This is my 200th Instinct & Intuition post! To celebrate, I wrote a piece on my experience with life, death, meat, and a few other things. I hope it inspires much to contemplate.

i. ribs

If one had asked my five-year-old self what my favourite meal was, my answer would have been an enthusiastic, salivating cry of “Ribs!“

And indeed, ribs it was. I was a proud carnivore as a child, preferring meat in my meals to anything else. I liked my steaks rare. Their juices didn’t bother me, nor the vibrant pinkish red within. Meat was meant to be that way.

Meat wasn’t the only thing that intrigued me. On days where my family would butcher some of our chickens, I would excitedly await the affair and admire the splatters of blood against the chopping block, the grass, the hatchet and the hatchet-wielder’s cheek. It wasn’t gory or gruesome. It was just life, or rather death, and I was fascinated by it.

I was shown the inside of a hen after she’d been put down, and the coils of innards within her, as well as a row of shiny golden yolks in the process of development tucked within her oviduct. That was the most breathtaking part of all. It was one thing to have watched our hens squeeze out their eggs each morning and place my hand under her vent to catch it; to have felt the warmth from inside her body still coating the smooth shell, as well as the thin protective membrane encasing it that dried quickly in the daylight. It was another to see inside one of these creatures. To view the mysteries that had been otherwise hidden from me. The wet births of the eggs, the blood splatters, the rare steaks; these were some of my childhood marvels.

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ii. skeletons

I should say that not all deaths were easy for me when I was young. I’ve always been quite drawn to animals and would grow very fond of some of our hens. We named most of them, as they weren’t intended for butchering much anyway: Penny, Skinny-Neck, Broody, Skeksi, Shade, Chickie, and Greta were just a few of the vivacious ladies in my life from ages two to twelve. Their personalities ranged from churlish to nurturing. Needless to say, it was hard not to fall in love with each. When a hen inevitably fell ill or grew old and talk of the hatchet and the chopping block arose, I grieved, sometimes very intensely.

Roadkill, too, held a particular kind of sadness. While I considered it quite an exhilarating find to come across a flattened fox or ground squirrel beside the roads my parents and I biked on in the summer, there was also some grief. If it was a cat, I was horrified. The thrill of observing the bones and teeth and fur of a creature was dampened by its death. Still, I could get as close as I wanted without it running away – maybe even collect a treasure or two.

Somewhere in those rib-loving days, I began to develop a squeamishness that conflicted with my ravenous curiousity of death. I would no longer attend the chicken butcherings and instead plugged my ears in the house to avoid the horrid thump of steel against stump outside. I began asking for my steaks medium-rare, then medium. Eventually, relenting, well-done. Ribs no longer held much appeal. I gagged at the rich scent of ground beef frying in a cast-iron pan. If I had to touch said ground beef to form meatballs or burger patties . . . well, I wasn’t asked to do it much. Because I wouldn’t.

This unease persisted and stayed with me as I matured into my teens. I still found myself interested with death: skulls, teeth, and other bones decorated much of my rooms through these years, and I cleaned and dissected owl pellets to discover riches within. On the shelves of my curios cabinet, one might find a fully intact mouse skeleton below the shriveled bodies of baby turtles, dead ladybugs stored in a glass vial, a few unidentified canines and molars scattered about. But meat held less and less appeal; and the thought of its related family, namely blood and innards and everything else, made me feel sick.

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iii. the deer

I hoisted myself up into my boyfriend’s tiny home holding a sharp black knife. I inhaled cautiously, afraid of what I might smell. Afraid it would be the carcass hung up that I now turned towards.

It was a deer, but it didn’t look much like a deer anymore. It hung in a doorway from its hind legs, hooves splayed to the heavens; its ribs framed a gaping cavity that led to the neck. A stump of red meat. Below, strips of cardboard with small drying pools of dark blood. It was almost a comical scene, if not for my slightly rising gorge. I gulped as I took it in. I could do this.

My boyfriend had shot this deer with his crossbow only a few days previous. It was his second in the year’s hunting season and I had offered to help butcher the meat while staying with him. His tiny home, constructed but not yet liveable, had offered a clean, dry, sheltered place to hang and drain the meat.

As I approached the carcass, I felt that familiar squeam in my belly but resolved to not let it show. I admit, I didn’t want to seem queasy by something as natural as wild, fresh meat in front of Trustin. He had grown up hunting and butchering, eating wild game as easily as I ate tofu.

I also wanted to prove to myself that I could do this. Having taken BC’s CORE (Conservation Outdoor Recreation Education) hunter program a few months prior, I myself had begun to feel the first stirs of an interest in hunting and securing my own meat in an ethical, respectful matter. (This curiousity surprised me, as I’d had a somewhat negative and misguided view of hunters beforehand. I’ve learned now that many of those assumptions were inaccurate, and hunting has become something I value.) If I wanted to hunt in the future, I told myself firmly, I had to be able to handle what came after the gunshot or release of bowstring.

I was shocked at how heavy the meat was. With Trustin’s guidance, I cut away one of the forelegs, and my eyes widened at its weight once it came off the body. This was truly a lot of meat. Balancing this bulky leg in my arms as I carried it to our butchering table was a blessing – I was distracted from my squeamishness.

Trustin and I worked steadily on cutting up the deer that afternoon. I grew used to the feel of the smooth muscles under my hands, the way they parted cleanly under my knife. It felt like an art form to draw my blade between the muscle groups, trim away the bubbly, slick fascia, peel the tough layers of silverskin off. Even the thick, crumbly flakes of fat had a sweet smell that I soon came to find comforting. When we worked on the bloodshot side of the deer – the side where the arrow had hit – I noticed a fascination return. I had the blood of a deer slicking my hands. I was touching its body, holding its bones. Holding its heart.

How incredible was that?

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iv. the roosters

It’d been a few months since I helped Trustin butcher the deer, and I stood outside in the February chill with a dead rooster in front of me on a plastic table. Trustin’s grandmother, across from me, was cheerily opening up the bird in front of her and removing its pale breast and thigh meat. Suddenly I wasn’t so sure anymore that it was a good idea for me to help.

I got the hang of it, however, after a couple birds. I had to take off my thick gloves and get my hands in there. “In there” being . . . inside the rooster’s body. A curse, it felt at first, but I came to appreciate the surprising warmth inside of the bird as the cold wind brought goosebumps to my exposed forearms. There was very little blood except for when I make a wrong cut.

It felt . . . profane, somehow, to pinch the rooster’s skin between belly and leg and make a hole with my knife, then rip his body open. I’m sorry. There’s really no other way to describe it. I tried to do it as gently as I could, but there was a certain amount of force required to make the opening large enough. I winced against the sound every time.

To say that I enjoyed this butchering day would not be accurate. However, I did learn from it, and the deaths of the roosters were quick. Again, I witnessed the death of others to fulfill the hunger of humanity, and it didn’t feel wrong. It felt sad and necessary.

That evening, we enjoyed slow-cooked chicken boiled with veggies and spices. I ate in amazement of myself. Here I was, the girl who had been afraid of making meatballs, now eating chicken when I could still feel the warmth inside the birds’ bodies on my hands. I went outside after dinner to look at the stars and thank those roosters.

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v. a good life & a good death

Here is what I have learned and pondered as a meat eater and perhaps soon-to-be hunter.

There is a respect that is due to the animals that provide our meat. I mean this respect in two ways. Firstly, most of us hold the idea that meat comes from the store. It sits in its plastic or styrofoam packaging under fluorescent lights, then comes home to us to reside in finality on our ceramic plates. The label of “beef” is held with the distant image of a cow, though the two don’t seem very connected; similarly with “mutton”, “pork”, etcetera. But that stint in the supermarket is in actuality the shortest period of “the meat’s” journey; before, it belonged to an animal.

I won’t get into feedlots, hormones, meat chickens (birds bred solely for how much meat they can produce, with breasts so swollen they can hardly stand), and the like. I just urge every meat eater to know where their meat comes from and how the animals are raised and treated. It’s important to ask oneself as a consumer: if I was a chicken [or cow, or guinea fowl, or lamb], would I want to be raised by the business that produces the meat I purchase? Or, if a hunter: if I was the elk I felled this fall, would I appreciate the way I [as a human] hunted?

Not long ago, I didn’t like to think about where my meat came from. What I mean by that is how the animal was killed and processed; I didn’t worry much about its life before that, as my family has for years bought meat from local farms that provide space, sunshine, and care to their animals. But my stomach would turn thinking of the necessary death and butchering that happened before a steak sat in front of me.

Now I’m making my peace with it. To eat meat, there must be death of another being. It’s a hard truth for one who loves animals and nature such as I. But I acquiesce with this truth knowing that the animal had both a good life and a good death before I eat it. So, to summarize: respecting and understanding where meat truly comes from, and what it takes to attain it.

Secondly, I realized as I cut up the deer that it felt important to show the animal itself respect in this form. You have been killed, which you did not ask for, and this is now what your body looks like. Blood and bones and meat. I am willing to see all of your insides, touch your flesh, because I realize this is the consequence of killing you. You deserve to be seen and handled with gratitude and respect in this butchered state. I will not turn away in repulsion, but rather face you in truth. We will consume you in appreciation.

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vi. paradoxes

It’s difficult to hold conflicting thoughts together without maintaining one above the other or resisting the human urge to find The Answer, especially The One True and Final Answer. Such is the struggle with paradoxes (or life, which usually doesn’t have any hard and fast answers either). I’ve found it’s best and in the path of least resistance to learn how two opposing things can be true at the same time; try to embrace that frustrating mystery.

It’s fitting to end this piece with no answer at all but rather some sustenance for thought.

necessary gratitude & necessary hunger

I will admit, it’s been a struggle for me to get used to the mindset of hunting. To kill an animal, I need to view it in a certain way: I need to want what it can offer me.

I’ve been so used to seeing nature through the perspective of appreciating it for its existence and beauty that listening to those who hunt can feel jarring. At first, it seemed disrespectful to think of an animal’s meat or rack when crossing paths with one. My first impulse is to pause and take in its wildness and beauty.

But while I know there is a certain respect and gratitude expected for hunters to treat their game with, I realize also needed is that necessary hunger. Essentially, it’s the hunger to survive.

Once one tastes wild meat, it seems to be either a love-or-hate relationship with it, and my experience has been the former. Eating melty, incredibly tender, garlicky backstrap steaks fresh from Trustin’s deer introduced me intensely to the necessary hunger. The damn – I’d like to eat more of this. That isn’t even mentioning the smoked jerky.

I’ve been trying to hold these conflicting thoughts together without judgement: it’s essential to see the natural world as a place full of vital resources if we are to use and appreciate them, and it’s also important to know that there is more to nature than what humans can gain from it. Animals don’t exist solely for our enjoyment of hunting and consuming them. They, too, have their own lives and important roles within their ecosystems. Understanding this naturally fosters a sense of gratitude and consciousness.

Recognizing both perspectives and valuing points from each is evolving my view of the world (and sometimes hurting my brain).

kicking bones & honouring bones

On a recent hike with my boyfriend, we came across the slightly mossy skull of a stag long dead. His impressive five-point antlers had been gnawed on by some forest scavenger not long before we arrived, but they were striking nonetheless.

After we admired the skull for a few moments, Trustin dropped it back onto the earth and nudged it around with his boot, lamenting that the buck he’d shot earlier in the fall hadn’t been as strikingly adorned. Some offense arose in me. I had the urge to tell him that his manner toward the bones was disrespectful. We had stumbled across part of a skeleton of a mature and splendid animal, and I felt that kicking said bones around while talking about the stag was unjust.

But I stopped myself. Because: what do I know about what nature finds respectful or not so? Would any ceremonial pomp even matter here, or be appreciated? (Would nature mind if I kicked bones? Kind of a funny expression.) Observing the mannerisms of wild creatures gives a very clear appearance that our environment (and our selves) can be messy, cruel, ruthless. The dance of predator and prey seems quite harsh to the observer. Bones, found in all forests, are crushed, snapped, buried, stolen by hikers’ dogs. Heck, even the antlers of this stag had been steadily bitten away by something. Reverence in nature is not always apparent. Besides, I knew that Trustin is quite respectful of nature in ways that perhaps mattered more.

The answer (and ha, remember I said there are no answers to paradoxes? Well, there aren’t, so perhaps what I mean is the conclusion) that I’ve settled on for now is that, surprise surprise, there’s a balance to this. While I acknowledge and respect the fierce wilderness of the natural world and know that there’s a time and place to mirror that essential darkness in oneself, I also feel that nature does deserve our awe and humility in the same moment.

Consider: kicking the bones is okay, and honouring the bones is okay, too.

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afterword

I know you’re dying to ask. Well, have you come full circle? Do you love ribs again?

It’s been a long time since I’ve eaten ribs, so I couldn’t actually honestly tell you if I’ve fallen in love again with my childhood favourite. But I think what’s more important is that I’m regaining my acceptance of death and connecting once again with my intense curiousity of what lays beneath our skin, or a mouse’s, or snake’s – the things that were both creepy and terribly interesting to me as a young girl. It feels disturbing at first, but it’s really just nature.

I also deeply appreciate how I’ve begun to learn the ancient but valuable skills of processing meat and hunting for my own food; it connects me to something instinctual and primal. I owe many thanks to my partner for introducing much of this knowledge to me and being a kind, patient, and instructive teacher.

As I continue this journey, I want to keep that young Hazel close. I know she’ll help me peer closer to admire the grisly beauty of decay, death, and decomposition. Maybe I’ll eat some ribs in her honour, or maybe those backstraps already did the trick.