Creative Nonfiction

The hard work of hunting is to shorten distance. It does not matter if you are up a tree or in a blind, if you don’t live there all the time, your presence is loud. Each footstep a deafening roar to a deer, taking your weight and height based on the sound you make crashing through their woods. The scent off particles clung between the treads of boots. The smell of sweat. We’re the only ones who sweat. The hard work is watching the weather and reading the wind. Hard work clear

Ironically, the first step to understanding the universe is to study yourself, the same way you would examine a telescope and its physical placement before trusting what it showed in the eyepiece. Self awareness means changing from a person to a system. Fully recognizing that you are a community of efforts and ideas within yourself. Self-awareness is safeguarded by a few difficult realizations, most importantly, mortality. The more you study your heart, your mind, your bodily

Love: to hold something higher than your own need, to value the health and happiness of some one, or some thing, at a greater measurement than your own reward. Love, like a tree, can grow twisted and gnarled yet never ceases to be love. And like a tree, love is innocent of the damage it does to those bold enough to say they understand. Love is premeditated sacrifice, like milk, when it could be blood. I’m sure at some point it was, hungry clones clawing at the host, the only