These murky woods - thoughts on the civic duty of escapism

 I like to think that I am a thinking man. I like to think that I have a reasonable amount of common sense. I have a day job like so many others, and like so many others I only find space for dreams and things that portray meaning to me in a world where human society subsedes. Of course I like to read fantasy novels, mythology and fairy tales and tales of mystery and imagination. For instance, I absolutely dug the laid Ursula K. le Guin´s Earth Sea cycle and have read all of it with gusto.

But I always did so with a sense of guilt and shame. It did not feel right to lose oneself in tales and dreams, when there where actual creatures of Evil roaming the Earth. Donald Trump, Vladimir Putin, that Turkish fucker, that North Korean fucker and all the other fuckers who deserve more than death. Yes, that´s Fimbulmyrk ranting. Yes, that´s Fimbulmyrk hate-mongering. Yes, and Fimbulmyrk hates those fuckers even more so because those fuckers brought him that far. There are about one thousand methods of torture I would inflict on, say Donald Trump if it made any sense. But it does not make any sense. Because all hope for a better world is lost for good and there will be ever worse tyrants. It makes no sense to kill the tyrants or even hate them, because the next ones in line will be even madder and far worse. I would gladly kill myself, but what for? Even suicide would not make any sense any more.

Enter the grand old dame of fantasy. Ursula K. Le Guin, ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ursula_K._Le_Guin) who died on January, the 22nd, said the following:


(source: https://www.facebook.com/authorchrisriddell/photos/a.857902824262731.1073741829.532119136841103/1630039517049054/?type=3&theater)

So many things are deemed escapist. My colleague at work says blacksmithing with children is escapist. Bushcraft is deemed escapist. Walking through nature is escapist. Spirituality is escapist, as is fantasy and literature and striving for an education that is not "push that button and shut up".

Notice summat?

People tell me that blogging is dead, and I was asking why. Because noone has time to read anymore and many people do not have the ability to follow articles that are longer than five lines, because they lack the span of attention required for more, they keep saying.

Many of the people in my acquaintance suffer from one or the other form of depression, most of them, to be exact. One of my friends who is in therapy right now, said she did not know the many things that are wrong with her before therapy, that she did not know exactly how deficient she actually was. So much for succesful therapy, by the way. Many of them cannot cope with the lack of any perspective in our world, with the ongoing warmongering, with the increasing pressure on the individual´s life, with the perverted turns of everyday life where nutrition is the new religion, and any other spirituality is absent and escapist and deficient.

Madmen are heads of corporation, and of city, and of state. Big-term business corporation own us all and do not even try to conceal the fact that they are the one who rule us. It´s not that they would kill you in case you don´t obey... you just do not belong any more if you do not play the game according to their rules. And the rules change like the weather and after unconceivable and absurd fashions.

That sheds an intersting light on the term "deficient perception of reality", innit?

And if you do not belong at all anymore, and feel left alone in the dark, then this post is for you. Because I want to tell you a secret.

They fear you.

They fear the archaic threat you pose.

They fear the twilight of murky woods. They can drive off darkness with the flick of a switch, everywhere, they can control nature to a frightening degree... but they cannot control the wilderness in your mind.  

They fear the other world. They fear God and the Gods and what is lurking beneath. And by belittling everything of real substance, crafts and art and fantasy, spirituality and belief, they hope to free themselves from the nagging doubts that grow like a cancer and grow and spread. They fear the werewolves and the spirits of the dark as well as the light. They are by definition, grey and Evil. They are the worsest of the worst.

The mist fell on ancient hills. After work, I set out for a bimble. So, you say, are you not afraid of wild pigs or wolves or racoons or foxes? No, I say. I am afraid of bankers and economists and politicians. No wolf could do that much harm to me. No wild pig would want to tear my soul apart and leave it throbbing with pain in a darkness that is no darkness but an abyss that defies definition. Then, you ask, are you not afraid, at least, if you are such a superstitious guy, of the spirits of the dark? Of what is lurking in the realm of twilight behind the threshold you so often mention?

But, in a world where light is only neon, and neon alone and thou shalt not relish in the warm flicker of the golden light of a candle, I have no shame anymore of unbecoming human, but something deeper and darker, with gnarled roots in the rock of the other world. I am a teller of secrets untold and unborn. I am the whisperer in the twilight. I am unbecoming human, and I am walking the masked path of twilight fury. I mean no bodily harm to anyone... but I know not shame anymore in telling the tales of the murky woods.

I have no shame in becoming the violent twilight. I have no mercy anymore. I have no guilt in killing with a word of power, a song of insanity, a sword I found in the other world, of killing the souls of the grey ones once and for good. For they fear, and I feed on their wrath and their fear to become even stronger. Yes, fear shall follow them, fear of the murky woods. Yes, peaceless by restlessness they shall become. Yes, they shall have no respite anymore, anywhere. I am a part of the darkness, I walk the masked path through the thicket of my fantasies... in stealth I tread to find a path into their dreams. There, at the threshold between wake and sleep, I will be lurking to ravage their soul. Care to join me?
 

And the most powerful weapon I have is being myself. A dreamer. A teller of tales, a whisperer of secrets, a part of the woods they so much fear. 

Try it. Sit by a stream in the murky woods. Listen to its song. And unbecome human. become the wildness of your mind instead, the clawed and horned animal that thrives in the deepest of the woods of your mind, the sorcerer, the maiden, the warrior, the mother, the child, and man and woman and beast alike. Scream the love of your live into the raging, ravaging storm - and become the storm, laughing as the absurdity of their ways is tattered by your breath.

Find the words that are the weapon of these songs, find the blade that is silence, find the tales it sings and tells. Do not harm their bodies - but strike back with the hardest force when they attack you. Escape from a reality that is not real, escape from a tyranny that is more than a tyranny of the body, but a prison for your soul. And fight. Always guard your dreams and never feel ashamed of your soul.

No, you are not perfect. Yes, you are dyfunctional. Yes, you are escapist.

Make it your sword, and always keep it shaving sharp. And protect your like and kind with every living breath and strive to take as many with you as you can.

New hadseax with treasures of the deep

 This is a very special knife with a strong historical background. The blade is made from crucible steel I found in the woods and a middle layer of 100Cr6 ball bearing steel, 90mm long making for a great everyday companion. The ferrule is from the new knifemaking supplier in my hometown, Hennes & Mauritz. Oi there, give me a break, was that H&M?

Yap, it was, the ferrule is a fashion jewellery finger ring made from actual bronze.;-) I was quite enthused to find it and had that idea nagging at the back of my brain the whole time. The handle is made from bog walnut from the lake I lived beside for most of my life. The dam had to be repaired, and when it had dried out, I found the wood of a WWII 98k carbine´s stock. After trying to give it to three museums in the vicinity, I simply kept it, and since it was gravely damaged I decided I´d do that swords to plowshares - thing and make a knife´s handle from it. 

 Into the pommel I fitted a blood agate I found myself on the banks of the river Rhine in Cologne. A bit too much glue still...

 The blade has a severe taper from some 6 mm to zero.

 Here you can see that I still have a lot to learn how to forge a three-layer-laminate. To me it is an absolute challenge, even more difficult than to forge Damascus, because it is quite hard to get the symmetry right. Also, when forging Damascus, you can drive out any impurities in the weld in the process, but with a three-layer laminate it has to be right on first try.

Having tested it, I can safely say it´s one of the sharpest blades I have ever forged. The tip got a bit too hot when grinding, so I had to cut off a mm or so, but now it does what it should and more.

What I like best about this knife, while it does the cutting, it is also a constant reminder to me of several things. When I look at it, I remember the moon over the silent lake, the hooting of owls, the flittering of sun on the waves and ripples. I again see what I have first seen in my life-treetops of the pines and furs gently moving in the summer wind, I smell the smell of resin and mould. But I also smelled the stench of gunpowder when I worked on it. The gun it once held had fired a lot and got hot in the process, so much in fact that the smell became a part of the wood. This wood had once been a walnut tree swaying in the breeze. The gun had presumeably taken a lot of lives. When the alliance came to free Germany, the soldier who had used it threw it into the lake. Dark and still, it guarded its treasures and curses of the deep. It is safe to say that the soldier who threw this gun into this lake had been not a big-term Nazi functionary, and if he performed any deeds of heroism, those might well be those of an everyday sort. Might be he killed with a feeling of guilt. Might be he killed with a feeling of purpose. Might be he just tried to survive as best as he could, as most soldiers did and still do. The dark and deep abyss has kept the secret. The secret is a part of the wood, as is the secret of walnut leaves swaying in the wind. There are stories in the wood of children scooping up the walnuts or might be a farmer and many farmers or might be it was harvested on an industrial scale, which is most probable. And just like the wood, the stone in the pommel had also been washed up by the stream, secret in secret and  stories and tales. This is the real power of this knife. It is a weaver of nets, of webs, of dread and dreams and joy, a teller of secrets. It is a key to hidden doors of copper on an iron hill with a golden lock. It remembers the abyss and its secrets but it now lives again, not as a weapon in the first, but as a companion for a dreamer.

And last night when I went for a short stroll into the woods, I heard the cat-owl hoot.

A thing for escapism - More thoughts on the film "Mara und der Feuerbringer" and a resolve

Okay, so you all know it. We all are faced with a world full of war and greed and hate, and there seems to be not much hope at all left. Every day in the media, in the web, we are faced with new catastrophes and new forces of Evil trying to take the oh-so-superior Western civilisation to hell. If you read the newspaper, you have to hold it straight up to keep the blood from dropping out of the lines. Once the communist regimes of Russia (and the Russian people) were the personification of Satan, and we were told to hate them, now it´s the Muslims. Good jobs are scarce, and if you don´t have one, you are subject to exploit and abuse or even worse. Kids should not play, but learn in order to get a good career going in order to "survive". Survival is estimated by income. The middle class is practically non - existent. You are either upper class or antisocial (a quote from a head of corporation I had the doubtful pleasure to meet). Bad news pepper your mind every day, every minute, every second. It is not a place for dreams, this world, isn´t it? Is it really?

A very strange thought occurred to me, and a very strange observation I have made. I meet many people from the "upper class". In fact, many of my former mountainbike team are actually members of the upper class. At work, I work with upper and middle management people in business promotion. I noticed something very strange. Many of them get dumb.

What I mean is, those people should be well educated and sharp - witted, and they actually were once. But many of them seem to degenerate, to a degree that some of them are not even able to fulfil  the least requirements of social structures. They are still able to maintain their life, because they live in a structure that degenerates with them, but, judging from an outside point of view, their intellectual capacity is deteriorating fast. This observation is not even exclusive to myself. I would be glad to pass it off as a hallucination of a guy that encounters a bit of a hardship sometimes and has many things in his mind to work on, to be diplomatic;-). But this observation has a strong backing in scientific research, so much in fact that it is a commonplace. It is a well-used theory that our intensive use of computer aids and comfort add to this degeneration of our mind. Now this could be just another kind of bad news, and many might get into bed, draw the blanket over their eyes and not get up again, and I´d be lying if I said I could not understand them.

But I also made another observation. For I met other people also. Different people. Often people who have to work extremely hard to just so make a living for themselves and their families. They don´t have a good career, or maybe some of them actually do, for this observation is not exclusive to people without a decent job. But they have something in common. They are sharp of wits, socially and intellectually competent, and many of them are what many so - called heads of society would call a hazy-eyed dreamer.

 Reenactors, artists - mostly deviant artists - bushcrafters, preppers, Pagans, Christians, Muslims. People who call themselves druids or heroes. Musicians living just so from the extraordinary music they make with a guitar consisting mainly of holes, duct tape and splintered wood. I think of Rhobynn Byrdd, a ranger and druid and musician the magic troll and I met once in Marburg. He sat there, all clad in green, barefoot with the aforementioned guitar and his clothes and the shoes standing near his battered backpack held together with twine. Everything he had was beaten, used and battered, he took a swig from abottle of cheap beer, and yet he did not look like a bum. On his guitar case there was a silver badge of the tree of life, and when he sang, he transformed the hallway into a concert hall, or better yet, the Golden Halls of Lothlórien or the halls of Rivendell. We bought a CD from him, and he traded in some dreams and weird tales and we talked a huge pile of shit. But that wasn´t all of it. When I first read the "Lord Of The Rings" by J.R.R. Tolkien, I had the same impression getting to know him when  the author described the first encounter of the wayfaring hobbits with Aragorn, Arathorn´s son. I am well aware that Rhobynn´s life is not at all romantic. And this is the dimension of truth behind it all: For if you really try to FEEL the figure of Aragorn, Arathorn´s son, you notice that he isn´t romantic, either. And Rhobynn is not a figure in a book. He is not a fantasy novel. But he refuses to give up his hope and dream. He stubbornly clings to being a "ranger". He stubbornly clings to his dream, even in a damp tent in a November rain with little to eat and no warmth at all. And this makes him a real - world hero. He fights enemies of mankind we cannot even agnize and that would "make our hearts freeze" could we take them for real. Rhobynn´s art and prowess are extraordinary. He is a story become true.

He lives in a dream.

I have met many people like him in the last few years. Many of these experiences I made with the love of my life by my side, and I cannot tell how grateful I am for that. And, talking of which, I have realized that we are like them. We are dreamers, yap. We care about all those people suffering in Nepal now, but then we know that the elders of the Inuit tell the hunting grounds become strange. The North pole has shifted, so they say. Shamans and dreamers report that something is changing, and many of them tell of something very grey and dark on the rise. Sounds like a fantasy novel? They also say the earth will shift. Nepali Bön priests tell of the serpent that is preparing either for war or shifting in its sleep. Maya and Aztec astronomers announced the rise of the winged serpent. Myth. Magic. Hazy-eyed dreams. But we ask, why has the earth trembled? In what direction has it risen or fallen? We ask the signs, and many call us cold - hearted to ask these questions. But we ask because we want to know how to give hope the way Rhobynn gave us. We are druids and tellers of stories.

There are many like us, and please forgive me if I cannot be too objective. It is just a feeling I have. I see the children of reenactors, and I work with the  children of the middle management. The  middle management kids often are to be called as bad an attribute as retarded.

One 9 - year -old I worked with and who was absolutely normal according to the interview I did with the parents was not only far too small for the age (I first mistook him for a 4-year-old), but severely motorically challenged, so far in fact that he was not able to distinguish his hammer from his arms, had difficulties of hitting the anvil in front of him and could not tell left from right. I had to "anchor" him by touching the body part he had to move just in order to make him step up the step ladder in order to achieve the proper working height over the anvil. He visited a private school, a gymnasium of a very good reputation. But also his abstraction capabilities and intellectual capability was not "adequate" (I hope you know that I do not mean a disqualification by this, but refer to the system valid in the society of five years ago.) in a degree that terrified me. And the examples are legion. There is two kids of thirty maybe coming to the smithy not acting severely socially inadequate, and I mean it, when I say. I am not talking swear words or a bit of testing borders, but trying to swing a hammer full -tilt at the face of their fellows just to see what happens.

Now enter the encampment area of a re-enactment fair. Escapists and dreamers are gathered there, not being able to stand reality and dressing up like characters from a fantasy film. Some of them can be respected by the so-called normal and socially relevant people by doing actual living history and re-enacting the Viking age in a human zoo, but most of them actually do not put a mask on, but a mask off on the weekend. There are some middle management types, good people, bad people, and people in general. People from many social classes. But take a look at the kids. Often sooty, dirty, barefoot, and some even wear sharpened seaxes. They treat each other a bit rough often. But they act responsibly around the fire and the weapons and gladly accept responsibilities such as chopping wood and fetching water. And I have never in the roundabout 25 years of re-enactment seen a reenactor´s child kicking or beating anyone who had fallen to the ground, with the exception of an observed martial arts contest.

Dreamers like Petr and his son. Escapists. How come now that those escapists seem to be more capable than the "Herrenmenschen", the masters of virtual and economy? How come that those apparent outcasts are socially more capable, more intelligent and more virile?

I could bore you with scientific studies and sociological research. But I am a dreamer, so I´d try to answer the question with a dream.

In "Mara und der Feuerbringer" the protagonist, 14-year-old Mara Lorbeer has to face the "Feuerbringer" a demonic would-be god that was born out of a demon, a wrong translation - and, as I interpret it- psychological neglect. One could learn that there also is more to the dubious Dr. Thurisaz mentioned in the film, obviously making a big business out of selling esoteric seminars. But there is more to the seemingly superficial seminars. I a second part of the film we COULD learn, why the firebringer gains his power and whereof he is made. Mara is not done with him in the least, and the second book and the third (and I guess the fourth, which is currently in the making) will offer a lot of insight into the mythological world which is courtesy of Tommy as well as the Vikings themselves. And here is where the rubber hits the road and myth and magic meet the so - called actual world. The film was made with two big - term corporations. It was considered as recommendable by objective and independent institutes in Germany, and yet by active ignorance became subject to sabotage. But I do not want to rant on endlessly about that fact.

There was a growing community of people with a dream centering around Tommy and his achievement. Reenactors, poets, students and professors of Old Norse literature as well as druids and storytellers, musicians and lovers of fantasy and science fiction. How I am informed did they fight the sabotage and even managed a small victory in that smaller cinemas now boycott this abominable Marvel Avenger cartoon novel trash film in favour of a great movie made with heartfelt love. It was love that created this victory, and you can take for granted that I do not advertise this film because I get money or any other advantage from it than the dream coming to life. For if you look closely at how the topic of the movie and the adventures of Mara Lorbeer interfere with reality you notice something weird and wonderful: That where the story ends, another begins. And this latter story is deeply rooted in our prosaic everyday life, a life we thought was bereft of any wonders and cleaned and sanitized from all magic.

There is a loving community now. Dreamers, for sure. Escapists.

But escapists with teeth and nails. And as Mara Lorbeer faces the deity that wants to doom the world, with a little help by the professor and the Gods, the real story happening alongside it in the so - called real world coincides.

We all are faced with doom. It is reality. And a dark and unholy shadow is lurking in the sunshine of a world we thought was ours to take and shape. And it was all of us who invocated the shadow by forgetting to dream and love and tell our children wonderful stories. It is quite unhelpful to sit back and grin and look forward to the Apokalypse, as many monotheistic fanatics do. This attitude helped pave the road for the Evil that has befallen our world, the cynical grey god of a machinery human.

This cyborg human subspecies is thrice blessed and thrice cursed. First, it seems overly powerful and almighty. It has no dreams and thus no fear. It has not feelings but lust, greed and hate. It has everything it could want for and yet will always hunger for more, until it has eaten the world and all of its dreams. It feeds on all things colourful and turns it into a hopeless grey.

Am I wrong? Read the newspaper, watch the TV, browse the internet. And find your own opinion.

I am a dreamer. I guess I am a bit like Tommy, and Jonny, and Rhobynn. I am frightened, and cold, and I often have no hope left in the November rain.

But there is the love of my life by my side. I do not know how I will survive or fare. But I know there´s always help. As long as you stubbornly believe in your dream, and if you can´t do it, stubbornly believe you could, I guess there´d always be a way.

We will walk into the woods, into the night, along the stems of moss and tree into the golden twilight where both worlds meet. There it will be we will be clothed. There it will be we will find our weapons. There will be the place of our feasting and our fighting.

Death to the Maggot of Grey!

Marihar Iala Makija!

Skóggángr

Maybe you know this feeling: The woods call you, call you out into their solemn embrace. They call you in your everyday business, in work and leisure, and some of you listen. But the call grows more intense. You adapt to the woods, that is what you do and have to do, if you want to move swiftly and silently in their realm, and the trees grow into your heart and soul. You watch the animals and listen to the murmur of the creeks, and they tell you tales alien to mankind´s endeavours so far removed from the actual world. The wind in the treetops cradles you in its eternal lullaby, and something happens to you.

In ancient times in the North, people found guilty of severe crimes were banned from the community of man. In times when life was at bay at a blink of an eye, this was absolutely necessary to ensure a working community. They were deemed inhumane, called "vargr" (a grim connotation of "ulv", meaning wolf) or skóggángr (woodsroamer). Science is still going on about the term skóggángr, but it seems to be referring to someone deliberately leaving the community of men.

In our times something has happened. The tides have turned. While in former times survival meant to fight nature for survival, now we are faced with an altogether different matter. We as human beings have deprived the world of all magic, have exploited nature to an extent that the desolation threatens our own life. The seas are littered with toxic and nuclear waste, and it might be argued that the recent shift of the poles has something to do with the erection (pun intended) of super-high skyscrapers on critical balance points. No wolves roam the woods, and if a bear chances to come by, it is called a psychotic problem-bear and shot to mincemeat. We even try to kill nature in ourselves by domesticating and stupefying humans to an extent that many youth are not even capable of survival in a civilized surrounding.

But it is YOU who is called by the woods. They might be subject to forestry commission and business. They might be domesticated and seem to be tame, but believe me, they are not. Their call is violent, and tragedy and triumph happen every year, month, week, day, second ticking away not with the pulse of a clock, but the pulse of the almighty mother, earth. Spring and winter, summer and autumn are but a breathing in and out there. Your individuality does not tip the scales even a tiny bit, but your soul weighs heavy there. It coincides with the pulse and breathing of the dark, rich soil. It blossoms with the flowers and withers with the winter.

And you get a notion that this might be the real life after all.

Then you return to your everyday endeavours, a changed human being, and you notice the everyday wrongness of life. All too soon you notice all your energy you won in the woods is spent, and when you feel exhausted, you hear the call again. And you return, and the roots of ancient trees yet unborn grow deep into your heart. Alien you become to the ways of those cyborgs and zombies that call themselves human and that delight in preying on their fellow beings while preaching denaturation and trying to establish a peace that is no peace, but numbness, ignorance, and indifference. By stealing away all dream they try to become immortal in indifference.

But there is no immortality of the body, and dynamics and change is the immortality of the soul. Metamorphosis is the law of nature, never ceasing to grow and blossom. Violent is the creativity of that dream, unfathomable by the ways of the Grey God they pray to. And thus they make this world.

You try to fight them. But you cannot fight with their weapons.

And so again you run into the woods. Is this escapism?

I do not think so. In fact, I think that it is in the woods that we find the weapons to fight with. Roaming the woods, being banned from a society of zombies and cyborgs is no longer a sentence, but a privilege.

Into the woods we walk. Into a dream we walk.

But under the treetops, near the stream, the clover sprouts, and under the pillars of the tree´s stems, the dream prospers.

Pathways we walk, ostracized by mankind, to become something old and something new, over old hills and farther away than just the distance.

And this is what skóggángr means to me now. It is a mere word, but it is taking roots, slowly, but securely, in the dream of the forest in my heart.

The buzzard flies above this forest, scanning the ground for its prey. Wolves return from the exile. Oh, yes, they are dangerous. Yes, they might threaten the life of wildstock and tame animals and humans alike. Yes, I would not want to get on the wrong side of them. But then they are of my kind. As is the owl, that stealthy hunter in the night.

This is the essence of skóggángr: Being one with the hunters and the prey, with river and stream. With the wind and the storm and the shadowy mists in the night. With the sun shining warm upon the meadows and twinkling in the stream, but also with the piercingly hard and frosty starlight in the midnight sky.



And with both sides united in the shady twilight.

The sun might sink beyond the hills: Darkness falls. But there is no Evil lurking here, for the Evil man fears is not the truth; man in itself has become the worst enemy. So we unbecome human. So we dream another life. So we deliberately walk into the thrall of the forest´s spirits, for there is nothing to be feared but the utter void of grey. Skóggángr we become. Forest we become.



Behind the gates there is a spring waiting. Behind the mist-enchanted sun, behind the circles of passage spring dwells.

There is art in this hope, there is hope in this art.

This is a new way.

This is a war to be fought, a hunt to be feasted.

Run with the night. The hunter´s moon is rising.

Yonder hill along the creek into the realm of twilight

 The other side did call me violently again, and so I packed my gear and followed an ancient trail into the realm of twilight, the ever-growing forest´s shroud. It greeted me with sunlit aisles, and as I leisurely strolled along the path, I heard what I often hear when I leave the roaring world of mankind behind: Five buzzards circled high above and cried their lonesome, eerie cries.

 Over treetops they circled, over the deep crevice of this ancient valley, where once upon a time there roared the smithies. Fallen sullen and silent, the old machines lie rusting in the wold, and death embrothers them to the red-brown mould of fallen leaves.

 One buzzard sat above in the crags and cried and sang to me; and as I passed, it flew along my path for a good while, some 10 m away from me, from time to time perching upon a tree stump. And I looked into the eyes of the bird, and I understood.

 All the while the creek sang its vivid, living, striving song.

 And over old hills I walked, not meeting a soul, but bird and deer kept me company. I found a lot of treasures that day; the skull of a marten, two spades, a nickel silver plate and a piece of horse bone. The spades I left in a cache in the woods...just in case;-).

 I´d love to restore this barn... and live there, by the stream.

 I met with this sleek fish hunter, a cormorant.

 And yonder crags I climbed along the stream into hidden thickets.

 For there it is my soul is soothed; I need these outings to remain sane and true to myself. The folly of the everyday race of life subsides, and in the quiet solitude of the woods I experience sense and purpose that in the hectic of our society goes alack.

 There is a beauty in the silent regard of tree and stone,

 and death and life, and plant and beast, blend into each other. My racing mind is calmed, and I understand without words, where my path is headed.

 I am grateful to be able to pass by the homes of those little inhabitants of the woods without disturbing them, the true rulers of the wild, the gentle servants of the savage grace of the woods.

 And when my roaming draws to a close near the evening, I take home those cherished memories to dwell on them forever.

Legally I am considered poor. But there is a wealth far richer than words can describe, that no banker or tycoon can take from me. The savage grace loves me, and I love her. More there is not to be said, and no worship done would do her justice, and there is no sacrifice that is mine to give. Just my love.