Image of the Week: Full Circle
© D. Yael Bernhard
Here's an illustration I did in 2007 for an article titled "Full Circle" in Outdoor America Magazine, published by the Izaac Walton League of America. The article was part of the magazine's "Thinking Like a Mountain" series, which delves into subjects of conservation, citizen science, and our relationship to nature.
The author, Tovar Cerulli, wrote thoughtfully about his journey from the typical American diet of his childhood, to being a vegan as a young man, finally coming full circle back to being an omnivore – but this time, he took the meat himself directly from the land, first by shooting rabbits with his uncle, and finally becoming a skilled and accomplished deer hunter in the backwoods of Vermont.
In the article, Tovar recalled his uncle's leather belt, which struck me as a symbol of his carefully-crafted ethics as a conscious meat eater. With its arrowhead buckle like a primitive moral compass, the belt was both an apt metaphor for Tovar's personal evolution, and a fitting frame for the illustration. For Tovar, it was not the what but the how and why that mattered. He considered deeply the killing of prey, inviting readers to rethink our place in the web of life. The article was a tailored excerpt of his book The Mindful Carnivore, which explores these themes in depth. I recommend the book, though at this writing I cannot find my copy.
I was an active deer hunter myself at the time, so I related well to the text. Indeed, Tovar's writing gave voice to some of my own pondering – something hunters have a lot of time to do, sitting motionless in a tree stand or crouching silently against a trunk for hours. I enjoyed corresponding with Tovar, and we exchanged news of the hunt for several seasons. What we really shared was an intimate knowledge of what it's like to scout, shoot, track, drag, skin, butcher, cook, and eat your own venison from the forest where you live. Time-consuming and labor-intensive as it is, there's a deep satisfaction in hunting that cannot be described. (To view some of my art inspired by hunting, see here.)
The two characters in the little storytelling image inside the belt are like a modern Cain and Abel (though Abel was a shepherd who slaughtered rather than hunted meat). The tools in their hands and hats on their heads distinguish them from each other. Farmer and hunter stand back to back, both wresting food from the earth by means of sweat and toil. Who leaves a greater mark on the earth, the tiller of soil or the taker of wild game? On a nationwide scale, it's assumed that animals raised for meat in CAFOS use up far more resources and leave a longer trail of harm in their wake. But what of the vast lands usurped by industrial agriculture, with its massive machinery, toxic chemicals, and destructive effects on the soil and the entire ecosystem? The question is increasingly complex, with no simple answers. We must each, individually, find our own solution as members of households, neighborhoods, communities, and society as a whole. That's why, instead of closing the circle of the belt, I crossed the ends and allowed them to trail off into a figure-8, lending an open-ended quality to the path it symbolizes.
This was a great assignment, one that enabled me to bring my personal values into my work, and to enhance a story that seemed most relevant in today's world. Bringing our diet, health, and lifestyle into harmony with the earth we live on isn't easy. Whatever tools we hold in our hands, it's worth the effort.
A good week to all!
D Yael Bernhard
http://dyaelbernhard.com
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