I’m feeling so rusty in my writing. Nothing’s flowing as easily. I’ll write something and then delete it. I’ll undo that and redo that and write it again. I’m feeling less sharp after a week away.

I’m spending a lot of time with a new man. I’m trying to think of a name for him for the purposes of writing. Biker Guy? Portuguese Dude? I like his actual name a lot, but I think I’ll call him Michael.

It's hunting season

It’s hunting season in Montana. It started on Labor Day for upland birds. I don’t have a license to hunt here (I don’t even have residency), but I recently had the chance to accompany Michael for some grouse.

Grouse are ground-dwelling birds. There are several species in Montana, and grouse are famously hunted in the Midwest or admired in the New England ruffed-grouse literature of the early 20th century. The grouse we found was Dusky Grouse, the largest of Montana's three species of mountain grouse.

Both sexes of Dusky Grouse have long, square tails which are unbarred. Females tend to be browner than males. Both sexes have uniform blue-gray breasts and bellies, and feathered legs. Adult males range from 2.5 to 3 pounds in weight; adult females average about 2 pounds in weight.

The grouse move in groups when they’re young. Your bag limit for the day is three. They’re not really scared of you here. I’ve learned that they’re not hunted too often, so they haven’t developed the same fight as the Midwest and New England grouse. There, you can stalk a grouse all day and get nothing but do offer more to wingshooters if you’re into that kind of thing. Western Grouse don’t give you much of a hard, sporting flush.

My relationship with animals is centered on their healing properties. Animals are sweet medicine. Mother Nature is the greatest medicine. I think just a few years ago I might have been squeemish about hunting. Making it a moral issue. But I come to it today with a lot of reverence. Hunting for the first time with someone else that shares that reverence. That moves with the kind of reverence that honors the process and the animal. You feel him attached to the land and the animal, the sport and the firearm with a depth and connection you don’t often see in people and that you only hope everyone else can have just a little more of.

The cosmic laws of life

We started late in the day. We were still looking for a camping spot for the night, and then planned to walk around to find the grouse. They camouflage really well. Only really moving in the brush if you get close. So you’re typically on your feet to find them.

There was one other hunter we saw. He was on an ATV. We followed each other to a trailhead for a little bit. He had two big white/yellow labs. The older one, Maggie, jumped right up and put her nose on my cheek. He was drunk. Thankfully, he wasn’t actually hunting much.

We we’re driving around for a couple of hours. We had been in this spot before and had seen a bunch of grouse right off the roads (we learned later that the whole area was truly silly with grouse). I was looking for them out the window. Where are you, Grouse? I don’t have a trained eye for the animal. I barely knew what it looked like. A small forest chicken was the only thing in my mind. Would I even be able to see you if you were right in front of me?

Michael’s more than a good shot. He’s been shooting since he was a kid, and he was in the service. I’m learning that hunting’s like fishing. There’s sort of calm for a long time and then explosive (literally) action.

The Cycle of The Six Cosmic Laws is profoundly present in one event. Death gives life, life gives rebirth, rebirth brings movement, movement gives change, change brings chaos, and chaos brings death. You’re connected to this all the time, but there are moments that let us see it all at once, beautifully orchestrated to show you behind the veil.

I’m having a hard time getting to the crux of the story because it actually came after we found, shot, and dressed the grouse.

The medicine of the grouse

Imagine what it’s like to come up on a flock of six forest chickens, watch a gorgeous man jump into action, and see these birds at your feet. I wasn’t sad about it when it happened. I was mostly proud of and impressed by him. Empathetic but not dismayed. When Michael concluded, I watched him put his hand on each of the birds. I didn’t know what he said, but I knew what he was doing. I looked out at all the birds and said thank you for your gifts, for your innocence. Not in a justice kind of way, just in a trust, openness, and being unguarded in the presence of life. That was the first medicine of the grouse.

As we were dressing the birds, we started to notice the rest of the flock hadn’t moved away. They were still there, in the same spot we had just found them. The remaining birds were tinier than the ones we had.

Michael looks at me, “I think I killed their mom”. I thought, no, no, let’s not get on that story. But I didn’t say that, becuase something else said he was right.

The birds, still in their innocence, still unmoved from the scene, were cooing and calling. They were loud. Making noise that could have gotten them hunted again, by that drunk hunter or even another animal. It didn’t make sense. Why are they cooing?

Grouse aren’t known to mourn like Geese, but I’m not sure how you stand in front of a flock, hear their peeps, and can’t see yourself as witnessing a ceremony of mourning. The grouse, even if they were only 10-12 weeks (which they will look full-grown at), are okay on their own. Grouse are largely independent as adults.

Michael and I stood there listening to the grouse for a while. Their coos and calls. The call and response they were making to find each other. We took it as a mourning ceremony even if it wasn’t. He did as beautifully as you could. He kissed my forehead and we just listened for as long as we needed. For as long as the land needed us to hear them.

It doesn’t matter whether the grouse were mourning in the way we imagine mourning, or simply calling out of instinct. What mattered was the impact it had on us: the way their voices pulled us into reverence, into stillness, into witness. That was the second medicine of the grouse.

The grouse gave us a ceremony we didn’t plan, a reminder that grief is not always loud or visible, but carried in the quiet persistence of life continuing. We don’t need to know exactly what they were saying to feel the holiness of it. The lesson is to pause, to feel, to honor life when it moves us, and to let the land show us how to hold empathy without words.

The grouse is a bird whose medicine carries rhythm. Because that’s the other medicine of the grouse—the way they carry rhythm in their wings during mating season, the spiral in their movement on the land, the reminder that life is ceremony if we let it be.

When we had finally left the area, we drove in the opposite direction to continue our search for a camping spot. As we did, I saw a hawk, large, flying right next to us. I could see something in its feet, something large and feathered.

“Michael, look!” I said.

We stopped the car, he grabbed his binoculars, and we could see the hawk perched on the top of a tall, burned snag. The only one in our view. Out in the open, we could see it had gotten the remainder of the grouse, the parts we left to return to the land.

We waited until the hawk flew away, the last of the bird becoming sky. It was as if the land was showing us the full circle—what we take, what we leave, what is carried back into the great rhythm. The grouse had sung, the hawk had come, and all of it was life continuing the only way it knows how. We didn’t need to understand more than that. Only to witness, only to honor, only to remember that no moment is irrelevant when life is met with reverence.

Love,
Valerie

I’m writing every day right now. If you missed one or want to see what’s been written before, click below.