Please enjoy a view of the places that inspire, enlighten and bring balance to me...
All words and images are a copyright of Craig Raleigh
Hunting takes time, practice, dedication, effort and desire, and it’s in these traits that we find our true selves: hunting is a pause on the path of life—an opportunity to see, smell, and appreciate all that we get from spending a lifetime as outdoorsmen. We are not as concerned with what we can take from the world as we are with the prospect of what it delivers to us in the first place. As such, we are constantly thinking about how to give back. That kind of work is never done.
Let’s face it, no longer do most people have to physically hunt in order to gain life-giving proteins, but it is by doing so that we embody characteristics like honesty, respect, persistence, and humility.
Yet even the impatient peoples of the world can peacefully submit to the outdoors when they’re alone in the woods. Solitude and mindfulness are states best thought of as paths that only the monk or holy man walks, but when the hunter dives into the outdoor world he changes from carpenter to vicar, from mason to friar, and becomes as invisible as the bark on every tree.
I have spent most of the last forty-five years of my life outdoors trying to find that elusive Holy Grail, that unimagined reality of hunting where pleasure combines with practice to exceed our wildest expectations.