Preying on the Predator: Lessons from the Hunt

It’s hunting season. For the first time, I bought myself an electric orange hat to wear on my wanders. I haven’t lived this intimately close to Nature in a long time. Yet compared to the Pacific Northwest from which I just moved, there’s only one predator I need worry about: the Hunter.

On a walk with my husband recently, I remarked to him how, even though I’m no longer on the lookout for Mountain Lion or Bear, I have an unsettled feeling about encountering men out in the wilds. Or being mistaken for a deer and shot.

It’s also still haunting season; death continues her slow march toward the Void of Winter. Dream-maker continues to sow both night dreams and very real day-mares that speak of predation, killing off or being killed, sneaking up on, outwitting—or outright confronting— whatever and whomever seems to be praying on us, our communities, and our meaningful contributions to the world.

Tyrannical predators are running rampant across the landscape of these times, both within and without. Those who’ve been traditionally preyed upon are turning and facing the monsters of oppression, both within and without. And all throughout this hunt, we’re falling deeply in and out of love —both within and without.

Months of isolation have forced us into a collective revealing, and also hiding from, that which preys upon us, that which we love, and that which we can no longer abide. For some, the predator is preaching hate. For some, the predator is on a sacred hunt for whatever would destroy Beauty and Truth. Our hearts are breaking as we crack branches for new nests, court our longings, retreat into handmade sanctuaries, stand up to deranged ones and hunt for what allures and often eludes us.

How do we sneak up on and outwit the predator of our personal and collective psyche? How do we hunt for our power in these times? What can be learned from the cunning and courage of creatures of prey?

The sacred dance of hunter and hunted— the great chase— begs for reclamation. It’s a timeless portal to the beguiling danger of a life well-lived.

* * * * *

A while back, I went out on the Land looking for a message from Bear. I’d had recurring dreams that Bear was chasing me. In working with the dream, I discovered that Bear was not, in fact, chasing me. Every time she approached me in the dreams, I’d run away. She was simply taking her queue from me, and running from whatever behind her seemed to be terrifying me. What was Bear trying to tell me that I was too busy running to hear? In every dream, my beloved husband would appear, trying to convince me that Bear meant no harm.

So one day, I resolve to seek Bear’s message. I let Bear know: “I’m here in the woods on your terms, to receive the message you have for me, should you be willing to share it with a runner such as myself.”

Onwards I walk into the woods. I come to a place where the trail splits and there’s a third, deer trail. I choose this fast-dispersing path. As I deepen into the wood, a heightened sensory state washes over me. I begin to walk as quietly as possible, attempting to “cross a shimmering bed of leaves without a sound,” as poet David Whyte says.

Suddenly, there’s a BIG shuffle to my left. Out of the corner of my eye, I catch the flash of a very large creature. I stand there utterly frozen. Had Bear chosen to appear in all visceral real-ness!?

I risk a closer look through the bramble, heart on fire. And standing there, only 20 feet or so from me, is a large, beautiful young Buck. He stands still-as-stone and silent, bathed in a sheath of sunlight that touches only he. He has only stubs of antlers yet. Our gazes lock amidst the green and lilting foliage between us. At first, I feel full-bodied relief! It’s not Bear! We stare at each other for what seemed hours. Time bends into the arc of eternity that total presence bequeaths.

But then just as suddenly as the encounter itself, a primal flavor of fear washes over me. “You’re in danger,” says my ancient-most body. At that exact moment, Buck snorts and stomps. I hear more hooves stomp and scamper nearby.

He’s not alone. He’s with his family. And he’s protecting them.

In that moment, I feel the exquisite tension of being both predator and prey. I crouch down, like Mountain Lion might. I also bend my head to show I mean no harm. There’s deep excitement — delicious danger. Buck snorts, stomps again. I think to run, but remember my recurring dreams. I remember the story of a friend who ran from an Elk and was nearly killed. I remember the old ways of being animals in the widening world.

I gaze into those soft, fierce brown eyes one more time, not really wanting to leave—it’s thrilling!— but knowing I cannot safely stay. I take one tentative step away. He does the same. Our eyes are still locked; it’s true love, true romance, true danger. I take another step away; he does the same. And in this way, we slowly dance away from each other until we’re out of each others’ sight.

I hear him prance off with his family. But I stay for a long while there, the whole forest a symphony, a watercolor. Before the encounter, the forest seemed silent. Now, everything is singing and glowing— a thousand hues of green, cicada, cricket, bird, soft breeze . . . all touching me, brushing my insides with color. The sky drips blue and the meeting of my feet with the soft ground is pulsing, magnetic. For a little while after, this delicious, forgotten inheritance, the vitality of my primal animal-body and the true reach of my sense-abilities is known to me. For just a little while.

* * * * * *

That was the day that I learned how close Love and romance live to Death and danger. I felt how alluring the hunt is, and how it can lure us ever-closer to our own power—in all its shadow and light. That day, I do believe I was shown, in part, the importance of seeking out our power, our own Truth, in the pathless wilderness. And we have to be willing to be surprised by the forces we find out there, where the seemingly docile can threaten and the hunter finds his usual weapons ineffective. We have to be willing to stare down the barrel of what threatens our inner-most sovereignty, and hold our ground.

We have to be willing to not run. And furthermore, we have to strive to encounter ourselves in this way on purpose.

So often, in our journey to heal, grow and create change and art and renaissance in the world, the predator of the psyche is upon us far before we realize it. This has been discussed and written about by so many depth psychologists, folklorists and spiritual leaders.* Personally, I think of the predator as the most brazen inner-attempts at self-sabotage. Far more clever and cunning than the inner critic, for example, the Predator is really out to destroy something precious to us . . . He goes for the kill.

I used to want to utterly destroy him, believing he was and must be something outside of me. But despite the very real predators and predation campaigns outside of us, I’ve come to believe that preying on the predator is first and foremost an inside job.

What would it look like to be in right-relationship with the predator within? In encountering Buck that day, I realized that there is a dance which, when done on purpose and in mutual respect, is quite beautiful, sacred and life-affirming. This dance is the dance that keeps all in balance… living and dying and living again.

It’s very interesting to note that rutting season (mating season for Deer) runs concurrent with hunting season. The Love Story mixed and mingled with the Dying Story. Both have their value, their ways of sustaining us, and both can be deeply corrupted. For example, the Love-and-be-loved-back Story deforming into rape, or the Dying-to-sustain-more-life Story degenerating into senseless and wasteful murder. Greed versus reciprocity.

It’s not different out in the world or deep in our creative lives. We can choose to let ourselves love and be hunted by the love of the world. We can determine to let ourselves die and be renewed. We can choose when to stand in our power and be seen, and when to diminish into the sanctuary of our inner-wilderness, fortified by our unique creative process.

Knowing that there is a predator within us, we can learn to sneak up behind him/her/them, interrupting their attempts to derail us. We do this by striving to intimately know ourselves, our patterns and the rhythmic seasonality of our lives.

* * * * * *

The Deer are making love madly out there in the secret groves alongside being hunted. As we move deeper into the hunting season, and the fallow winter beyond, a few of our beloved creative endeavors will not make it out alive. In these trying times, the truth is, some of our kin (both human and other-than-human) won’t make it out alive. Deer knows this. With both our creative endeavors and even our actual, living breathing bodies at risk, the task of understanding how it is we’re being preyed upon is paramount, personally and collectively.

To track what hunts and haunts us is to know when to hide and when to risk being seen, when to engage that alluring dance of hunted and hunter, when to surrender, retreat or charge.

The Doe remembers to be wooed and hunted by love every year, just as her deep psyche tells her that her life is in very real danger from a different sort of predation. This is her power, this dual knowing. She balances being seen, loving and retreating in order to create/protect new life with enormous personal risk-taking.

The Buck knows he must be courageous— self-sacrificing enough— to be an agent of romance and also face what threatens his kin, despite the fact that his vitality and power is being sought out in all painstaking stealth. In moving towards what he loves, he necessarily makes himself vulnerable to that which would destroy him. But he tracks and protects his desire anyway.

Both are hunters, both hunted. The human hunter, in right relationship to his earth relatives, is changed by the kill that will feed his family, keep him warm in both gratitude and humility and keep him devoted to his craft. We can see ourselves in all these players in the Great Dance of romance, dying, sustenance.

We all long to encounter something big, something capable of mirroring and confirming the potency of our own, mythic identity.

Will we strive to find and be found by this greatness on purpose? I think about surprising Buck that day and yet having gone out that day precisely to find or be found by Bear’s message. What can happen when we determine to seek out and be sought . . . without knowing what we will find or be found by, if anything. Will we let life happen to us in accidents; will we be caught unawares by what might destroy? Will we run? Or will we face, hold gaze with, dance with or blessedly surrender to these stunning encounters with ourselves, our gifts and the greater Soul of the World? Will we master stealth in preying on the truly dangerous predators of our psyche while hunting down and being taken by our most dangerous yet thrilling longings?

So much danger and possibility in this particular Hunting / Haunting / Rutting season. Where to begin? How to continue? On the one hand, I feel it’s most responsible for us all to risk being seen forthright these days, our bobbing orange heads proclaiming our presence amidst the dying, autumn brush. Our orange hats, like our voices, proclaiming: Lower your weapon! Cease your killing spree. May your murderous predation be interrupted again and again by our bright appearance, until only the worthiest predators (within and without) remain.

On the other hand, I long to go deep into the hidden woods of my creative life, to master stealth in tracking what stalks me, to learn the art of sneaking up on that murderous rogue within, or being surprised by the gentle ferocity of my soul-powers. Deep in my bones, I long to encounter, be wooed by and woo my gifts on purpose. To find again that dance with Love and Danger that I found in the woods that day, and to choose not to run, to learn to face it.

No matter how this darkening season moves you deeper-in or deeper-out or both, perhaps Buck’s most promising gift is to do and be on purpose. To wake each morning, and rather than hunt or be hunted unawares, hide from or be found unconsciously by who-knows-what, to instead strive to decide— amidst even vast uncertainty— to encounter and love and be loved by your life in all devoted consciousness.

There are no Victims or Villains in Nature, just an endless, holy ebb and flow of living, dying and rebirth. Our inner lives can also be without victim or villain, but instead populated by a vast, dynamic web of predators and prey, love and romance and death and reemergence in right-relationship with each other.

This post is lovingly dedicated to Kevin & Jen.

*with credit to Dr. Clarissa Pinkola Estes