Carving a Snapskuksa

It has been several months ago that I treated myself to a new kukså. Unfortunately the birch I was permitted to harvest was long dead and a bit rotten,  so all I got was a smaller burr. Cutting two slits above and below the burr I removed it with my carving hatchet. 

A bit of axe and knife work later (the Casström Sweden Woodsman performed admirably for the job,  by the way. I will give you the ins and outs on this really great knife soon), I got the blank roughed out. 

There was a lovely grain showing in that burr. I cooked it in sunflower oil and beeswax. 

Made one for the magical sorcery troll,  too,  and it was baptized the traditional way with a bit of Whisky in the woods. 

 It is a relatively fast project where you can try out the technique for a bigger Kukså. Already got started on several other little fellows... it is quite addictive... 😜 there is something soothing in sitting in the woods whittling away and making stuff you can actually use. And somehow sipping from a Kukså, big or small,  reflects that feeling. You have to try it out to be able to relate. It is somehow like a wonderful little ritual.  

No. Just no .

Still alive, but just so. Still alive. I am well and healthy and I still got a home. Not much to eat, no heating, no electricity. 

And just recently, I have to admit, I gave up. Gave in to despair. I mean, I have no perspective and there is no such thing as a future. After the pandemic a worlwide economical crisis will take place, and climate change will take care of what is left. 

Yes, I gave in to despair. Just refused to get out of bed for some days. 

But then it occurred to me, not exactly all of a sudden. 

On the one hand, we are all fucked. I have to pay taxes on money I do not have and will never get. It is a criminal system of corruption, where the rich prey on the poor and if you are rich, you get richer still, and if you are poor, that little money you have is taken from you. 

On the other hand there are the Plebejans shouting revolution, the raving mob wanting to turn things upside down, the intellectuals, too, wasting time and energy on futile and idle discussions. 

And, do not get me wrong. Not technology will save us now. We are faced with a cataclysm. You cannot argue with a virus, and you cannot argue with climate change. 

I have fought for 30 years now to prevent this time from becoming. I lost. I would do everything just the same as I did, could I do it all all over again. I have no regrets, and I am prepared to die. For most of us will die, and soon. Do not get me wrong, I love to live. It is just not very probable that I or the next guy or my loved ones will. 

That said, I am faced with but a really tiny shred of life left. And so I say no. 

I say no to your society, your petty dreams and your blahblah. I wear my mask and disinfect my hands and stay away from people. I care for my loved ones, but everyone else is a potential danger. I also say no to the raving mob and your Nazi paroles, your politics and stoopid endeavours. I say no to your consumerism. You only deserve my utter contempt, because you are not capable of making things with your hands. 

Oh, I still do not wish anyone anything bad. I just do not care anymore. People are, for the most part, toxic and contagious in more than one sense. 

There are things I care for, however. Knowing things can make you rich. 

Now, it was winter, and I collected some Chaga. I seldom drink coffee these days, because I do not get the point why I should bother if I can find something better in the woods. 

When collecting the fungus, I thought "well, isn't it a shame that you have to still drink your tea from a Kuksa you bought? Now do not get me wrong, I bought my Kuksa from a very nice young Finnish lady who dated me for a cuppa afterwards on the expo, and ever since I heaped fond memory upon fond memory into the notion of it, so nothing wrong with it really. I will keep using it, too, it is nothing at all like being dogmatic. But still, I somehow never made myself one, and I feel a bit like it is an apprentice piece for any bushcrafter. I just wanted to know, too. 

So I just fired away and made myself one. I made it in the woods, deep in the woods, in fact, and was at it well into the night, while the foxes were yelping and tawny owls were hooting and I think an odd eagle owl, too. I took this as a sign, somehow. I made the cup from nothing special, just some humble birch wood. Made some mistakes, too, but it still worked out. I also got the whittling bug bad again. There is a kind of beauty to the simplicity of sitting in the woods making things with simple implements. If you get into that zone, if you get into the flow, everything just falls into place and suddenly you realize that life is meant to be this way, not.... whatever the sorry mess is that we created. Life is meant to take place under trees. Do not get me wrong, that does not mean to be idle, in the contrary. It just means doing something that actually even makes sense for a change, hard work or no. 

The other day I went to the woods again, and my despair was nowhere to be found. I prepared some scales out of broom, made myself another baton.... 

... And worked on the kuksa. Now I carved a triquetta in, and oiled it some. 

But, as I said, I got that bug bad again. My laid father did an awful lot of woodworking, even more than smithing, and I grew up with it, and it is a bit like shaking hands with an old friend. And I am really stoked on it at the moment. Also it is a bit of a stinky finger into the face of the world, since most of the tools I also made myself. 

The Kuksa being in good order I also started a small bowl and a dish, and it felt really good... 

To have tea while carving from the cup I just had made. 

Actually I know that these things are not the best there are, but they must not be in the first place. It was all made from scraps. Even my tools were, for the most part, made from junk, as you well know. 

Society has proven through time that it does not want me. A long time I thought this was because I was inferior. 

But the people that kept judging and ostracizing and spiting and mobbing me just now are showing that they are utterly inkompetent at living. They stacked up big time, so much in fact, that the ship is sinking. 

If the ship is sinking, jump. 

Jump and swim, swim as far away from the ship as you possibly can, in order not to be drowned in the downward draft. 

I suggest you ask people who never belonged. Learn from indigenous people, with respect. They have, if anyone has, one key to a possible survival of our species. 

Run from capitalism and communism alike. 

Ask the woods. Help them, for we owe them dearly, and come humbly. 

And do not forget that some things even now do not change. Make something good with your hands. Build a garden, a homestead or a farm, plant a tree, carve, forge or build a house, tile a roof. 

But get a life. Switch off the Phone or Computer. 

 The cranes return. 

Spring is on its way. ☺️ ❤️ 

Take care, care for the elderly, the weak, and for those who had bad luck. Thank you. 

A perfect day in the woods again...

 The woods called mightily and I had to get out again, so I took the bus on my day off last week, and made to the woods again. Packed my woodworking tools and a grindstone to work on the Celtic ring knife design. I walked through those ancient fragrant spruce and fir woods that always remind me of some ancient temple, or the breath of some huge animal. They feel so alive, with a heavy atmosphere resting upon them like an enchanted veil, and I always have the feeling I could lie down there and sleep, sleep as a stone or a tree in winter. But winter has passed, and I am a human being, not a tree, and the lake has broken free from the ice.

This pond lies ahead of the lake I prefer to visit, silent and dark, with mighty carps living in the silent twilight of its swampy depths. As a kid, they always frightened me, even when they were dead. I have seen them in the moonlight of warm summer nights, coming up, silent as a ghost, and you could see their backs rising into the pale shine of the moon, larger than life. This pond always had something otherworldly to it, with old spruce and fir trees overtowering it like pillars of rock. I passed by it on my way to the dam´s lake. I saw a buzzard startled by my footsteps, and an eagle above the lake. There´s a pair nesting there, in the cliffs above the lake.

 Some Icelandic black-neck goose...

 The cliffs....







I then walked to my favourite place, the little birch wood, and had a cuppa tea and some food. Then I took out the grindstone and worked a bit on my Celtic ring knife.

 While sitting there and have a sip of tea from time to time, I had some visitors: This is the ant, my friend, my only friend, the ant...;-), red ants, that is.

 On my way I found a toppled pine with this burl on it, and when I lost my nerve grinding, I started another kuksa.

 And this is what became of it. I plan on carving a dwarves face to the handle, with a big, open mouth.

 Can´t get enough of birch sap, so I tapped another birch while sitting on a stump, grinding and carving. I tried an open system this time, for the closed tap has its shortcomings still... Drank it immediately, and it was delicious. I sealed the birch and said some words to it, more to remind myself, but who knows?

 Carved a plug and cut it flush.

 That´s a decent photo of my Woodspirit "Phurba";-) knife keeping guard for me;-). I just sat there and did some woodworking and grinding and contemplating, and the hours just passed, fading gently and full of meaning. I am always amazed at how different time passes in the woods. There´s so much more sense to the fading hours than in front of a box counting Mammon´s sheep.

The sun was already sinking, when I made for the long way home, and I had the strange notion of not being so human anymore.











Kein Menschelein

Sie sagen dass ich trank
Zuviel des süssen Weins
Doch ich will kein Mensch,
Kein Menschelein mehr sein.

Ich ging unter die Bäume
Und träumte meinen Traum
Und legte meine Hände
An die Borke eines Baums

Sie kamen mit der Säge
Mit Axt und Hammer auch
Und fällten alle Bäume
So ist´s bei ihnen Brauch

Drum geh ich unter Felsen
Ich schmied im dunklen Grund
Will alte Lieder tanzen
Unter des Mondes Rund

Will lachen und will singen
Von Axt und Zwergenschwert
Und Stahlgeheimnis zwingen,
Doch nicht um Geldeswert.

Will rennen und will tanzen
In der Geistermeute
Will lieben und will leben,
Will Jäger sein und Beute.

rep I

Word-by word translation:

No little human

they say that I drank
too much of the sweet wine
but I do not want to be human
no little human anymore

I walked amongst the trees
and dreamed my dream
and rested my hand upon
the bark of  a tree

they came with the saw
with axe and hammer, too
and felled all the trees
that is their habit always

thus I go under rocks
I forge in the crevice dark
want to sing old songs
under the moon´s round

want to sing old runes
of axe and dwarven sword
and force steel´s secret
but not for money´s value

want to run and want to sing
in the spirits´host
want to laugh and want to live
want to be hunter and the prey

(rep I)



(Poetic translation:

Not human anymore

They say I drank
Too much o´the sweet wine,
But I no more pray
In humankin´s old shrine.

I went and wandered far
Amongst the living trees
And felt the power strong
Under the bark flow free

They came with axe and saw,
Brought hammer, noise and doom
This is their nature always
To turn light into gloom.

Thus I went beneath the mountain
I forge beside the well
Besides a dwarwish fountain
No human kin can dwell

Under the pale moon´s silver wheel
I want to sing and forge
And force the secret of this steel
Into axe and dwarven sword.

I want to dance, I want to live,
And sing these ancient runes
Run like a wolf, I want to give
From spirit´s wealth under the moon.)