The Arcane Creatura

Remember this: Progeny is the hopeful path to a better world when taught right. Choose or offer the path wisely.

Have you ever asked yourself, Where did my childhood go? How many positive memories do you have of life before taxes? Do you see a difference in the lives of children now and before you realized it is time to sign up for AARP?

Do you look at your child and wonder if the little person will grow up to be a functioning adult? Did the little human being learn at record pace to keep up with the growing trend of survival and accomplishments? Do you guide your child along, teaching the child about the natural world? As a parent, do you teach your progeny how to co-exist in the world with other things, while being a steward of nature?

To the best of your knowledge, have you taught your progeny to be a human being first?

Good Questions.

Life seems to be one big pressure exerted on you, in succession, once you enter pre-school. Next is the ever growing shadow called adolescence. While the student is in school close to eight hours of the day, as a student, their life is dictated by school government. Some children leave at the ring of the bell to fall into a strange pit of depression, isolation, and resentment.

I read an article entitled, "How To Raise A Wild Child", by T. Edward Nickens, With Phil Bourjaily, Kirk Deeter, Dave Hurteau, and Keith McCafferty in the June 2015 edition of Field & Stream. Throws shade...

Yes, I drive thirty miles, out of my way, to read copies at a local library. I am sitting with 13 issues as I write, on this desk. 

I am not bashing the authors choice of tact in writing such an article. I enjoy most of what Field & Stream writes. I thought it was a good article in terms of learning technical skill of each class of job, as it functions in the outdoor world. 

I felt the article lacked propagating the outdoor person’s mentality on the individual level when it was applied to experiences.

What goes on inside a person when they are learning the outdoors? There are lots of articles by adults. We should have some by children or some videos. That would be nice.I would do it but no one likes me for the things I say. Ole well.....can't make everyone happy. 

You can explain to a person how they should be. This never works because of free-will in the mind and the kind of person they are deep down inside. Some people are golden eggs and some people are rotten, if not given the chance to redeem themselves.

There should always be hope. One must realize this written passage can go for anyone, not just a person centered in or around the outdoors. It is for all.

This fundamental make-up is self-generated through experiences and consequences, internally in the self or externally in others. It is important to how a human proceeds in life. The importance of how the human will treat the self and others in regards to stewardship to the Earth and its inhabitants. It is the spark that shapes your world-view on a philosophy one builds over a life-time.

The well-groomed photographed images appeared to suggest a stereotype the parents could choose from to use as a template to morph their child into some ideal. These children wore brand new designer type clothes with efficient technology in hand to do the job. There are probably parents out there that gauge their children and slowly push them into the slot they think best fits them. You will also find this in schools where students are given aptitude tests to determine if that student needs to become a mechanic, secretary, scientist, or doctor. You cannot be everything. You can try. You have to decide on one something at a time.

Field & Stream writers cover the basic personalities: Hunter, Angler, Woodsman, and Naturalist. Deep in the writing, it is suggested to buy, buy, and buy. You have got to love sublime marketing.

The children on pages 58 and 59 are better representations of what children look like when hunting and fishing. It still sniffs of adulthood. Of course, children are now placed on the fast tract of adulthood to compete. Gone are the lazy days of play from the 70s and 80s. 

Children have to learn to code, work complicated technology, and categorize other people. All the while categorized on a personal level themselves.  Children learn to be divided in subsequent groups as hunters, anti-hunters, liberals, conservative, whites, blacks, indigenous, felons, beauty queens, and so on. After this division plagues them, there are the fights over whom they should hate and distrust. On and on it goes. 

That is one of our shames, if you want to do some shaming; what we do to each other and innocent kids. Social media at its worst is the epitome of adults being poor role models for the little eyes that watch them.

People guide their children into the negative snarls of what it is to be human. For what purpose? To protect them? It really is harming children and the greater good of the Earth.

Going back to the photo of children in the article by Field & Stream. Where are those dirty faces with smiles? 

I remember the only photo my parents ever took of me. I went fishing with my family in this trio of ponds stocked by the neighbor. I was playing in the water with my pole bored, zipping it back and forth. A trout hit my line. It pulled me head first into the pond. My father caught me just as I was about to hit the water’s edge. It was hilarious. My mother caught a bass. I found that picture and laughed. I can still remember the moment.

Why am I so amiss about this article?
  

There is another child Field & Stream neglected to write about or suggest. This is because the trend in some hunting magazines is to promote family and family values as whole units with parents and children with somewhat functional lives.

I struggled with a word to call this child. Why should I try to label such a thing? The Latin phrase Arcane Creatura appeared.

I can only describe the Arcane Creatura. This can be a lonely child, feral yet socialized but isolated from the interactions of human life, with a limited ability to form bonds with others. The Creatura looks and acts normal to some degree. When cast to its own designs will move back into the wild places where it finds comfort. It will have a strong Animus. There will probably be a limited bond with the biological parents. The Arcane Creatura will be left alone to learn about the Natural World, with little supervision. The inner child will be fragile, strong, willful, destructive, and nurturing through each event the Arcane Creatura experiences. The Arcane Creatura will grow into a functioning adult. The mind will stray to the wilderness and the things in it.

Few people ever get close enough to the Arcane Creatura, and know it well.

You will see children such as this. They will be labeled as troubled, with no known psychological problem when tested. You’ll know by the way people say, “That one is off a little bit.” They will learn from every animal in the woods, the trees will whisper their medicines, water will sing its charms, and the Arcane Creatura will listen. It will roll in dirt, climb trees, and roast crayfish over a fire. Mischief will grow ripe within the Arcane Creatura's heart for that is where it finds mirth.

The Arcane Creatura lacks understanding from those quick to categorize. These same people will try to slot the Animus, of such a being, in a way to explain it away for the sake of their comfort. 

There will be a limited need of new technology, clean clothes, or glaring eyes when the Arcane Creatura does not conform. Socially upright people might consider the Arcane Creatura slightly mad.

The Arcane Creatura has a certain element of mystery, even when in the presence of another person. It will play, laugh, run away, come back, and observe you as exotic. You are considered the different one; the one like all the rest. It will laugh at and with you in good humor. It will have hidden depths most will never know. 

The first place you will see the truth of what it is lays in the eyes. 

If you ever meet the Arcane Creatura it will ask, “Did you forget who you are?”

~Courtesy of the AOFH~

Copyright © 2012 All Rights Reserved

Diana and the Metamorphoses of Ovid.

Remember this: Once a person has overstepped a boundary they knew existed, or out of ignorance did not know existed, can not escape the wrath or retribution of the offense. An insult is an insult.

The first time I met a Frenchman named Lionel, he introduces me to Ovid's book, The Metamorphoses. Lionel which means 'little lion' was true to form. I believe Lionel was thinking more of the Amores. With that I can only imagine what Ovid did in his lifetime with a chuckle. Lionel believed that every man should read this book. Why? Lionel said that men needed to learn how to treat women. Secretly, I think Lionel wanted to be Don Juan. I keep arguing to myself that maybe men need to read Ovid's Ars Amatoria (The Art of Love) or Remedia Amoris (The Cure for Love).

I pondered whether Ovid wrote something on "Womanly Indifference"? How to Hunt? No such luck.
Ovid was exiled for being risque and a little libertine but that is all in a days work for the free of heart. Sometimes you have to be a libertine. I don't mean Johnny Depp with his nose falling off from syphillis in the movie either.

I pondered the story about Diana and Actaeon. Diana's contribution to the situation seemed a little extreme to me but that is the story.The relevance here is Diana, being the Goddess of the Hunt and Actaeon was a legendary hunter. Undoubtedly, they could not come to terms for lack of discussion.
Here is the story in brief:

Diana is bathing with her nymphs in her sacred pool. Actaeon comes along and sees her naked. This vision insights Actaeon to make Diana his consort because he has 'some kind of stirrings'. Upset that he is being a peeping tom,  Diana turns Actaeon into a stag. Once changed into a stag, Actaeon's hounds chase him down and rip him to pieces. Or so the story goes......

Given translations and renditions, the story could change in motive depending on Diana's virtue lacking impunity and the questionable behavior of Actaeon. Love will drive you mad but lust will kill you dead. There is also the issue of the hunter becoming the hunted on both parts. Diana is hunted as a woman by a man with questionable thoughts in his heart. Actaeon is hunted by his dogs because he is now a stag.  Reading other stories about Diana, one comes to the realization that on more than one occasion, because of the lust of men, she is nearly raped. Diana comes to hate men based on their behavior.

There is also the story of Jupiter seducing Callisto in the form of Diana. Diana's bigger annoyance is the deception of men or their feelings of entitlement by encroaching on her sense of personal space. Men do not treat her as a goddess but  merely an approachable human woman,  which she is not. There is also the reoccurring theme of male domination and her resistance to it. In order for Actaeon to be unable to dominate Diana, she changes him into a stag from which he can't change back. Even though one account states it is only when he speaks that he will turn into the stag. If one considers the male gender asserts authority and dominance though verbal commands and body language, it would be easy to see why Diana took away his choice to speak. 

If we were to think in terms of wrath and why a woman would not want someone to speak of her obvious helplessness in a situation, is to avoid negative attention from overly amorous suitors, deception, and the idea Actaeon now knew what Diana was hiding. Even though Diana is a goddess, she is still in need of a form of protection because Diana shares human emotions. There was no shortage of treachery among the Greek gods. The issue of trust or lack thereof comes creeping into the story because of the immediate cursing of Actaeon's speech. Here one can think in terms of a wild animal that is troublesome, unmanageable, and downright fear drenched.  The animal would kill itself trying to escape but there is that one person who comes along and by some miraculous ability can appear to control the creature, when in fact it merely acquires the creature's trust, even if temporarily.  This is the same concept with training wild horses, hunting dogs, and feral cats. Take the threat and pressure away.

There is also a biblical reference to Adam and Eve in the Garden. Adam being weak minded follows along with Eve, who eats forbidden fruit. Hence, they realize the two of them are naked by the act of some sin or crime being committed intentionally or by ignorance. Here the woman is cursed. In Diana and Actaeon's story, Actaeon is cursed for committing a sin against Diana by seeing her naked. The stories are inverted to some degree. Actaeon by one account is merely walking along in the woods and stumbles upon her. Man in his ignorance meanwhile trouble ensues.

In Diana's short book of what do I do questions she is probably thinking the Holy Trinity of retribution: Do I care, curse, or kill? On the other hand, there is a tale of Acteaon stating he out performed Diana in hunting.  If you take into consideration the plot of Actaeon boasting about outdoing Diana,  you would then have the relationship dynamic of competition in a most foul way. I vote for the nude story myself. Greek tragedy and all.

As Diana  pointed her finger after changing Actaeon, she bequeath him one final thing. She planted fear within his heart. Up to this point, being the legendary hunter, I assume Actaeon did not have anything he feared. He could overcome all problems. Actaeon is outside the realm of human emotional trappings.  Once Diana turns Actaeon into a stag he is no longer protected or recognized. The hunter has now become the hunted.

This story could be an example of a cautionary tale about over stepping boundaries, forcing yourself off on someone who doesn't ask for that behavior, detailed scrutiny and the repercussions that come from such interactions.

In regards to overstepping boundaries, when put in situations where an aggressive type is pressing you to conform to their wishes, take a step back and say, "No."
No means no and you do not have to explain why. It just is.They can accept it or not.


Written by W Harley Bloodworth

~Courtesy of the AOFH~


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