Honourable Hunting
This age old bugbear of a topic has come up again recently. I can only give my opinion accurately, well it is my blog after all. There seem to be a few camps on this:
- The Hardcore Vegans/Vegetarians, you know, so hardcore they won’t even go through a place that has the word ‘ham’ in it.
- Then you have the Vegans/Vegetarians who feel that it can’t be done honourably, but they don’t feel the need to berate you for it.
- The Vegans/Vegetarians that have more balls than many Omnivores and state that they would hunt if life depended on it.
- The Omnivores that couldn’t hunt, but are OK to purchase it, be it a super-market or an Organic/Local outlet.
- Then we seem to have the folks that believe it’s possible to hunt in a sacred, and honourable way, with ritual etc.
- Then, I think, there’s me.
I think it’s possible to hunt with honour, and in a sacred manner, aware of the process from cradle to grave and rebirth and beyond. To acknowledge each crossing between places. But to emphasise this into a social-ritualistic event would be the path to the uncouth bastardisation that modern fox-hunting became.
The need and urge to kill for sustenance and tools, and kit, and charms and whatever you make from the resources you have acquired, is a base instinct. A very defining instinct intrinsically coded into all of us. For me, it’s at the very root of my druidry, it’s a god in itself, the place between living and dieing, the union and kinship of tribe, the basis of all core social activity such as trade, story-telling, singing, dancing, and music (and much more beside).
technorati tags: hunting, honour, omnivore, vegan, vegetarian
