The Zen of a Deer Stand

I had bird hunted and hunted from a ground blind, but I anxiously waited that first whitetail hunt from a tree stand. I was surprisingly nervous, not about the cold, as I'm part polar bear, or about the firearm. It was an old Belgium Browning 20 gauge semi auto - we'd spend many mornings together and were comfortable together, hard steel against warm flesh. I was comfortable with the area. I'd walked carefully into the woods, trying to mimic a deer as much as I could in my walking, walk a few steps, listen, and then walking a few more and stopping. I didn't step onto the deer trails or walk down them, taking advantage of some shelter belts and low spots so hopefully the deer didn't see me, setting up where I would hunt prior to the rut.

I'd learned much from my friends, and a few things for myself (don't, repeat, don't breath deeply of that bottle of Tinks wondering "hey I wonder what this smells like"). Safety had been drilled into me, I was in great physical shape (i.e. I had adequate padding built into my frame in case I fell down). They all thought I was ready. I didn't.

It wasn't the darkness, the solitude, or the firearm. What I was worried about was the tree stand.

(yes, folks this was it).

Climbing it in the dark, in what would likely be snow squall coming off of the Northern Plains, holding a heavy (for me) gun, was about as settling to the spirit as riding the Raptor at Cedar Point after a chili dog. We left the house early, the two of us branching off, hunting different areas of the many acres we were on. I got to my stand alone, the moon glinting off the metal of its frame, that part that wasn't coated with bits of ice, and I felt something I hadn't felt in a while. Adrenalin fueled by fear.

If you could see adrenalin you could see it here, trickling down the rosy, soft cheek of a first time tree stand hunter. I stood at the foot of it looking up. It's only a tree blind. I'm not afraid of heights. I'm a pilot, I've rock climbed. Why does this silly tree stand make me nervous? It has neither tires or testicles, I can handle it, right?

I look up again, calculate the distance. There is bounce potential here. If I fall I could break my neck. Sure I'd fallen before, off of a ladder fueling aircraft. The tarmacs harder than the forest floor. I just needed to get on the damn horse. Plato called it a horse, as he comprehended how blind emotion could overtake reason , and if we are going to conquer our fear we must pull in the reigns on emotion and keep that horse under control. I just never expected the horse to be so, well . . . . tall. Or have ice on it. I looked at the ground near my feet, subconsciously, not sure if I was expecting to see horse manure or the bones of those the tree stand had defeated.

Silly isn't it. There I am, the kid that jumped off a garage with a blanket parachute, stopped dead in my tracks by something as simple as a series of steps way up into a tree. My Norwegian Grandmother could have climbed this. She'd be at the top already saying "look I have coffee". It's just a ladder. Really. It's amazing the things our mind tells us that prompts that hesitation for something we so desperately want.

For its not a mountain, impassable, and it's not my destiny to climb it, it's simply my desire, it only remains for me to follow. I looked up at it, and up and said "Lord. . ?" But He did not answer, perhaps because He gives men time; time that can be afforded to them, and He has eternity and is eternally unchanging.

Sometimes the silence is our call to take what's within us and make up our mind. So I stood there in the companionable science of the trees, with no answer from above, only one bubbling up from inside, an answer born of training, one born of faith. My heart beat faster and faster and I knew that with that first step up, when I married that unutterable vision of desire to my perishable breath, my mind, not my fear would take over and I could do this.

There is a Korean martial art called Kum Do, which involves some very sharp swords and in its original form, a fight to the death. Now, in our kinder and gentler day, bamboo sticks are used, but many of the moves that survived the ensuing centuries were developed to shake blood off the blade so that the coagulating blood didn't dull the edge. Kum Du teaches students to avoid what is known as the four poisons of the mind "fear, confusion, hesitation and surprise". The constant tendency of men to anticipate and predict an event is a disadvantage, for in Kum Do if you let your natural inclination of prediction run loose, you could get a surprise, leading to confusion and then death (or a really sharp whack with that damn bamboo pole).

Instead, we watch clear and calm and then act promptly at the perfect moment. The snow has abated, the sky, for a moment, is clear and there is a short span of calmness in the trees as the wind had died down, waiting patiently for the next squall. I'd spent years learning about hunting and tracking and this old Browning. All the acts, conditions and decisions of a lifetime had brought me here to this day, with a family friend I trusted, and now alone, at the base of this tree. It was time, not to predict, but to act.

I affixed a temporary orange blaze band on the trunk so others would know I was in this area, this tree, and I climbed. The tingling excitement for me that is the change of summer to fall or the anticipation of that first touch of a lovers hand was there, but there was something beneath. Stubbornness, yes, but also a sense of that feeling you have as a kid when you ride your first bike without training wheels. Small moments in life, never forgotten. I'm glad no one was filming the ascent, but I made it.

There, settled in, I can see through breaks in the branches to two open corn fields, set among the forest. Moving shadows stalked the edges, one could well be a big buck, they like the tree lines. A hunter, I am in my element, the smell of Autumn brushing my face, the scent of woodsmoke and leaves that I love so much carried on a wind that's as unpredictable as the future. I can't predict how this day will end. I can only breathe deep the incredible view and hold onto this moment, this breath, the only thing I know I have for sure. For in this tree stand, I am alive, and that is something to savor, with a slow shadow of perhaps a full grown buck and the soft stroke of a branch against my cheek.

My trusty Browning lay across my lap, as my fingers clench and unclench keeping the blood moving through them in the bitter early morning cold. I know my fellow hunter is probably not more than three quarters of a mile away, close enough that a gunshot would bring him here if I had a problem, far enough away that I am alone. I stayed in the blind all day, the snow coming and going in a brief tango with the sun that tried to add some heat to the dance, seeing a couple of button bucks, with years to their life I was not ready to take, and several chattering squirrels. I know there are some nice bucks here, I've seen the scrapes, but with the wind, they were not to be seen.

As the sun began to drop in the horizon, I was amazed in the lapse of time, the evening approaching, seeming like a mere moment, in which I blossomed like a flower in the night. I'm likely not alone in thinking that time spent in the woods is not subtracted from our life, but is simply added over and above our usual allowance. The same Oriental philosophers that fueled my study of the martial arts talked about contemplation and the forsaking of work, and I realized out here, up here, what that means. Out in a tree stand I don't care how the hours sway, the day advances as light comes into it, it's dawn, and now it's evening and nothing more memorable was done than taking a chance at putting dinner on the table for the winter months. My day was not a day of work, minced into deadlines of a ticking clock. The morning was still, the afternoon passed in a slow and steady scout of the surrounding area, seeking game, seeking sustenance, and if the day was wasted, as some might say, coming home empty handed as nature sang in my ear, what was the harm?

This was tree stand hunting, unidentifiable birds drifting overhead, shadows dancing on the cornfields, the piney smell of freedom and adventure. A time when overcoming my fear in the warm embrace of the woods brought more satisfaction than any 12 point buck.

As the sun wept into the tree line, I walked from the woods, towards the house, waiting, humming with light out into the darkness, my footsteps only a small noise under the stars. Looking back, I could see the tree stand, not seeming nearly as tall as it was this morning. It waited silently, there, where tomorrow, if I was lucky, I could climb it again and breath deep the incomparable liquor of wonder that is the woods from above.

As I closed the door behind me, all I could think was "I can't wait".