My wife now calls me “The Phoenix” but my older son prefers “The Revenant” … in either case, it’s good to be back from the dead. It’s also good to be able to contribute again to my community as a writer and storyteller. It’s sort of like that challenge in “Saving Private Ryan” – you’ve been given a second chance at life, now earn it.

I remember asking my father when I was a child, “Dad, how do you become a good person?” HIs answer became my raison’d’etre as an educator:  “Son, hang out with wise people, read what wise people write, listen to what wise people say, practice what wise people do, and then one day you too may become wise.” It takes some of us longer than others.

In my long and slow healing process, I began to reread some of my early influences and finally came to understand a few of them. One of those wise people was the incredible anthropologist, Gregory Bateson. His “Mind and Nature” and “Steps to an Ecology of Mind” were huge influences in my quest to become a wise teacher. From him, I learned that a wise teacher asks questions that demand far more than simple yes or no answers; instead, they demand a depth of thought and reflection and inquiry.

Gregory Bateson first articulated the idea that human ideas and communities are connected by a process similar to the natural selection process found in evolution. Why do some ideas resonate throughout history and others become extinct? He asked:“The pattern which connects. Why do schools teach almost nothing about the pattern which connects? …What pattern connects the crab to the lobster and the orchid to the primrose and all four of them to me? And me to you? And all the six of us to the amoeba in one direction and to the back-ward schitzophrenic in another?”

His daughter, after his death, produced a wonderful memorial film by the more grammatically correct title, “The Pattern That Connects.” I’ll stick with the original.

So, what connects me to you to songbirds and pesticides in Central and South America to Rachel Carson and a Silent Spring to an Inuit mother in the Arctic who can’t feed her child with breast milk because it contains too many toxic chemicals grasshoppered up from the “developed” world?

What is the pattern which connects my best buddy in Eureka, California and my lawyer in Toronto, Ontario to all older men with prostate problems, to an ancient African tea made from Pygeum africanum, to a quest for the “Origins of Spirituality” by members of the Fairlawn United Church.

And now I understand. The pattern which connects all of human interaction is simply that quest for the answers to the age old questions of; “Who are we?”, “From where did we come?”, and “To where are we going?” The first human child that could articulate asked these questions over a million years ago. Gaugin asked the same questions reflecting on the meaning of his existence while painting in Tahiti. The ideas that survive are the ones that keep us thinking and wondering and surviving and developing as humans.

And the human patterns which connect are inextricably linked to all of the ecological connections from which life continues to evolve. Understand the patterns, and we begin to understand our place in the universe. Then we become humble in the knowledge that some of the answers to those great questions are beyond human comprehension, but the quest for those answers may just be the purpose of human existence.

*****

… to be continued … in Part Two: What is the pattern which connects Dr. Heather J. Ross and her cardiac team in Toronto to a remote community in Nunavut to space travel to tribal warfare in the Congo to cell phones. What connects me to the execution of Ken Saro-Wiwa (father) to the Niger Delta to prehistoric plants to the Ogoni people to Royal Dutch Shell, to my grade seven students to my choice of gasoline, to the recent passing of Ken Wiwa (son)? Life and death on Planet Earth …

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I first wrote this post several years ago in reponse to a Ducks Unlimited challenge. The furor created over Walter James Palmer’s poaching of Cecil the Lion motivated me to republish it here: Nothing has changed.

*****

After a recent post, I was asked if I were anti-hunting, and my answer was a clear, “NO.” I will ensure that my soon-to-be teenager is skilled in marksmanship with both gun and bow and arrow, and knows how to fish with rod and net. I will ensure that hunter safety trainlng is part of his curriculum for the twenty-first century. I will teach him that if he ever needs to take the life of an animal for food, that he will do it quickly, skillfully and respectfully. But under no circumstances do I support trophy hunting. Big boys with big guns and bigger egos.

For over a million years the hominids that eventually came to be known as homo sapiens were hunter gatherers, so you could safely say that there are some pretty basic skills hard wired into our DNA. The agricultural aspects of our existence didn’t apppear until about 10,000 years ago after the last Ice Age had significantly melted back to the poles.

in what we know of our human history, generally women and children were small game hunters and gatherers of every seed, nut, fruit, and edible leaf that they could find. They basically kept the community alive – not much has changed for women. The men appear to have been the chest pounders and the hunters of larger prey. Given our primate chain of development, protein was a highly valued resource and we worked hard to get it. We became so good at it that post ice age hunters crossing from northern Asia into North America are thought to have been partially responsible for the extinction of several large ungulates.

The toys that children were given in those days were toys that would teach them basic hunting skills through play – the wooden spear, the sling shot, the small bow and arrow, the knife. In those days you had to get pretty close to your prey to kill it. You had to know the habits and habitat of that animal thoroughly. You had to know where the heart and lungs pumped so your shot would make a clean kill. You and the animals knew each other very well. Consider the skill necessary to get within 10m of a deer for a clean shot with bow and arrow. Some of my greatest outdoor nature skills were learned from real hunters and trappers who had an absolutely intimate knowledge and respect for their environment, and only ever took what they needed off the land and water.

I still remember receiving my first rifle from my father, one I used very effectively to clear an infestation of groundhogs from a cattle field on his farm near Cobourg – my dad taught me how to skin and clean them – my first real lessons in anatomy and how to avoid those nasty scent glands that could spoil your stew. (I learned later that the groundhogs not only had seniority, but an invaluable role in the food chain and energy cycle – I stopped hunting them). I still remember my first fishing rod and “the big trip” every spring to Inverlochy Lodge with “the men” to fish for the  mighty northern pike. Everything we caught, we ate. Nothing got stuffed and mounted.

I hunt with a computer now, feeding my family with a whole different set of skills. But when the machine breaks down, and I need to feed my family from the land and water once again, I know exactly how to do it skillfully and respectfully.

On a trip with my students to the North West Territories several years ago, we were out on the tundra with our Inuit hosts, preparing the tradional snack of tea and pilot biscuits, when one of the hunters jumped on his snowmobile and headed over a ridge. We heard the sharp crack of a fifle shot, and he was back in minutes with a caribou slung over his komatiq. He knelt by the caribou’s head for a moment saying something in Inuktituk, then skillfully removed the skin, rolled it up and put it on the sled, butchered the caribou on the spot, and we had lunch – abolutely one of the best teaching moments of my long career. My big city students for the first time saw that direct connection to the land and their food source. They learned later that the hunter had whispered a thank you to the caribou for presenting itself so that the hunter could feed us, his family.

But trophy hunters, that’s a whole different class of human. So called sport hunting is a huge global industry – just check out all the things you can buy at Pro Bass. But using a laser guided scope and a high powered rifle to kill an animal 300 m away, remove only the head for a wall trophy, and call it sport is ludicrous in the extreme and deserves a good Gary Larson cartoon. End of discussion.

Real adults hunt to feed their families. Only children hunt for sport.

*****

Skid Crease, Caledon