“If you understand real practice, then archery or other activities can be zen. If you don’t understand how to practice archery in its true sense, then even though you practice very hard, what you acquire is just technique. It won’t help you through and through. Perhaps you can hit the mark without trying, but without a bow and arrow you cannot do anything. If you understand the point of practice, then even without a bow and arrow the archery will help you. How you get that kind of power or ability is only through right practice.”
~ Shunryu Suzuki

The Zen of Archery

Long before Katniss Everdeen ever picked up a bow and arrow in the Hunger Games, Japanese women have been practicing of art of Kyudo for centuries. Kyudo, meaning The Way of the Bow, has a long history where samurai practiced archery to prepare themselves for battle. After guns were introduced in Japan, the age of warfare with bows and arrows transitioned into a training of the body and mind. Eventually archery became more cultivated and was used as a form of spiritual training. Since archers can adjust the tension of the bow according to their own strength, archery became a favorite among women. Adhering to the traditions of Kyudo, women were able to pursue their own personal and spiritual development, as well as compete in contests of skill. The principles of Kyudo are often described as “Truth, Goodness & Beauty” where truth relates to shooting with a pure mind, goodness to a person’s character, and beauty to a gracefulness and refined etiquette of archery.

“I'm not ashamed of heroic ambitions. If man and woman can only dance upon this earth for a few countable turns of the sun... let each of us be an Artemis, Odysseus, or Zeus... Aphrodite to the extent of the will of each one.” ~ Roman Payne, Rooftop Soliloquy

The Bow and Arrow Goddess

Goddess of archery, the hunt, wild animals, forests, chastity and childbirth, Artemis secured her role as protector of young women in what has to be one of the most bizarre plot twists in literature when she acts as midwife to deliver her twin brother after she herself had been born only nine days earlier. Illegitimate daughter of Zeus and Leto, little was written about Artemis’ early life. However, in a poem by Callimachus, Artemis is described running through the forests of the mountains as a young girl with the dogs Pan bequeathed her so she could learn how to hunt with her bow and arrow.

When it came time to ask her Father Zeus to grant her ten wishes, Artemis requested to have her bow made by Cyclopes. Having provided Zeus with a magnificent thunderbolt, Artemis must have believed that apart from Cyclopes being a wild lawless creature with no fear of the Gods, he also must have been a fine craftsman. To procure her bow, Artemis had to travel to the isle of Lipara where Hephaestus and the Cyclopes worked and persuade him to appropriate the moon in order to make her a silver bow and arrow. It’s the kind of conversation that would have been worth noting, so it’s shame no one ever did. But kudos to Artemis for having the chops to face down one of mythologies most fearsome creatures.

Another request Artemis made to Zeus was to ensure she remain a virgin. A wish I’m sure any Father would be glad to grant, but rather than simplifying her life, it only complicated things because what man, mortal or mythological, doesn’t like a real challenge? Coveting her virginity were a number of suitors, and as each one tried by means that were never elaborated, Artemis successfully fought them off with her mighty bow and arrow. Eventually though, she fell in love, and depending on the source, the object of her affection was either her hunting companion, Orion, or Adonis who won her heart. In either case, things ended badly when, depending on the source, they were killed by Artemis herself.

Her virginity intact she apparently moved on traveling with the "daughters of Okeanos" as her choir along with twenty Amnisides Nymphs as her handmaidens. Regrettably there was nothing written about how she lives her life after that so we’ll just have to fill in the blanks for ourselves. Personally, I think Artemis would have done much better to ditch the virginity thing and use her talents as a master hunter to much more diverting pursuits. Although I will say this for Artemis, her choice in men was certainly interesting even if it did end badly. Maybe I should’ve taken up archery and practiced on my aim?

"I think, I first fell in love when I was in fifth grade with this boy who kept his glass ruler in the sunlight and made rainbows on my desk with it.” ~ Saiber, Stardust and Sheets

I Don’t Wear Bows, I Shoot Them

Perched high on a branch in a large oak tree, Annabelle could see the entire field where the Mariposa Straight Shooters were practicing for their upcoming competition. Through a camouflage of leaves, she had secretly been watching them for the last week and had come to the conclusion that with the exception of the new kid, they were a pretty lousy archery team. Leaning back against the tree, her stomach rumbling from hunger, she remembered the Laffy Taffys she had stuck in her back pocket earlier. They were a little squashed from sitting on them but she popped the cherry flavored one in her mouth anyway and then placed the wrapper on her knee trying to recall how to make an origami turtle.

The wind started to kick up again, blowing the wrapper away and knocking some loose acorns to the ground. The sound reminded Annabelle of the big fat raindrops that would fall on her tent when she would go camping. For her twelfth birthday last year her Dad bought her a backpacking tent. She had asked for a teepee but was told she’d get much more use out of a conventional tent. That summer her parents took Annabelle and her Sister backpacking in Yosemite where Marilee spent the entire time yammering on about the dangers of bears. When Annabelle pointed out to her Sister that they also had bears in Sierra Mérida, Marilee just rolled her eyes at her and said in a tone that suggested how bored she was with the conversation that when they were home they were not sleeping out in the wilderness. Of course, chances were they were more likely to run into coyotes back home than a bear. In fact, a few weeks ago Annabelle did run into a coyote when she saw one crawling under the fence near their chicken coop. Adjusting her eyes to the dark, she caught a glimpse of one of her chickens in the coyote’s mouth as he moved through the trees below her bedroom window. In one fluid motion she reached under her bed, grabbed her bow and climbed out on the branch just outside her window. Crouched low and balancing on both feet, Annabelle put the arrow in place while tracking the coyote’s movement. Aim for the hindquarters, she thought. He’ll be able to get the arrow out that way and she wouldn’t do mortal damage. With one arm fully extended and the other bent back as far as the bow would go, Annabelle released her fingers and —thwack!—hit her mark with dead on precision. The adrenaline still pumping hard through Annabelle’s chest, she tossed her bow back through the open window and scrambled down the tree in a blur of movements that seemed to melt together as the coyote sprinted back into the woods leaving his prey behind.

"Hey, you up there," a voice called from below.

Looking up at her, his face red from the heat, was Coach Ruggles. Retired now from the Forestry Department, Stanley Ruggles was a big man in his mid-sixties who in addition to teaching archery, enjoyed riding horses and having a few beers down at the Lumberjack. Tall and weathered looking from years spent outdoors, he carried himself like a man who was in no rush to get where he was going.

A startled Annabelle clutched tightly onto a branch overhead as she fought to regain her balance.

"Whoa, there now! You don't want to come down that way."

The small deerskin moccasin that used to be on Annabelle’s foot was now lying on the ground in front of Coach Ruggles. He glanced at it, slightly amused, took the unlit cigar out of his mouth and yelled over at the team to start lining up further away from the targets.

Squeals of laughter burst out over the field as teams of boys and girls chased each other across the practice range. A small group of curious eleven year olds had gathered close by wondering who Coach Ruggles was talking to up in a tree. He waved them away and pointed to the markers with the end of his cigar.

"So, you wanna join the team?" The question was blunt but his offer seemed genuine. Swinging her legs over the large branch she was sitting on, Annabelle twisted her body in small pirouettes as she leaped from branch to branch with the quickness of a squirrel.

"Nice moves kid."

Scattering a few acorns on her landing, she dusted herself off and tentatively stepped over to where she had dropped her moccasin.

"You didn't answer my question."

"I'm not really that interested in archery. But thanks anyway." She slipped her foot inside the moccasin and flicked back her long dark pigtails. Two protruding ears poked out from underneath and her large round face appeared slightly at odds with her small body.

He tipped the straw hat he was wearing away from his brow, the corners of his mouth twitching into something of a smile. "Really? I kinda thought you were. Interested that is. Seeing as how ya' been sitting up in that tree for the last week watching us."

Annabelle stuck her fists inside the pockets of her overalls and shrugged.

"I just like climbing trees."

"You don't say?"

They contemplated one another for a moment when an arrow darted by and landed in the center of a large deodar a few feet away.

"McDuffie!" Coach Ruggles yelled, his face getting even redder. "Are you trying to kill somebody? You do that one more time and I'm gonna bench you permanently!"

On the other side of the field, holding an empty bow in his hand was the new kid, Harley McDuffie. A foot taller than Annabelle with arms and legs that seemed much longer than the thirteen year old body they were attached to, Harley had moved to Sierra Mérida earlier that year from somewhere in Texas. A smart kid with a slight drawl that became much more pronounced around teachers and authority figures. Like when he asked Miss Lovejoy, a misnomer of a name if there ever was one, why he had to learn martial music. Clearly irritated by the question, she came out from behind her desk and went into one of her long winded lectures about patriotism and the war in Viet Nam. Her angular body along with that high reedy voice of hers reminded Annabelle of one of those loud birds that are always squawking on the rooftop of the bus station downtown. A few days later when Miss Lovejoy came across the miniature flip book Harley had made of her playing the harpsichord with the lyrics of a Bob Dylan song floating in a bubble over her head, she held it up in front of the class with her two forefingers as if she had just picked it out of the garbage and asked Harley if this was his contribution towards his education. The answer he gave her got him sent to the principal’s office but it also won Annabelle’s admiration. After class, Annabelle snuck into her teacher’s desk and stole the little flip book, took it home with her and then hid it inside a keepsake box she kept under the bed next to her bow.

Walking towards Annabelle now with a look in his eye that seemed to suggest he was quite pleased with himself, Harley waved at her and then plucked the arrow out of the tree.

"Too bad there wasn't a bulls eye on that tree, eh, Coach Ruggles? I got some pretty good distance.”

"The idea is to hit the target," Coach Ruggles said fighting off the impulse to clap him on the head with one of his quills. "Shooting it in the wrong direction isn't going to win us any points."

Harley gave Annabelle a little smile and dropped the arrow into his holster. His blond hair shone in the sunlight, framing his face as if he were wearing a special kind of crown. Suddenly self conscious in a way that irritated her, Annabelle took her hands out of her pockets and began nervously fumbling with the end of her pigtail.

Coach Ruggles adjusted the cigar to the other side of his mouth, took another look at Annabelle and finally said, "Well kid, if you change your mind, you know where to find us." His large frame disappearing out of view as the sound of acorns crackled beneath his feet.

Holding up her hand as a gesture of good bye, Annabelle turned around and started walking away, past the practice range, beyond the old Patterson barn, and when she knew she was completely out of sight, she broke into a run.