HUNTING PHENOMENOLOGY

"Hunting in my experience - and by hunting I simply mean being
out on the land - is a state of mind. All of one's faculties are
brought to bear in an effort to become fully incorporated into
the landscape. It is more than listening for animals or watching
for hoofprints or a shift in the weather. It is more than an
analysis of what one senses. To hunt means to have the land
around you like clothing. To engage in a wordless dialogue with
it, one so absorbing that you cease to talk with your human
companions. It means to release yourself from rational images of
what something "means" and to be concerned only that it "is". And
then to recognize that things exist only insofar as they can be
related to other things. These relationships - fresh drops of
moisture on top of rocks at a river crossing and a raven's
distant voice - become patterns. The patterns are always in
motion. Suddenly the pattern - which includes physical hunger, a
memory of your family, and memories of the valley you are walking
through, these particular plants and smells - takes in the
caribou. There is a caribou standing in front of you. The release
of the arrow or bullet is like a word spoken out loud. It occurs
at the periphery of your concentration."  [pp.199-200]

Barry Lopez. 1989. "Arctic Dreams: Imagination and Desire in a
Northern Landscape". Bantam Books, New York.