Bottom of the tide

If you like fish, or enjoy eating fish, perhaps these questions might inspire you to seek out the answers. Do you know where the fish came from? Do you know where the juveniles were born and raised and where they go when they become adults? Do you know how long they live? How fast they grow? Do you know how to tell a male from a female? Do you know what they eat? When they eat it? Do you know their migratory paths over the seasons? Do you know how to catch one? Do you know how they are killed? Do you know how to clean them and prepare them to eat? Do you know how to store and preserve them? Do you know how to honour the gods for their sacrifice? Do you know what threatens their future and their environment? How do you feel eating them if you played no part in their death? This essay attempts to answer some of those questions and provides an ethic, an environmentally sensitive approach to the contentious issue of hunting and killing for food. It suggests that fishing can be a powerful way of connecting to the cycles of nature, and to life itself.

Whether standing on the beach, immersed in water, or out on the open expanse of the seas, the idea of connecting to water grounds the Pagan fisher. Acknowledging the cycle of life and death, being aware of the tides, the moon and the cycles of both, the Pagan fisher becomes actively involved in death, taking responsibility for death as a way of connecting to life. A Pagan perspective of fishing naturally incorporates the tools and practices of magic, for example, through the use of visualization and the manifestation of will. The combination, over a lifetime, of early formative experiences of water and fishing within a Pagan mythological framework and view of the world, has led me to the evolution of an ethic, a set of principles for actions, as reflected in my behaviour.