Transformed

I saw something Saturday that made me realize I'm being transformed. It was a sad something. No photos for this post.

It was a pile of deer carcasses. Six doe: untagged, gutted, only the hind quarters missing, dumped in a heap on the side of the road in Pennsylvania right next to a pond.

Not many people from Northern Virginia hunt. (They prefer the blood sport of politics). Meat comes from a grocery store; let someone else provide it. Because I live here, I spend a fair amount of time defending hunters. The hunters I know love the land. They love wild creatures & their habitat. They believe if you can't make a clean shot, you shouldn't be hunting. The hunters I know are considerably less cruel than many of the gun control advocates.

This was not the behavior of a man who cared about the earth. I felt betrayed.

But the good thing: As angry as I was over the carelessness, over the display of plain human stupidity & laziness, I stood there, looking. I didn't feel squeamish or grossed out, I felt... interested. I still felt sad, but I looked at rib cages & mandibles & tendons & thought, "Huh. Deer have floating ribs, too."

It's a transformation, I tell you. It's what I was born to do.