Taking a life requires waiting for the animal to give itself.

Evidence

In a Seventh Generation ball cap and a thin gray ponytail, Oren gets his turn at a story and leads us along with him, through thickets and down ravines to get to his favorite hunting spot. Smiling in recollection, he says, “I must have seen ten deer that day, but I only took one shot.” He tips his chair back and looks at the hill, remembering. The young men listen, looking intently at the porch floor. “The first one came crunching through the dry leaves, but was shielded by the brush as it wove down the hill. It never saw me sitting there. Then a young buck came moving upwind toward me and then stepped behind a boulder. I could have tracked it and followed it across the crick, but I knew it wasn’t the one.” Deer by deer, he recounts the day’s encounters for which he never even raised his rifle: the doe by the water, the threepointer concealed behind a basswood with only its rump showing. “I only take one bullet with me,” he says. … And then, without explanation, there’s one who walks right into the clearing and looks you in the eye. He knows full well that you’re there and what you’re doing. He turns his flank right toward you for a clear shot. I know he’s the one, and so does he. There’s a kind of nod exchanged. That’s why I only carry one shot. I wait for the one. He gave himself to me. That’s what I was taught: take only what is given, and then treat it with respect.” Oren reminds his listeners, “That’s why we thank the deer as the leader of the animals, for its generosity in feeding the people. Acknowledging the lives that support ours and living in a way that demonstrates our gratitude is a force that keeps the world in motion.” — Robin Wall Kimmerer, Braiding Sweetgrass, 673

Categorization

• DEFINE: Concretely defines ‘take only what is given’ — the core Honorable Harvest ethic — as the hunter waiting for the animal’s self-offering rather than taking any opportunity.
• XREF: Directly extends claims from chapters 44 and 42 about the deepest harvest ethic (take only what is given) and Nanabozho stories about never taking more than needed. — connects to: Life’s structure of waiting follows from the temporal nature of the for-itself — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness: An Essay on…, 1254; Waiting for an event requires determinate causal processes, which death lacks.

Broader Connections

• Life’s structure of waiting follows from the temporal nature of the for-itself #expands (0.85) — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness, 1254
• Waiting for an event requires determinate causal processes, which death lacks. #complicates (0.78)