The wonder of spring

 It´s been a while, on a day when the sun was shining so vibrantly, that I felt that urge again. I had to get outside, and so I packed my foraging gear and a cuppa and saddled my not-so-trusty steed (for it is crumbling at the moment and I lack the money to fix it) to get out into the woods. I am very glad that I have managed to ride more frequently this year. I even commute to work again, which amasses to a bargain of about 100€ per month! Plus, it makes me fitter. I also have started the year by drinking up to 1.5 l of birch sap per day, which made me do at least a 20km ride each day on top, for the sap does not collect itself;-). Also it makes me wonder what crap we normally drink. When drinking unprocessed birch sap I have the impression that it takes an immediate positive effect on my metabolism, and, comparing it to soft drinks and alcohol I wonder how much crap we normally drink... but I am realistic enough to know that I will continue to drink my beer and my coke from time to time. It´s just that the effect is that cool, and that there is actually something about that myth of the "tree of rejuvenation", aka the birch that´s not entirely... erm ... mythological ;-), or better, that indeed is mytho-logical.

Anyway;-), I rode out to the hills, and really basked in the warm sun. Spinning my cranks in slow circles, just breathing and climbing above the valley, away from the exhaust fumes and the ruckus and the noise, it felt as if a weight had dropped from my shoulders, just like it has felt again and again.

We tend to forget that in our world. We are all bombarded with the latest bad news, with greed and hate and lust and violence, with need and want and whatnot, that we forget that somewhere birds still twitter and don´t preach hate with it, so to say, but just sing, because they feel like singing or because it´s what birds do in spring. And trees just grow, with no meaning needed apart from that. It´s all still there, and we are the ones that have alienated themselves from tree and bird and fox and hare.
  

 Sometimes I tend to think that the bicycle is the last sensible machine that man has invented. You push the cranks, it lurches forward, it´s simple and has little ecological footprint when compared to a car (ANY car, even a modern electric engine), a plane or rocketship. Even a mountainbike for all its hardcore image is a humble means of transportation. It does you good and takes you places, full stop. Of course, if you do skids down an alpine slope, chance is, you will have some more or less grave ecological impact, but so will a caribou sliding down that same slope. Compared to a V-8 engine this impact is outright ridiculously small, even if you consider the production. But it´s not about ecological calculations. It´s just the good feeling I had. Take out the old warhorse, and ride to the hills where things still make some sense or do not even need to make sense.

 Now I think long and hard about the current political situation in the world, and I do this far too often for my own good. But let us be honest. We all know we are preparing for our death. Mankind will be extinguished, maybe even as early as next year. The American and North Korean dictators as well as the one in Russia, the one in Turkey and the lunatics in the Middle East are all playing with the fuse and will light the fire soon (and mind you, I do not exclude our own local and political German dictators), because their tiny egos demand for a nuclear war to feel as if they had a huge genital. It´s that simple. It´s not about any God or Allah or what is right or wrong. It´s about who has the power, and who has the least of a conscience to blow us all into oblivion. And we have reached a point where a simple mechanism of nature is taking effect. Mankind is reaching the verge of overpopulation and has routed a good part of the ecosystem, and so the population is to be reduced by the simple failsafe of a nuclear world war. Most of us will die soon, and I daresay I won´t survive, too. There is nothing I could do to prevent this. There is no election I could attend, no measure of protest that will stop this failsafe. And it is right that we will be extinguished (for the most part). Why then should I make plans for the future? Why should I bother to buy a load of shite that will be useless? If I will survive, fine, but why should I care? The world will be a shitty place for the rest of my life any which way. I will always have a hard time living. There will be no children, no family for me. And no happiness.

Except for something very, very simple. There will always be a view from a hilltop. Maybe you will look down into a valley of ruins and shacks and desolation, and maybe not, but you will always be able to stand upon a hilltop (provided you survive). There maybe even will be birds singing, and maybe some trees still standing. Hope dies last, one says, but as long as one human being still lives, he or she will hope. And what I know for sure is that I always had a hard time living. It´s not that this will change for the better, but if it will change for the worse, I am well accustomed to that. What I want to say is that there will always be things that count. And these things will always count.

A bicycle is but one means to experience these things, but one it is. 

 And I am fighting to get this resolve, over and over again, as you well know from reading my blog. Often I think it´s just superficial and superfluous to just have some careless, plain old fun. Mountainbike riding as I often practice it is a surrogate activity not meaning a thing, but then, why should it mean a thing? I watched a buzzard some days ago. Okay, so he was circling for prey, but why did he go into seemingly unmotivated dives and rolls? Doves to that, as well as ravens, bluetits and sparrows and swallows. They play in the air. Their need for sustenance is far more dire than ours can ever be, and yet they play. Wild cats, foxes, deer - they all play.  

 Yeah, the situation we are faced with, is no reason to be glad and cheerful. But there´s nothing we can do now to prevent the rout of mankind.

So I figured I´d rather have some fond memories of sunlight and trailriding and playing on my bike and drinking spring in a mug of birch sap when sitting in the dark of a bunker or waiting for the cancer to kill me slowly. At least then I will have the notion, however ridiculous it may be, however worthless is may seem at first glance, that even when I am dying in torment, there once was a time when I lived, and really felt alive.

 And, yeah, spring is on the way, and there will be spring, or seasons, at least after a period of time. When the nuclear winter will be over, nature will reclaim what was lost. As it is the case even after the most hopeless winter of all, after every winter there will be a new spring.

 Maybe the lake, a jewel now that mirrors the sky under a vibrant sun, will be a dried-out ditch, rock-strewn and full of debris. But that ditch will remember the time when it was a lake.

 And even after the desolation, something will sprout. And after the rout of mankind, nature will prosper again, prosper and will be left to itself to grow as it was intended to be.

But what is most important: It is NOW that everything basks in a vibrant sun. It is NOW that the birds are singing. It is NOW that the sap rises and the trees sprout and blossom. It is not tomorrow that you can take out your bike to go on a beautiful ride in the sunshine. It is not tomorrow that you will have fun, but NOW. We are still alive. We might not be able to do anything against what will happen soon. So why the fuck should we listen to all the bad news and the next moron telling us not to do this or that? Of course that does not tell you should go out and kill your little sister and eat her shanks seasoned with thyme just because someone told you not to.

But their entire system of morale and value has brought us into this fix. It is not competent to bind us, for its moral integrity is non-existent and therefore non-contiguous. Meaning, those that forged their swords to ploughshares now plough for those that did not. Yap, violence still is not an option. I despise it for the stress that it will give me afterwards. It always comes full - circle, that´s what I am still saying. Some things will always make sense. If you whack someone, chance is, he will strike you back. If you kill someone´s brother, chance is, he will kill you for it, law or justice or not. They tell us (and keep telling us) that man is more than an animal while they act like predators upon us. Yap, man is more than an animal, for no degree of violence such as the one man employs against even his loved ones is known in nature. Foxes kill out of lust, that´s true, but never so much that one endangers an entire local ecosystem. Owls keep mice alive as a food storage and even mast them, but with little impact on the local ecosystem, too. Animals never go that far as man does. We are an abomination, born naked, with no scales to protect us, no bristles to fend off animals, not even fur or pelt, with no fangs nor beak nor claws, and traumatized by it, so much in fact that we are not content in making our own fangs and beaks and claws, but throwing them around the world and making them explode, so that one claw can kill hundreds and hundreds of thousands and millions and our entire species. It is out of fear that we do this.

And now they tell us to fear. They thrive on besting the latest bad news. And they tell us to be prepared when there can be no means of preparation adequate. And they tell us lies that the guy next door, the people in the country some 3000km away are responsible for all that shite. They keep us in fear in order to make us hate and in order to support their own fear and hate.

But it is NOW that the sun is shining. It is NOW that the swallows and bluetits play in the air. It is NOW that the sap is rising and the trees are in blossom. I am content with making my own claws, so that I am up to par with the other animals. I am content with my bike, and I love to play. And, that´s the culprit, why should I not?

 I am extremely grateful for the birch providing its sap, for the warm sun.

 For the vista down that tricky trail, down to a lake that´s still a lake and not a dried-out crater.

 For the wonderful, beautiful stems of the birchwood grove.

 For my beaten and battered bike, so simple and yet so complex.

 For a cuppa tea in the warm sun.

 For the ants that show me that it is okay to take advantage of the good that nature has to offer.

 Even for that little bug.

For dry leaves that rustle in the wind.

...and a Chinese ************ of a ladybug.

 For beech sprouts, so delicious in a salad....

 ...sprouting their living green...

 from something moulded and dry.

This is spring. This is the wonder of spring.

 

Bad news today?

 

Rise like the birch sap. It is spring, the sun is warm. Get out and play in the leaves and scream your joy at the trees!

 

Toodling around the bush;-)

 The other day I was feeling the need again, that itchy, scratchy need to get out and put in some singletrack miles. Also there was the birch sap rising at mild temperatures and I saddled my steed and put some tools into my daypack and a fresh container bottle, made myself a flask of tea, and then I made for the hills. The sun was shining, and at first I was thinking about heading straight to the grove, but then decided otherwise and took in some much-missed singletrack riding. It is funny, I do njot often realize I miss it,l but when I am finally on my bike again and headed down a technical singletrail , everything fallos into place again. I contemplated a bit about that, while I was riding up a steep road that mends into a fireroad, and that I have ridden since I was a child. I took this route home from school when I was kid quite often. Now my time at school was not exactly an easy one. I was better at school than most, I had different questions, I was not very good at sports how it was teached (I hated football or basketball or gymnastics, and even though I rode mountainbike races already, even worldcup races, I always failed at school sports;-)), and, generally I was a strange kid, growing up in the woods as I did. Mountainbiking up that trail always had a kind of katharsis effect from all the mobbing and mocking and violence I had to suffer. I struggled up that road, and where it ends and goes on as a fireroad into the woods, I used to stop and relax, and it always was as if a great weight was taken from my shoulders. 23 years later my life is not exactly easy, and will never be, and sadness is a companion on my trail. But as I took my feet from the pedals of a way different bike, with a loooong high-mech suspension fork and no drum brakes at all;-), I felt the weight of it all subside, and I breezed in the early spring breeze freely. I often think about mountainbiking in general quite critical these days. Most mountainbikers I know behave like right morons. This is a development I witnessed since quite recently. Noone respects hikers, horseback riders, or hunters anymore, in fact it is deemed an act of coolness to ooze out quite some language into their faces. Slowing down before hikers is uncool, and tearing up the landscape with manmade stunts off the trail, is no longer  a no-go, but commonplace. Okay, so I have built stunts myself, on abandoned trails, and had fun with them. And it´s not really a great damage done, if it´s done properly and with respect to nature and fellow human beings. But this new generation of riders (with quite a lot of old-generation riders in it also) simply does not care a shit, to a degree that they even get bodily against people pointing out it´s not okay to do this or that. I always try to talk to people politely and to find a solution, but I have given up on trail access issues, for the worst enemy of legal trails are the mountainbikers themselves. And if you add politics to the issue you got a brew that will drive the sanest man mad. So the taste of mountainbiking has become a bit of a bitter one, for on many outings I meet with hunters, pedestrians and equestrians, and simply because I talk to them, even if it is difficult at times, politely and with respect, I get a right shower of the foul, of their bad experiences with bikers, and I often have to admit that they are right. I feel ashamed and cannot but try to make things right others have made worse, and continue to do so.

I will continue to follow my heart on the path of my soul, and this involves riding as well as being a part of nature. And I do not think it´s a contradiction. Tire tracks will heal with time, even stunts would be okay, but you have to know where, when and how you do it. If you love nature, you want to get to know more of it, and if you know, you will have your fun in a manner that does not ruin too much. But this is not a post for the morons. It´s a post about silent joy. It´s a post about feeling flow on a singletrail as well as sitting on a stump and having a sip of tea, savouring the sun, and a gentle breeze in early spring, listening to the birds singing and feeling the sap rising. The morons will never understand. They are too busy posting the weight and mass and colour of their morning shit on facebook or what´s app to simply sit back silently. Language? Quite truly so, but that´s the only jargon they understand.

I have always been different to them, I never had a part in their business. Mountainbiking has been my vehicle into the other world, to get there faster, there, where I was born and where I belong. I am a different being, and have more in common with an oak or birch or a hare or fox or the wandering hunter´s moon than I have with their world. As an infant, my lullaby was the song of the breeze in the soft treetops of spruce and fir, and the hooting of owls and the cry of the buzzard was more important to me than the latest top ten pop song.

I will no longer partake in a world where I don´t belong, at least not more than I must, and I will become stranger and wilder still.

 I arrived in the grove with all thoughts run out, as it well should be, for these thoughts are poison. Death it is to insult a poet, death, to love him, and to be a poet means death also. He who knows must not ask, he who asks, knows not. So, I left all these thoughts to the breeze and the light and the eraly scent of spring, wafting through the birch grove ever so gently. Down I sat with my back against a birch tree, and sipped my tea.

 I took out my two latest projects, two Kopis knives, that will fit in the concept of "Grimsarksberarmál", a poem and a story I have in the making, given by the wandering moon and a feather of the cat-owl;-). The topmost knife is made from Zwissler damascus with a wild pattern, which I know nothing of, but it took a good temper. Below is a knife out of Wootz steel I found in the woods.

"Beyond the dream road through the iron wood

Lord of the forest made love to a faerie:

Silently the moon´s reflection in the water."

The hours passed in thought and without thought, and in reflection and meditation (others call that drinking tea;-)). Then it went a bit cold, and I went over to the birch I tapped and got me a bottle of sap and fixed a fresh one to it. Oh the loot:

And I rode home with freed shoulders.

Rapatap the birchsaptaprap, yo! - A foraging ride with Erdmuthe;-)

 Erdmuthe;-), called me up the other day if I wanted to go for a ride with her;-), oops, ON a ride, that is;-). I had planned to do some birch sap foraging, so I fetched her  and we did a plain old fun ride to the grove. It was being a bit muddy, and I guess, it was quite a bit of climbing involved, considering she´s a rookie, only riding for -is that one year? Respect for her, for she did very well, even when it got a bit tough. Jandark, congratulations on your choice of woman;-)...

We had a little lunch break, me having a sip of tea and she having a right feast;-) to be true, she offered me to partake, but I had to politely decline. Several singletrails and some chatting later we arrived at the grove, where I had already prepared my tap system a week ago, and the sap is on the rise well. Readers of my blog are well acquainted to the method I learned from the old Russian master at the smithy, Viktor. Please take care to tap a birch you haven´t tapped the year before, don´t take more than you need, and plug the hole with a piece of branch afterwards. Thank you!

 The bottle was half-full, and I changed it to a fresh one. I will make some more mead this year, so I am taking a bit more than last year. We had a sip of birch sap, some more tea, and a nice talk about self-sufficient living and bushcraft, and simply took in the scenery.

 Then the light went low, and with the red and golden rays of the sun we  made for the trip home.

I simply love the enchanted colour of those twilit woods! It was a simple day with simple pleasures, and I hope Erdmuthe can take home those rays of sunlight when things look dark, her life not being exactly easy. But whose life is? All we can do is try to figure out what´s best, stay pointed into the right direction, and keep going. And some things smile, and sometimes there are good moments to treasure.