreme pain and swelling on your skin that is worse than a Tuberculosis test.

It’s an observation. Anyone want to do research on that?

I walked a small way and found a well-built stairwell leading to a canoe launch nestled along a channel of dark-colored water filled with fish breaching the surface. I could see the marsh meadow across the waterway, which was the length of a boat. The air was clean to breathe, because you notice it. It helps drain the sinuses.

When the tide is low, you can stand on the man-made boardwalks and observe the mud with an unnumbered amount of holes made by air coming from somewhere or something underneath. Marsh grass defiantly stands to sway in the breeze, as cover for life below. Its root system holds onto the organic substrates provided.

Click to Enlarge

The main preoccupation is the beauty of it all. It is not a mountainous vista, or even an epic aerial view of a majestic waterfall. It is a progressive changing of a story from ocean to woody bank. You have everything happening out in the ocean, and then the story creeps in towards dry land with an array of characters, settings, and action.  

The hike is a round trip of seven miles along a creek. I hiked along the bank on the marsh side. During August and September, there is an influx of rain coming in as Dog Days. This elicits a response in the detritus, causing mushroom blooms of all kins and kinds.

My first introduction was the wooded wetlands on the bank. I walked on into wet meadows of beige colored grasses before I turned back.

When you consider the reality that this particular marsh is between the ocean and human communities, it has nowhere to go but where it is. Depending on the tidal movement, the natural inclination to shift, as it did in earlier times, has become a challenge. 

This idea gives rise to the truth: If there is an oil spill, recuperation could be highly problematic, and negatively impacting in the long term based on a decision by government to accommodate corporations.

The marsh moved I said?

Studies have shown that tree die-off, and the shifting marsh zone can help grasses and plants migrate inward. This could have been beneficial with open areas, but now questionable because of human habitation on habitat fragmented areas.

A marsh as a location is a living thing. Oysters filter the water. Small fiddler crabs race around under the transversing boardwalks looking for food. Birds of every species are everywhere; all manner of unseen thing living in the mud, contributing to the overall function of life systems. Yet, this could have a wound imparted on the location and inhabitants dwelling there by the fatal swoop of a pen.

It is common knowledge that there is a hot debate and action against the federal government questing to have exploration off-shore drilling in the Atlantic. The supporting argument is American independence from outside entities over natural resources and employment opportunities.

The opposing argument is: Stop being dependent on big oil, destruction of habitat, loss of employment opportunities already in place using state natural resources, and knowing when something is a bad idea based on previous oil spill disasters, and above all things the long and short-term costs to all living things.

The American people do not have a wallet that thick.

The general public has already learned from a major oil spill. Why do we chase after another potential oil spill when we already know it is a bad idea from past experience?

The coastal communities are speaking and reaffirming a big “No”. This is a commonsense response from people living in the area that will be affected.

People will protect their home, not run from it.

The argument of bringing jobs is always verbalized, but translated it means: We will give jobs to other people from other states, not South Carolina. As an example, there was a gun company to move to the area. The company stated they would bring employees from their other areas instead of hiring locals.

What good does it serve, when bringing in businesses and employment that is geared to non-residents of a state, when that business is benefiting off of the state and the money of its constituents, through buying and selling product?

This alludes to reason for questioning motives on why big oil is a good idea.

The argument of America becoming independent from foreign entities based around big oil use brings up the questions of: What is really going on with the natural resource discussion in governments, both international and national.

I pondered the idea that if it weren’t for time and money, the American people has a slew of intelligent people at their fingertips to solve problems with other options but they are held back by legalities, dismissal, and lack of credentials. There could be more.

When you look at the reasons to oppose something, even with assurance from the companies planning to utilize the area and reap the benefits, the idea the locals have to live with a disastrous wound to the ecosystem is a lot to ask for greed.

This isn’t as simple as going out and looking at a tract of wetland. That place is alive, can’t speak for itself, or protect itself from an invasive act brought on by non-local entities.

Who wants to look at an oil rig that acts in every way like a virus and be accepting of it? What happens when the virus goes array? It spreads everywhere.

The degrees of oil impact are:

• Types and amount of oil
• Extent of coverage
• Species destruction
• Season of spills
• Soil composition
• Flushing rate

Depending on the biodiversity of a marsh, there can be different rates of impact in the way organisms react, how they assimilate the foreign substance in the habitat, their survival and mortality, when dealing with oil that has been introduced into the habitat.

Marshlands, per research and documentation, are notorious for its inability to return to pre-oil spill conditions. Certain wetlands can act as reservoirs, taking up excess oil and leaching to adjacent habitats in coastal areas. This causes long-term problems for the ecosystem as a whole. The higher the organic matter in the soils the longer it stays, affecting everything, even the local people.

When you consider the activities used to treat the problem of an oil spill, there is a lot of human trampling to address the problem. There is destruction by an oil spill, and the response is to go in and further incur destruction to a zone just to improve or remedy the situation. 

I would believe the best response is to not incur destruction initially.

Spilled oil is a problem. It is not milk.

Oil coats and smothers. Animal mortality during oil spills is due to smothering and the toxic effects. Seabirds lose their ability to repel water and lose feather insulation. Creatures inhabiting the tidal and marshland zones experience a disturbance in reproduction, egg-laying, challenged feeding grounds, and fish experience toxicity and there is a reduction in benthic species on which they feed. One can also consider water quality, and the contents of organisms therein, that make up the filtration systems of wastes.

Does any parent want to take their child out to the beach and marsh for them to see crude? Look at that oil spill. Isn't it fabulous? Tourists will swarm here just to see it. Only the Clampetts can appreciate it.

When an observer and local weighs in on the loss of grass species, crustaceans, invertebrates, wildlife, sediment and water quality, and a number of other factors, it doesn’t appear to be a valid argument for oil rigs in the Atlantic. Money just cannot replace what is lost; it is just oil smothered paper burning.

Think about it. And yet, Dear Reader, I am not through....

Written by: Angelia Y Larrimore

Uncanny Dopplegangers of Hunting

Remember this: Am I seeing double?

One of my all-time-favorite people to follow is Jared Leto. He is interesting and creative, to say the least. I was perusing hunting sites and this hunting celebrity came across it. I remembered him from long ago but didn’t follow him. I thought, “That is so weird.” It is not weird because my son looks like Chris Evans. I was joking and thought, “When did Jared Leto take up hunting?”; which he has not. I chuckled hard. Cough fit ensued.

I have a memory like an elephant. Puzzles man, puzzles.

I sometimes do facial re-construction overlays on skulls just for fun. This was something interesting to see.

The resemblance is….uncanny. These two people are not the same, at all. I think they should get their DNA tested and see if they are related.

Guess the person below....he's a hunter.

Written by: The Uncanny Trickster

Are You Mildred?

Remember this: Artificial is artificial. If you start questioning yourself, you might be.

Mildred Montag is a character from Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451. She is the main character’s estranged wife. Mildred spends her time in front of the television with her artificial family. She has spent so much time with her artificial family that she doesn’t acknowledge her physical husband.  She neither wants to, nor does she understand anything organic that is not transmitted to her via the television.

The television has now replaced her free will to think on her own.  The depth of Mildred’s assimilation into a detached state of being is illustrated in the idea:  Mildred doesn’t even know she is unhappy. Mildred is just there, for lack of a better word; staring blankly into the screen.

Mildred has so bought into the messages the television is signaling her that she turns her husband in for keeping books. When her husband leaves, she sits alone in her apartment watching television, as the bombs are dropped on the city. Her husband, now far away, wonders if Mildred realizes her life is over as she sits in the living room alone.

Does Mildred understand how much of her life she has forfeited to years of nothingness? Her husband assumes she does ponder this in her last moments.  The likelihood she stares mindless at the television, not even aware that her death is imminent, illustrates her detachment from reality; oblivious to the bombs dropping. She possibly doesn’t know the bombs are real, but believes they are fabrications made up by those trying to usurp the television. The television is truth, anything else is lies.

Look at your cell phone screen.

Are you Mildred?

I recently visited a friend I had not seen in several years. I use to enjoy my conversations with her. The person sitting across from me on the sofa was judgmental and reactive. When conversing back and forth with her, it seemed more of a Facebook comment section. If I wasn’t prone to face-to-face conversation, I would not have realized the difference.  This person was out of my life for two years, but when she returned the things now streaming on the internet had turned her into an angry, combative person. Some of her judgmental comments were aimed at me like daggers. I sat there and wondered what had happened to the person I knew. I talk to someone about my experience. Their reply was: She had changed, not for the better.

The person gave me this in retrospection: It is hard to find a person that is unchanging. People rarely stay the person as they were from the beginning. If you have found an unchanging person in who they are, you have found something real; for they are constant.

Are you the last internet Astronaut?

People, to me, appear to be like Sandra Bullock’s character in Gravity. Each individual is in the last moments of life, alone, feeding dialogue into a recorder in the attempts that someone will know the condition of their present state. They mattered, were real, and deserved acknowledgement. The astronaut prays and reaches out for human contact, when there is none to be had.

Silence…the asteroid that is your finger turns off your computer, and the screen goes black. No response, no message, only the dark void of a soulless internet black hole.

How often have you, dear reader, logged onto the internet and tried to have an honest conversation with another stranger, only to feel like you have posted comments that can or cannot be received by another human internet astronaut? Do you ever wonder is there really life out there?

You go out into the world. Walking amongst the crooked neck zombies, you see internet astronauts staring into screens. They drift from street corner to street corner, disappearing into the great beyond called Internet Café and Free Wifi.

From a glance, we have become a collective, simpleton mind fueled by virtual picture books. Simple sentences anemically weep from the images with no baser thought other than:

Concise

Concise

Concise

The problem with the belief that everyone is walking in a constructed dream run by the Borg is: the people who are aware will start using this same tactic to sublimely mesmerize you to do their bidding through mass hypnosis; much like the nameless musician who tried to do sublime messaging with a montage video of his monotonous voice repeating the same theme through different wordage.

How upsetting is the thought that there are individuals in this world that look at their fellow human beings as incapable of rendering their own thought process, reaching a decision, and acting upon it by trying to warp you with repeated commentary used to turn you into their submissive. The one telling you, you are being sheepled has their plan to sheeple you under their control. They gain your trust then believe with the right conditions, you will follow them to jump off a cliff while they stand there and watch.

Humans are so desensitized; to get a simple, beneficial or non-beneficial message across, the use of over-stimulating media has become the norm. Large amounts of money are funneled into campaigns to get viewers to buy into a concept based around a simple sentence. A couple of examples are:

You choose love of food (Man and Lays Potato) over the love of another human being (Woman).

Crayon colors come from crayon farts

Glue-on eyelashes can look real with clumpy mascara

Women with artificial implants are not altered, if no one admits the surgery happened

Bears also get dingle berry pieces of toilet paper stuck to their rears

People kidnap and kill M & M’s; M & M females have no morals

Most advertising is done to get the viewer emotionally involved and divert product. Your mind is manipulated into a campaign concept based on non-sense and a non-reality made real by the act of purchasing certain products and immolating the advertising slogan and campaign imagery. If you are being told food will comfort you, and you turn to food whenever you can’t deal with human relations, the campaign is a success.  See example number one.

Do not eat the problem (internalize). Solve the problem (externalize).

We don’t need to read See Jane Run, or See Dick at the Well. Just give it straight up to the viewer with an action picture. Complicated words and sentences are just too much to comprehend. Family has been replaced by technology; just as the television replaced family for Mildred. Comprehension, critical thinking and engagement are critically endangered species.

If this doesn’t bother you, and you ignore the existence of the information and sit in your living room, gazing at your cell phone because you would rather not know this reality, well then…

Go back and look at your feeding stream. Look hard. What do you see?

Are you Mildred?

Are you Mildred?

Are you Mildred?

Written by: W Harley Bloodworth

A Traveler and a Viewer Afar

Remember this: Read a book. When you watch television, the questions will come.

I was watching Jim Shockey’s Uncharted episode entitled, “Maneater” and “Desperate Times”. The episodes are centered on the themes of hunting, poaching, hunting dollars and activities as a form of community outreach, nuisance reptiles, and villager death.

In the critique of these episodes, I began asking myself questions as the episodes progressed. There are plenty of things one does not know by not being in a place.

Given the animosity surrounding hunting, this appeared to be presented as episodes illustrating the reasons why hunting is a viable option, lifestyle, and life necessity for given peoples. If you want to promote hunting as a viable option, the presenter needs to address what the viewer could possibly see.

I have observed Mr. Ivan Carter posting on the deaths of African villagers at the jaws of reptiles of prehistoric gander on social media. It is a part of the pro-argument for hunting on the African landscape, which Mr. Ivan Carter has expressed publicly. You can find it on several pages advertising for him. These shows are another tool to promote his and others stance on hunting issues in Africa. Mr. Jim Shockey was present to learn about this problem and get the message to a broader audience.

As I watched the episodes, questions arose.

Questions: Why are the villagers not capable enough or equipped to kill the nuisance crocodiles themselves? Why do villagers have to have a local or foreign hunter travel in to buy a species specific hunting tag and do the job for them?

I understand the village has a quota, but is there no consideration for quota tags when it comes to man-eaters? The dialogue on the show was to buy all the tags up for hunting. This was going to help cull the crocodile numbers.

My experience and knowledge indicates that when you remove one creature, another one is right there to take its place, good or bad. This does not solve the problem of the villager attacks. It only provides a reason for people to hunt crocodiles unmolested by anyone against hunting.

Questions: If you know there is a species of animal lurking under stagnant water, waiting to drag you off, why would you put yourself in jeopardy by inhabiting locations prone to misadventure and death via crocodiles? Is it ignorance? Were the villagers portrayed as stereotypical noble savages instead of competent human beings? Why were the villagers portrayed as helpless compatriots?

It reminded me of a movie where the hero comes in at the behest of the wide-eyed victims, who with prayer clenched fists proclaim, "Save us from this awful beast!"

Questions: Would it be better to improve the lives of the villagers by diverting limited water from the river to give them reasons not to go down and wash on its shores? I would think avoidance would be in order but it is the water that draws the people; move the water. The crocodile is being opportunistic on the villagers trolling the bank.

Is there no simple, self-contained pumping system, where rudimentary filtration is in place to pump clean water, while providing some small amount of hydro-electric power? Did not Rome have an irrigation system using aqueducts?

I thought about the pumping system. What were the possibilities? 

The pumping system could entail:

• A floating, movable platform, in case the village decides they want to move 

• Lead to a series of ponds, with circulatory pumps run by the electricity generated from the river, where fish can be farmed in small man-made ponds

• Used to irrigate small plots of land for limited agriculture

• Hydro-electric output

• Empowers villagers as a people, and deter poaching
• Locally made ceramic canals, removable and redirecting water from a main overhead pipe to a center spider shaped return system to the river. I am just visualizing this in my head. I am taking into consideration movement of people and the drip effect would have patch agriculture crops on rotation. 

This would provide an alternative energy source that is not destructive to the environment but at the same time beneficial to the villagers. This would make the village self-sufficient.

Questions: When the meat is harvested and divided out to the villagers, why do they appear to be trained like the little kids that chase the ice cream truck? Why do the villagers look like sedentary individuals standing around waiting for the hand-out, or be at the mercy of a divine power with little control of their fate? Is there a system to prolong the meat they have, or is it provided fresh daily? 

These are just some questions that arose during my viewership of the episodes. If I noticed it, so did others.

When we consider, as human beings, the issues detrimental to the survival and daily well-being of our fellow humans, why is it so hard to look at the scenario, and solve the problem, or attempt to address it with feats of engineering?

Should we feel embarrassed as inhabitants of this planet, when we look back in history to the accomplishments of our ancestors? When you consider the construction of sustainable habitats and living arrangements in difficult places, and the precision given rudimentary tools, should that not bother us in this time of technology to withhold engineering solutions? Can we save little girls from being eaten by crocodiles in African rivers by using our intelligence?

Come on! Mesopotamia. 

If you can pick and choose where hunting dollars go, why cannot a portion of monies paid to villagers go to building something that would better their lives in the long-term?

Should we hold it against the crocodile and his smile, in its natural habitat, when it attacks a human because it recognizes a human as another food resource?

My opinion was these were decent shows used to extend the olive branch to non-hunting participants. Audience reach through placing these episodes with another channel could have improved the diversity of viewership.

As hunting participants, it is our responsibility to illustrate truthfully, the predicaments that affect outdoor sports and hunting. If you are going to tell a story, in less than an hour, address the obvious holes that need to be filled. This will give your argument more substance. I always thought it sucks that they were relocated down to thirty minutes. 

If you go on the idea the world is filled by easily suggestible human beings, you might be right, but an individual that observes the world constantly, will see the little black dot of a deer shadow acres and acres away, across a field. You utilize the short and longer sights of your mind and eye.

As hunting participants, we can find ways to alleviate suffering for all, while we spend so much down time waiting in a stand. Always think in terms of making others better.

Spend your time well, in thought and action, to others.

Here is a koan from Angelia:

An hourglass is infinite time; never losing or gaining.

Written by: Angelia Y Larrimore

~Courtesy of the AOFH~

Saiga: The Spectre of Absence

Remember this: We ask the same question, over and over, to the same end.

I’ve been keeping my eye on this Saiga mass die-off. By reports, since mid-May, Saiga have been dying off. The current geography dot on our Map of Mysterious Deaths is Kazakhstan.

I was reading an article in Nature Magazine entitled, “Mysterious die-off sparks race to save Saiga antelope”, by Henry Nicholls. I have thoughts on the subject. The article reported a quote per Richard Kock, veterinarian, “of 100% mortality.” These dying herds were 300 kilometers apart. There have been Saiga die-off noted in the past. On one hand, people could dismiss this as another event, or should there be more concern?

By the article, it is suggested the causative agent is not a directly transmitted disease, but possibly a polymicrobial disease.

When you think of the ways an animal can get sick, the likely suspects are there.

Suspect #1 Ingestion

Suspect #2 Inhalation

Suspect #3 Surface or Sexual Contact

Suspect #4 We shall call it “?”

The list goes on….

Polymicrobial diseases are marked, clinically and pathologically of, the presence of more than one species of microorganism. 

Here you might have a condition of the Saiga, either becoming the petri dish of its own death or coming in contact with the murderous suspect.

The questions are, when did the Saiga run afoul of the causative agent that facilitated mass deaths in a population? Why did no one collect data from previous die-offs to compare variables?

Suspect #1: Polymicrobial disease

Suspect #2: Environmental factors

Suspect #3: ALIENS!

Suspect #4: the Government!

Suspect #5 the Cigarette Smoking Man

In the no-so-far-away past, the suspects were rural poverty facilitating hunting and poaching, Chinese markets demand for meat and horns, and war-mongering endeavors.

I began to think the Saiga could become a ghost species. A ghost species is an animal that is believed to have a large population number. In reality the number falls, and every route used to save the species from extirpation is a failure. No matter what, it is going to become extinct. 

Considering the large population number of the Saiga, in a short period of time, that massive number can be rendered down to zero, in record time. If it is an environmental factor, and a selected group of animals are not moved to another location to thrive, one day, all of them could be gone, in one fatal swoop. It makes you wonder when the conditions are going to be right for the mass death of human beings, excluding biological warfare.

I have seen hunters online, flaunting the great number of species that can be hunted, yet given the right condition, something as small an unassuming as a bacteria or virus, can become one of the biggest killers without even loading a gun. I reflect on scientists chirping, “Humans as Super Predator”. Somewhere out there, a germ is laughing in its pants at how ridiculous this idea is. On the back of its little germ car, there are stickers that reads, “Ebola on board”, “Black Plague, We Are Still Here” and “The Grateful Dead”.

The more important perspective or lesson here is realizing large herds of animals can be decimated down to endangered numbers or zero members fairly quickly given the facilitator of destruction.

We take for granted that Saiga will always be there. We take for granted that a lot of things will be there tomorrow, wherever they are. A massive die-off illustrates you are not promised anything. Saiga die-off illustrates the need for a more prudent inspection and monitoring of life on Earth and how human behavior is affecting human and non-human life.

If you have ever studied immunology or microbiology, you come to realize that there are certain conditions that only have to vary a little or a lot, before you can have a mass growth of some bacteria, virus, or germ. This could be in a petri dish. All it takes is the right conditions. 

The worrisome part is the reality of a vast landscape with no boundaries, other than a migrating beast, where something can be incubating inside the body or outside in the ecosystem, and move from place to place, infecting or not infecting as it goes. There are cases of germs, viruses, and bacteria zombifying organisms to do their bidding for survival.

The things you find.

This is probably unrelated but I found one literature source that reported former Soviet biological weapons facilities in Kazakhstan. I wondered if something is perpetuating from these facilities. This information was noted from the Center for Nonproliferation Studies, Moneterey Institute of International Studies, 1999. It seemed there was mass death of fish and animals in those areas. They were moving people out of these areas. It is what it is. You never know but rule that variable out.

As far as the final reports on the causative agent of Saiga death during this massive die-off, I will wait to see what the scientists uncover.

This illustrates the connectedness of humans to animals. What if you purchased your Elk hunting license, then the first week of hunting, was faced with reports of a massive Elk die-off. Would that freak you out? What if during a Great Migration, animals fell in their tracks along a wildlife corridor, with everyone snapping photographs? Would this make a hunting participant learn not to take a hunted animal for granted, or would you just move on to the next?

Another perspective would be the idea that life is moving forward in time, on a branched timeline. As we watch more animals become extinct, eventually humans will go the same route. How can one not feel their mortality, when we watch species disappear, one after another?

Written by: Angelia Y Larrimore

~Courtesy of the AOFH~

Deciphering Her Koan

Remember this: Subject and object become one; whole.

There are no questions and answers. This is a predicament of the mind. Everything is, as it is. When you put known and unknown existence under the knife of human’s curiosity, we treat it as if it is a mystery that needs discovering, when it is already un-mysterious in its existence; there is no need of discovery, only awareness.

There are unanswered questions posed in the direction of the hunting act. I reached out to several people, on different occasions, and asked them to send me these unanswerable questions. I would attempt to answer them, in the face of people who would rather turn a blind eye. Everybody is scared; not me.

Silencio!

This is the port you arrive at when realization tells you, no one wants the answers. Not one person wants the distasteful resolution to conundrums. If the resolution is finite, there is no longer an argument to fight over, or win; conversation over a subject long beat to death is no longer perpetuated.

Argument loves impasse. Impasse becomes blight. Blight destroys.

I have known for quite some time, I was in the midst of attempting to solve a koan based around hunting; a koan that has no koan sentence. The koan I was seeking an answer to is relentless and as elusive as a deer. The answer to the koan was how I am one with hunting. 

Due to hunting’s simplicity and the elaborate maze of concepts, the decipherer of the koan will be led back to the same concept, over and over. I would not expect someone to understand the nature of the koan of hunting, unless you attempted the cipher yourself. It is not even a cipher or a puzzle. It is what it has always been.

The first attempt is to understand: All literal things must go.

Breaking topics down, scientifically and logically, will make sense in the literal, but overall it has nothing to do with the end realization.

The second attempt is to understand: All emotional things must go.

As you approach the koan of hunting, when topics are assessed, emotions can make the waters of understanding murky. You do not think clearly.

The third attempt is to understand: Do not think when koaning. No koan shall be unturned. 

Over-thinking will make you hit a brick wall in the mind. You will struggle like a drunken man in a bed sheet, who thinks a ghost is stealing his precious life.

To begin to decipher the koan of hunting, the one must understand the concept of hunting is the subject. The hunter is the object. Hunting and hunter are often perceived as two separate entities; subject and object. This brings up the concept of duality.

One must realize that hunters are hunting, at all times. The two are never split apart.

Here is my attempt at distinguishing recognition of a non-hunting koan.

There was a question: Why is a domestic turkey any different than a wild turkey, in treatment and consideration?

The objects are domestic and wild turkey. The subject is not hunting. The subject is either turkey, or creature treatment. This is a koan that has nothing to do with hunting.

Here is my attempt at distinguishing recognition of a hunting koan.

I pose the question: The turkey hunter went hunting. Why did the hunter shoot the tree, when aiming for the wild turkey? Should he just shoot himself?

The subject is hunting. The objects are the turkey and the hunter. The turkey and hunting is one koan. The turkey hunter and hunting is another koan. The encompassing koan is the turkey, turkey hunter, and hunting itself. The turkey and turkey hunter are imbued into hunting as one entity, instead of three different things.

One must understand in a koan, there is always non-duality and non-existent literalness. When attempting to split the parts of a koan to understand the outcome, it is futile. It is always what it will be; one meaning.

There are hunters that never think about this. Their life is in the literal sense at all time and locked into a machine mentality.

Hunting is about food to me. When searching for the ultimate meaning of a subject, the subject becomes more to the seeking individual, who is uniquely attempting to understand the simplest of concepts.

When we are thinking on concepts, think in the greater whole, and how it is affected. Everything on the planet is the planet. Why do we cause ourselves and others angst by separation? It is only killing us, slowly. Koans help the person realize the ability to walk blindly through the thick, concentrated cloud in the mind’s eye, and when the pressure is alleviated, the answer appears, as it has always been the answer.

I attempted to write a koan.

Beginning of Angelia’s Koan

A chef of fine, hunting cuisine has one empty platter. The waiter walks in and says, “She’ll have turkey”, and then promptly walks back out. In dismay, the chef looks over to see one wild turkey and one domestic turkey, cooked and ready. The chef blurts out, while waving his hands at the platter, “Which one?”

End of Angelia’s Koan

I am a whole person, not just a construct of a hand here, a foot there, or a head looking over yonder. In my hunting koan, I have become the clap of one hand, not two.

Written by: Angelia Y Larrimore

~Courtesy of the AOFH~

Opportunity Awaits...

Remember this: When faced with an opportunity and good judgment, take it, for it will not last. 


I decided guiding hunters in the woods was not for me where I live. I don't want to be responsible for people in that regard. There are three categories of hunting participants: Those that love to be surrounded by death, neutral people, and those that are surrounded more by life, but death touches them ever once in a while. I choose not to be around death mongers.

What I did decide, if anyone was interested, is to offer people the opportunity to visit a location, with a local person guiding them, to do whatever legally they want to do, and go see. 

I have a webpage in the works. It is not going to have a lot of information on it. I prefer people discussing their needs with me, then trying to compromise or accommodating them. Hopefully, your itinerary will be no stone unturned.  

I will most likely start with five or ten individual people or small groups. Families can apply. 

I lived and worked in a resort setting for ten years. I have visited, and know what to avoid, and where to find the good stuff. Depending on what you are into, for a fee, I can help you plane a vacation or excursion to do whatever it is you want to do that is available. If there is something in a near-by state, I can try to make that happen for you.

I was hoping to get this rotating before the spring hits, but winter activities can be had if you like camping in the cool air, wanting to scout without hunting, birding, etc. 

Right now, I will be building my website and configuring the legalities of the work.

If you are interested, please e-mail: aestheticfemalehunter@hotmail.com. 
Serious inquiries only.

Written by: Angelia Y Larrimore