Inner Beauty

“The day-to-day stress and busyness have me running over the sacred ground in my life, thoughtlessly trampling those delicate places. I become worn and hardened as I focus on efficiency rather than beauty, on productivity rather than meaning.  Our modern life is one of incessant activity, which leaves us breathless and harried. We live by the old idiom, ‘Don’t let the grass grow under your feet’ without realizing we are killing any green and hopeful thing in our life.”

Those words were written, not by a world renown philosopher or poet, but by a photographer. Erik Stensland is probably the premiere photographer in Rocky Mountain National Park, and one who’s work I admire greatly.  His latest book, Whispers in the Wilderness, is a collection of his reflections paired with his photography.  This post isn’t meant to be a plug for his book (but you really should pick up a copy, it is fantastic), but several of his thoughts have spurred my own thoughts on what the outdoors and nature mean to me.

While this last year was busy and filled with changes and challenges, both large and small, I had ample opportunity to step out into the wild parts of Colorado. Whether it was exploring new forests through the window of a patrol truck, backpacking deep into the wilderness in search of mountain goats, fishing new streams and lakes, or taking the camera out for a stroll through RMNP, I didn’t realize how much these moments in the cathedral of nature meant at the time.

Life has thrown its punches, tried to pull me back from wilderness nirvana, and drizzled frustration on a sour serving of disappointment. Add to this the hectic holiday season, a temporary move, and an uncertain future, and suddenly the lush green memories of the previous year’s outdoors memories were looking dry, brown, and trampled.

How do we avoid this? We all face setbacks and heartbreaks, sometimes at a daunting pace, sometimes dwarfed by the sheer enormity of the trials.  The solution is different in practice for everyone, but the answer remains the same: beauty.  For some it may be creating beauty, through photography, painting, sculpting, writing, sewing, gardening, or drawing.  For others it may be simply enjoying beauty; going to a stage production, sitting and watching the sunset, visiting an art gallery, or reading a novel.  When confronted with this beauty we must respond by looking inside ourselves and finding the inner beauty. I don’t mean that in some “you’re beautiful on the inside” pep-talk way. Rather, I mean we must find the beauty that exists in inspiration, hope, love, and goodwill.  These desires, beliefs, and feelings we carry inside us must be acknowledged and pursued.  The beauty of the external world needs to drive us to nurture the beautiful things inside us. 

For me, that catalyst is the outdoors. Surrounded by towering peaks, stout pine trees, and the particular smell of an aspen grove, the weight of tomorrows worries can drift away, as if they were waiting for the thin, crisp, mountain air to give them space to float off. In the subtle mountain silence, the nagging voice of concern and self-doubt are muted. Here, enveloped in nature, while my visual gaze is distracted by the rapturous beauty bombarding it, my souls gaze can turn towards those places of inner beauty.  Here, I can give those neglected, malnourished, and parched desires of my heart the attention and restoration they need without anything else trampling them to dust.

Where is it you find beauty?  Search for it, desperately. Don’t let your dreams and hopes wilt under the scorching skies of “tomorrow” or “someday.” Refuse to let the tender petals of the blossoming flower of desire be squashed by the boots of “being reasonable," “unobtainable,” or even "forbidden." The beauty inside yourself, those withering places of longing and yearning in your soul, depend on it.

Dawn and Dusk

   There are two magical times in nature that any hunter, photographer, or simple admirer will point to; dawn and dusk.  While the majority of the world may revel in the bright warm sunlight for their outdoor activities, those truly intimate with nature seek these daily fringes.  What is it about these times that hold us so magically captivated? Certainly the beauty of sunsets and sunrises have unfathomable attraction. The various hues of orange, gold, purple, and fire red can render the otherwise blue-and-black canvas a whirlpool of chaotic wonder. I sometimes fancy that these displays are a special reward for those who leave the warmth of their comfortable beds to awake with the frosty dawn and delay returning to them until the yawning expanse of evening has grudgingly given way to night.

   

   For me there is more though, a more primordial love for dawn and dusk.  Both my love for photography and hunting are unified in an excitement piqued before the sun begins its daily trek and after it descends to make the journey around again.  For it is during these times nature seems most real, most alive.  Birds sing in the morning, a song to reassure each other that they are still there after the long night, and again in the evening as if to wish each other a good night.  Squirrels scurry busily about with renewed fervor in the morning and with increased purpose as dusk falls.  Elk and deer retreat from their feeding in the open meadows to the safety of the woods as the cover of night retreats from the sun, and venture out to fill their empty stomachs after the fiery orb has nourished the grass they rely on.  To all of this I am but a witness, an observer locked out of the true cycle of nature.  For soon after night fall I will return home, to comforts necessary for my species survival. In the morning I will awake and venture forth to nature again, having missed the regenerative time that exists in the duality of activity and slumber.  As I watched the sunset recently in Rocky Mountain National Park, listening to turkeys calling as they strutted off to their roosts, watched the elk feeding contentedly in the meadow, followed the different birds as they streaked to their nests, I was reminded of this separation.  While we may love nature, enjoy it, revel in it, and try to capture it in a myriad of ways, we are unequivocally divided from it.  And it is this division from it, this “otherness” that gives nature its beauty. Just as dawn and dusk dividing the day from the night give each circadian sect its beauty.

What do you see?

What do you see?

When you walk into my house, or my parent’s house, what do you see when confronted with the dead animal heads?  If you are family and friends, most likely you aren’t shocked, and unless you are a hunter, you probably don’t give them a second glance.  There is of course the potential that you are offended.  How macabre, how barbaric, how antiquated, how blood-hungry you might ask.  Let me tell you what I see.

First, I see a myriad of stories.  Each head holds a memory shared, for not only the person who harvested it, but the entire camp. One of the greatest parts of hunting camp is the comradery, the swapping of tales at the end of the day. Not of only successes, but near misses and the beauty encountered.  For each animal harvested the story was recounted as others filtered into camp that evening, breathing the joy of success throughout each person.  In this way the animal doesn’t belong to just the man who pulled the trigger, but to all who were there to hear the story, who walked those same hills, through those same trees, and bent under the weight of a pack filled with meat. 

While you may see a tame, frozen, inanimate rendering of some creature, I see wildness.  Those lifeless glass eyes hold a million mysteries to me. What experiences did that animal have? Living in the wild every day that we spend a short week in, how many amazing sunrises and sunsets did that animal witness? I don’t merely see a rigid, artistic recreation of the animals head, but rather a vision of the entire animal, surrounded by its natural home. Trees, grass, and mountains the background rather than warm earth-tone paint.  To me this is the greatest reason to hang a head on the wall: it is not to intimate a taming of wildness, but to bring that wildness into the tameness of our households.

 

Lastly I see the trophy.  But it’s not as simplistic as you might believe.  This isn’t some point-counting, scorekeeping, record-book-entry-seeking ideology.   Rather it is respect and celebration of the animals’ uniqueness and greatness.  The number of tines and Boone & Crocket score is not a reverence paid to the hunter, but rather to the animal.  The hunter didn’t survive for years in the wild, escaping other hunters, enduring bitter winters, and eluding natural predators.  The animal is its own trophy, a celebration of its own remarkable life and legacy, not the hunters.

When you next see an animal head mounted (it is worth clarifying they aren’t stuffed—that would be a teddy bear!) try to view it from my perspective.  It is not some gruesome braggadocios claim of the hunter’s prowess, but a tribute to an amazing animal’s life. It is a preservation of that animal’s greatness, its story intertwined with those who chased it, and a life ended not in dismay, but in celebration and respect.  And most importantly, at least to me, it is a conduit to the wild places that animal inhabited, a reminder of their mastery of places we only visit for short times.  Next time you see a head on someone’s wall, ask them the story.  If they are a true hunter, their eyes will light up as they recount the tale. And if you listen closely you will hear something special; it’s not the hunter’s story, but the animals’ story, a story preserved forever in the icon silently adorning the wall.  

Dad's Bull

 I stood in the dark timber, my first elk in more years than I can remember lay dead at my feet. I radio back to camp to let them know to bring the packs my way and check in on how everyone else has done. “Dad got a bull this morning” says my brother.

“Is it a nice one?”

“Yeah” he answers.

“A wall hanger?”

“Definitely.”

Suddenly I forget my own joy and revel in something deeper.  To understand what I was feeling at that moment I need to take you back to the beginning. The very beginning.

If you don’t know my dad, your life is dull and dreary. O.k., maybe it’s not that drastic, but you are missing out on one of the most amazing men who deserve the title “man”.  My father hasn’t cured cancer or thrown a Super Bowl winning touchdown. What he has done is everything he can with what he has.  He doesn’t have a college education, but he has the most amazing work ethic and drive of anyone I have ever met. That isn’t just a fluff statement that everyone says about their dads. My dad has worked 60+ hours nearly every week of his life, and back when he did game season it was probably closer to 80-90 hours a week for 3 months straight. Forget days off. Forget weekends. He worked.  Even now at the age of 60 he is putting in over 60 hours a week. And through this he wasn’t an absentee father. He was there for us anytime we needed him, he was involved, and he cared.  His reward for all this hard work was one week a year. That week was hunting week.  I remember watching every year as the group loaded up the Jeep with the old canvas tent and kerosene stove and headed out in the dark the day before the season. Six days later they would come back, tired and dirty, but always happy. And the stories.  It was like they stepped into an alternate universe detached from the one I lived in, and I couldn’t wait to hear their fantastical stories. I was in love with hunting before I ever went hunting.

And then I went hunting. It was here I learned the most amazing life lesson: who you are in your daily life is who you are in the woods, just more raw, more honest.  My dad’s work ethic didn’t go away at hunting camp, it showed through as the natural part of him it is.  He is the first one up, cooking breakfast. As soon as an elk is down he is the first one to get there to start quartering it, tying it on packs, and shouldering one of the heaviest packs back to camp.  In hunting camp his love for me and others showed through in all these selfless acts. Whenever we hunted together he always let me shoot first when we came across elk. He would come back to camp early, losing those last couple hours of hunting to put dinner in the oven. 

Year after year he hunted hard, made sure everyone else enjoyed hunting camp, and waited. He will be the first to tell you that hunting is not about killing a certain species or shooting a trophy animal.  However, every hunter has that hope, that unspoken goal. For my dad I believe it was a trophy bull elk. The area we used to hunt is certainly not known for producing giant bulls, and so my dad waited 8 years to draw in Unit 61, an area that gives out limited bull tags to increase the size of the bulls in the area. True to his form he hunted hard for 5 days, leaving camp in the dark, hunting all day, and coming back in the dark.  Even truer to form he gave up a couple hours of the last day of his hunt to help my cousin find his missing GPS. And then he was rewarded with a broad-side shot at a giant bull on the opposite ridge. A single shot and the bull dropped, and rolled down the hill and out of sight. They weren’t able to find it that night, and the entire camp went over the next morning, the last morning to help find it. We didn’t. I remember being angry at God. I am not proud of this moment, as I admit it was insanely immature of me. But it just didn’t seem fair. No one “deserves” to kill an elk, much less a trophy elk, but I felt my dad deserved it.  He never once complained. Not once did he mention feeling sorry for himself, mad, frustrated. Instead he started applying again. He waited another 7 years.  This time was different. He never even got a shot, never saw a trophy bull. Again, not a single complaint.  This looked like it was his last good opportunity as waiting another 7-8 years maybe wouldn't be feasible, although I would never doubt his ability.

And so here we are this year, in a new unit that certainly isn’t known for its trophy elk. Saturday my cousin got a bull and my dad was there to help pack it out. Sunday morning my brother shot his first bull (another sweet memory), and my dad was there to pack it out. And then Monday morning, 15 minutes into the hunt, less than a quarter mile from camp, the moment my dad had worked for in 42 years of hard hunting finally paid out.  I wish I could have been there to enjoy the moment in person, to help him pack that elk out too. Instead I was over a mile from camp, earning my own elk. And it was the work ethic he taught me that drove me there. 

So congrats Dad, you deserve it. Not just the elk, but whatever “it” is, you deserve it, you deserve it all.  You have given so much to so many, especially me and Kyle. We can never repay you, but I am unspeakably grateful to get to enjoy moments like this with you.

How I became who I am

            It is my father’s fault I am a cold blooded killer. Then again, I am sure he never envisioned me turning out this way.  He would say he was simply passing on a family tradition, showing me the way he had been taught by his father.  Yes, I certainly have my own share of blame in the process. Now I look back with fond memories of the first time my father handed me a gun and took me hunting.  What started as father/son bonding time has grown and taken on a life of its own. I could never have anticipated how the passion of hunting would shape me like it has though.  

            The lessons I learned the first couple of years are many, and they have stuck with and impacted me deeply.  The knowledge my father imparted to his young wide-eyed son were not deep scientific theories, or even lofty theological ideas. Instead, he guided me through several moral philosophies that apply just as profoundly to everyday life as they do to hunting.  Even though we are the hunter, killing isn’t the point. Even when it’s wet, windy, and cold, we are here to hunt, so hunting we will go. Even though we find great satisfaction in success, we rejoice all the more with others accomplishments.  Most importantly, we are successful regardless of filling our tags.  These ideas were hard to absorb as a kid, and still hard to practice as an adult, but I have felt the joy in watching a hunters eyes light up as they describe their triumph.  I have trodden back into camp soaked, and shivering, crumpling into a folding chair pulled close to the wood fireplace. I have learned the real definition of success. 

            As I grew up I found those six days immersed in the wilderness inadequate. Each moment in the woods became a treasure, allowing me to glimpse into the world where the wild animals I pursued spent their entire lives.  Hunting began to morph slowly, changing from a chance for an adrenaline rush and quality family time, into something more intricate. I began reading, and there is no shortage of hunting resources. Magazines, online articles, and books all contained vast amounts of information to improve my success.  I started as a young kid trying not to snap every twig underfoot, to pouring over topographical maps, studying migration corridors, saddles, benches, and a myriad of other geographic clues as to where the elk should be.  Instead of sullenly tramping along, wondering if my dad had anymore candy bars in his pack, I became attentive to wind direction, anticipating its thermal shifts to always keep it in my face.  Subtly I was learning and growing, my path to wildlife literacy gaining momentum.  Then came archery hunting, and learning began anew. Draw weight, length, brace height, and many other factors determine the right bow for each person. I scoured website after website, searching for information on what size and type of bow I would need for my specific build.  Shooting a bow is so different from a rifle there should be a different word for it.  There are muscles used in archery I didn’t know existed, and correct form is essential for accuracy. I worked and worked on it, establishing a solid anchor spot, and went to a local archery shop for tuning help and questions.  Hunting with a bow has provided a plethora of learning opportunities, as I now have to get closer to the animals than ever before. There is an intimacy of being so close to a wild animal, noticing things not seen before. All this led me deeper into the world of hunting literacy, morphing from days in the field to now a hunger for more scientific knowledge. 

            In high school I was a bright but un-motivated student. I got decent grades without having to apply much energy, which was fine with me as I had no intention of going to college. I entered the work force but quickly became disillusioned with the life of a retail worker. The nagging question that kept me stuck there had haunted me my entire life: what do I want to be when I grow up? Finally, that answer came to me, as I realized my passion and knowledge of hunting could be used as a career springboard.  Working for the US Forest Service, or the state division of wildlife would allow me to pair my passion for the outdoors with the principles of management, ecology, and biology.  This would require more than a high school diploma though, so I made the step back into formal education. It was different this time though, because each class had meaning. Instead of useless facts, or boring memorization, I could see each lesson applying and grafting itself to a future career. Experience from the woods melded with lectures, and professors’ wisdom echoed when I went hunting.  I noticed a drive to succeed that I never had before, not simply for good grades, but rather to fully understand the wild world that has always fascinated me.  Who I am as a hunter – passionate, driven, curious – became who I am as a student.

            Five more semesters separate me from graduation, and beyond that I doubt my formal education will stop. Years of experience in the woods are hopefully the beginning of the knowledge I will continue to gain firsthand.  Wildlife literacy is not some obtainable benchmark, rather a lifelong lesson, an idea as fluid as evolution itself.  When I go hunting, I am not simply a predator anymore, but a student also. To me the two worlds have become inseparable; the hunter and the student have become one. Maybe they were the same all along. 

Ode to beauty

Where are you, o' beautiful? I cannot see you, yet I know you are there, always there.  Masked from my sight, wrapped in swirling swathes of muted gray.  With eyes open I peer longingly and see nothing; with eyes closed I can make out your silhouette, memory proving the strongest of my senses.   Knowing that you are there is enough, knowing what I will see when the billowing obscurity is blown away is tantalizing. You will be dressed in radiant white, the hem of your dress a frosted purple, and piled around you will be the snowy white folds of your train.  The sun that now struggles to shine through the storm overhead will illuminate you in purest light, marking you stronger for the storm you just weathered.
We have been tethered since birth, though each of us unaware of the other. I can't say when I first noticed you, but I will certainly never forget you.  While others hardly notice you, my heart and eyes are forever drawn to you. You stand there, outside their car windows in all your majestic stature and beauty and go unseen.  They look from the red light, to you, back down to their phones, and drive into the worries of the day without a second stolen glance or catch of breath. How can this be? I see you in the early dawn, each ray of light reaching out and gingerly touching your face, sharpening each line, bringing rich contrast to your already surpassing beauty.  Each evening the fading sun stretches your shadow out and as it sets for the night I am reassured you will be there when it comes back around.
You are more than a mere object to me, more than a beautiful sight for my soul. You are a portal to my life, an escape hatch I go to time and again.  For the stale recycled air I breath, you are a fresh mountain breeze. For the brown smog soaked atmosphere of vehicle exhaust, you are a powder blue sky with wispy thin clouds.  For the heat baking my feet and blistering my lips as it reflects back off the pavement, you are fluffy dry snow stinging my cheeks with shards of refreshing cold. For the cramped work-space and caged animal feeling that accompanies city life, you are a spacious meadow filled with every kind of wildflower. In you I find the identity of my soul and what it craves-life and death, harsh and mild, wild and tame, alone and companionship.  You are me, and I am you, our identities inseparable, our definitions the same. If you ever falter, stumble, or crumble my world would surely end. But when my time comes, as it certainly will before yours does, I know you will stand stoic and unyielding, but I believe the streams running down your cheeks will be tears of sadness. And maybe, just maybe one of those streams will run past my grave and we will be together for eternity. The moisture from your sadness will cause a single flower to grow, a symbol of the life you brought to me.

What do you want to be when you grow up?

What do you want to be when you grow up? Every grade school kid has been asked this question. Fireman, policeman, doctor, and football player are probably among the most common answers for boys. Teacher and mom were about as original as the girls ever seemed to get. An occasional astronaut was thrown in for the motivated kids. As your senior year of high school approaches the same question gets asked, normally phrased as "....so what are you gonna do when you graduate?".  By this time the majority of people have shifted their answer to something more realistic(since we can't all be fireman and even with the Broncos desperate need of talent none of us are quite good enough) and generally more vague.  "I'm going to such and such school and getting a bachelors in such and such." Even the ones who seemed to still like school at this point and were going to pursue a masters had a more generic idea such as business law or psychology without a specific career or company in mind. And for those like me the answer was a honest "I don't really know. I think I will work for a while and then maybe go back to school".

Then you work. You work some more. Maybe get promoted, get a pay raise. A little vacation here and there.  But you eventually wake up one day and realize you never decided what you wanted to be when you grew up and its 8 years after graduation. Going back to school seems impossible at this point because you are living on your own and your full time wages go to silly little necessities like rent and food and insurance. And when you get honest you still don't know what you want to do, you just know this isn't it.  There is a depression that can only come from feeling unfulfilled and it hits like a tidal wave.   Restlessness, anxiety, anger, all manifest themselves as symptoms of this depression as you grow less and less content with your life. Its hard, if not impossible to resist this either. There are few things as sapping to mans(and I would assume a woman's) self worth as working a dead end job. Even if it is a job that pays well, if the work is not satisfying and gratifying each hour feels like a wasted drudgery, every day off is reduced to a 24 hour countdown to when it ends and work begins again.

That was me. Then I quit, walked out and never looked back. Life instantly began anew, as close to the moment I graduated high school in its liberation and seemingly boundless opportunities. I worked here and there, mostly relying on my talents as a meat cutter. In my free time I fixed a lot of things in my life. Most notably my walk with God, attending church regularly again, and seeking Him in prayer.  I met an amazing woman and was able to spend a great deal of time getting to know her and fell in love with her rather quickly.  Through all this I knew I needed a job, and still wasn't answering the real question: what do I want to be?
I got engaged the same day I went back to Sams. I guess in some small way I thought maybe I had answered the question: I wanted to be a husband and it didn't matter what else I did. I was wrong. It worked for a while to be sure. I got promoted right away, and overall it seemed a better place to work. The upcoming wedding and all the excitement probably played a part in distracting me too. But it didn't take long before the stress and frustration began to show through, the deep seeded realization that this is still not where I wanted to end up surfaced again.

And that leads to today.  I need out. I feel trapped, helplessly locked into a cycle that I see all too clearly laid out before me and around me.  Every single meat cutter I know has had to work two jobs, had a wife that worked full time or in a lot of cases, both.  They all miss Christmas's and Easters, birthdays and anniversaries, and all those silly little 3 day weekend holidays like Labor Day, Memorial Day and Forth of July. But it goes deeper than that, deeper than the lousy pay and erratic schedule. It goes to a lack of satisfaction in my work. I enjoy what I do, and I think that I am pretty darn good at what I do. But what I do does not bring satisfaction in what I accomplish.  I honestly feel more pride, joy and victory when I win a rec league low level hockey game then when I got promoted at work.

So now what? What do I want to be when I grow up now that I am grown up?  I still don't think I can give you a definitive "I want to work this specific job". I can however give you some generalizations that are all together more specific than I have ever been and following these ideas, I think, can lead me to a career that is rewarding and satisfying. First, in the family realm, I want to be a great husband. The kind of husband who you would never even suspect of cheating, the kind of husband you would want your daughter to be married to, the kind of husband you would raise your son to be.  I want to be a father, one who is there when I am needed, strong and supportive, stern and loving. On the relational side of things, I want to be a friend who is always there, dependable and caring, honest and open.  Financially I want to make enough to take care of my families needs and as many wants as I can.  I want to be generous, to my church, to those in need. I have never aspired to be rich as I know I probably can't be trusted with a lot of money and never saw the point in piling up a large number in a bank account I can't take with me when I die. Now however I look at a future with a family, dependent on my sole income, I want to be able to provide. I don't know exactly what that number is, and with the bargain hunting wife that I have I would probably be shocked at how little we could survive on, but I do honestly believe its higher than what I make now. Lastly, and of probably greater importance than all but the first, I want to make a difference in what I do. Clocking in and out, earning a meager wage and making someone else rich is not cutting it for me. I could work there for 40 more years until retirement and maybe get a nice picture frame for my entire working career and the next day they would replace me with an 18 year old kid for half my pay and life would go on as if I never sat foot in there before. I want to leave something behind, a lasting impact on the world, stamping my identity and proof of existence indelibly on the universe. Maybe I am a dreamer, or even vain, I don't know. I do know this life isn't about me, or what I can do here on earth; it is ultimately about bringing God glory. But in so many ways I think redeeming this time I have, finding joy and contentment and fulfillment in my career will bring Him far greater glory than "sucking it up and grinding out a living".

So, to summarize another rather lengthy post(thank you sincerely if you are still reading), what do you want to be when you grow up? The question is as pertinent and important now as when you were in forth grade.