Rapatap the birchsap tap rap ...☺️

The birds were singing and the sun was oh so warm. After all the cold and the shite happening all over the world this was really soothing. The woods are calling, and obviously I heed the call. 

What really feels great is that my sentiment of "why bother?" does not involve anything woodsy, crafty or natural. These things still give me the motivation to get out of bed, so to say. Because they make sense. Obviously, I am fucked, but on each outing in the woods I learn more how the woods work. Of course, they are in a sorry state, what with climate change killing fir, spruce, birch and beech, and I plant as many trees as I possibly can, but yup, we are ruled by idiots. That said, I left the politics at home. The birch sap is rising, and I like birch sap. ☺️ 

This creek is running with more water than it has in the last five years. This gives me a lot of hope, actually, that even if we get another summer of draught eventually, the new trees will eventually recuperate. As is, the woods are radically changed. 

The first spring blossoms, too, and something tasty to boot : Violets (viola, in German :Veilchen), with an anti - bacteria - effect, blood - cleaning, calming and anti - inflammatory. Also you can make a tasty tea or spice from it, a wonderful cordial and it goes into my "lawnmower - mead" 😁, Methubrawri in the language of the Dhiudhai na nÍamparaï, a mythic people I invented. Invented the language as well, BTW. ☺️ 

Now if the trees all die, how can he possibly tap a birch, some may ask. First, I very much know what I am doing, and all the trees I tapped are even now still alive, but then there was that stump of a recently felled tree, where the sap rises really strong. So strong in fact, that there was a rare bushcrafty treat. 

But first things first, out came the tools. 

And in no time the birch was on tap. 

In the meantime, I collected some last Chaga (Innonotus Obliquus, in German :Schiefer Schillerporling). And sat down to really savour a sip of tea made from rowanberries and roasted and dried apple I foraged in autumn last year. 

 On the detour then I was in for my treat... Some chunks of frozen birch sap.

It was a really cool outing. Well, pardon the pun. But actually, I could wish for little more. Sipping your sap and your tea from a gukši you have made with your own hands with a knife and a carving hatchet you have forged yourself while preparing the Chaga you have just collected in a dish you have made with your hands is more than just comforting. It is not only strangely soothing in a world gone stark raving mad, it is empowering. Everything of these items was made from junk. From scraps of steel to scraps of wood to food most people do not see. And it is all connected. 

We all need to change. Well, I never belonged at all, so maybe I can exclude myself a bit. A bit, because I still have to learn a lot. Most people think this means a loss of quality in life.

Personally I think, the opposite is true. This is how life is meant to be. I do not say this because I were a guru or something. We need less gurus and a lot of more common sense. It is nothing esoteric or philosophical. It is just getting the good stuff in, and then have a cuppa of the good stuff. And the good things are estimated as junk, and noone cares. But I do. 

I, for one, came home deeply content. It was a feeling you got when you came home as a kid and got a hot cocoa made by your mother. Only that my mother is dead now and I get that feeling in the woods. There is so much good in the world. We need to learn to appreciate more and learn to be humble and grateful... As we were as Kids, when we got our hot cocoa made by our mothers. 

And it feels plain and it feels good. 

A hike to an ancient hill fort´s´s ruin

Forgotten realms lie everywhere in the vicinity of my hometown. At least three sites of former early medieval settlements or even burghs are loosely dispatched along the Volme valley. I went to the remains of a site which is loosely dated towards the 10th or 11th century. Some archaeological evidence is given to that statement by the excavation of Pingsdorfer earthenware, which seems to give testimony to a use during the 10th and 11th century, so maybe the date of its building is a bit earlier. All along the vicinity of the valley there is evidence of early iron mining and processing, dating to the early medieval age, but, alas, a systematic excavation is still at large for the place.

But the sun was shining, and I took in the atmosphere of the place. The site is located atop the Minnersberg hill, just a short climb from the dale. By the way, the village in the Dale is actually called "Dahl", and this is a German version of the placename "Dale", and there are actually some dwarf legends abundant!

There are but the remnants of earth wall fortifications strewn about on the hilltop, with two separate walls with an entrance from the high plateau.

https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wallburg_Ambrock#/media/File:Wallburg_Ambrock_Schautafel.jpg

Anyway, I just was there to smell the roses, and bumbled along, deeply submerged in thought and dream.

The leafless trees cast long shadows; and how come the place talked to me in words lost for man I cannot know.

You can still see the walls, but you have to look for them. But still they are there, after all these centuries...

And trees are sprouting and prospering and dying and sprouting.

...nice little fella looking and hooting at me... ;-)

Then I just had a sitdown and a cuppa tea, and let my thoughts roam where they wanted.

And I did not know and did not want to know.

High aloof from the noise-ridden world of man I sat, looking down in oh so wonderful solitude.

I would love to tell you adventures...

Of what I saw and what I did...

...but fact is...

...I did nothing at all.

I just sat there and was. Nothing special at all, but so special that one is lost for words. It was a dream, and I breathed in the early year´s air, warm for February, and basked in the sun. I have a lot of worries and sorrows these days, but there it was they completely ceased to be.

Into the twilight on a lunatic´s path

 I tend to have only shitty days these days at work. Politics have always been somewhat psychologically challenged with a huge ego and stuff, but now it is nearing insane. But I know well it´s all my fault... I just cannot say that the wall is green, even if it´s white, just because I am told to. The lunatic therefore is me.

That´s fine and okay with me, for some of my biggest idols were lunatics... say Suibhne Geilt, Lailoken and all those Myrddins and Merlins, and their example shows me the way out. Out to the mountains and the woods, where life still reigns supreme and not that parody that is said to be life - amongst humans. So arrogant has our species become, and thus blind, that it claims that only human society is the measure for life and death... how wrong this is and how ridiculous, anyone who can still feel it, can feel in the thicket. It does not necessarily need to be untamed and wild, and not necessarily a "grave danger with Dave Granger" outing ;-) to feel it. It is just underneath the next holly bush.

There it lies, the "olore malle", the silver chord that leads to the navel of twilight. There it lies, in silence, the place where you can sprout wings and tread in stealth and speak in riddles, giggles and stifled whispers.

And yeah, again, as I did so many times before I followed it, into the twilight and deeper still, along the crags and into the green. With closed mouth and an open heart I walked and climbed the crumbling rock.

Dark and deep lay the crevice, full of unspoken secrets, the nesting place of owls. I talked about it when they asked me. They asked me, and at first I did not want to reply and answered with commonplaces and riddles. And my boss insisted and applied force, and I told the story, for "you can take my past and future / It won´t make you wise" (Lemmy Kilmister). She laughed at me, for there are no owls in her world. Owls are an ornament or something you see in a zoo.

And I laughed with her, against her, with a menacing laughter, that was not entirely human anymore. I laughed with cruel joy. For her ignorance makes her prey to what the owl stands for.

And she rises from her eyrie on planes beyond, rises on stealthy wings, like a whisper in the night. Her claws and beak are eager for the living flesh; she of the mighty wisdom, she of the cruel joy of the hunt, she of the thousand crafts and the mistress of the hunter.

Up rise the mossy crags into the twilight,

 ...up rise the vigorous oaks...

 ...up rise the mushrooms from the mycel in the dark...

 ... and from the embrace of twilight I look into the sun.

 The weird and the wonderful line this path, and eye to eye is mirrored in the sky that is no sky...

 Treetops one can see through the mirror, trees that once were or that might be, but they are not.

 In this cathedral I breathe, freely as in a dream. It may be that all will end eventually due to the haughtiness of man... but it is better to live in truth than in lies. It is better to die for the truth than in a lie. These trees are a truth, an asset that is not rooted in economy, even if economy is the reason they grow there. Maybe all is corrupted, even the order according to which the trees grow, planted by a forest bureau and only for reasons of economical value... but look at this picture and tell me this again! Feel the sun on your skin and tell me money is all there is!

For it is not. They want to keep hope from our lives, they want to rout these happy feelings and replace them with guilt and shame-unto we shall consume what junk and glittering trumpery they place before us in order to satisfy our insane greed. And we run, run at their bidding, to fulfil the new first commandment: Thou shalt buy and trash! But beyond the image of a wood, be it as it may, the silver dream road through the iron wood commences, where fairy tales still live.

I found this totem pole at a camp site some locals had set up and had to smile...

To the hills I wandered, and what is the message of this hike?

This is a signpost reading: "The concept of the Kyrill reforestation program"... but you cannot read it anymore...

 The forest has taken it all back, overgrown it, slowly and steadily...

 ..it reclaims the ground...

...and the silver chord of dreams.

They cannot win.

Encounter with the hornéd ones...

After work, and unnerved as usual, stressed and miserable like most of the times these days, I took the bus overland to get out into the woods. I hurried along, but as I hit the deep, silent and soothing woods, the stress subsided. Countless times I have told the tale, and as always the forest did its job on me. It´s like moss growing over the burning wounds of my heart, like a gentle spring rain. It is not exactly comfort, but more than that. 

There is life and death... there is war and killing, but all things make perfect sense most of the time. No stupid questions, no human interference. Just silence and justice without the sense of even being.

I saw tracks afield and wool from a mouflon on my way....

And as I went on, I actually came across a herd of mouflon.

In the far distance at first, I was somewhat freaked out that they actually came nearer. I can think of Mouflon Daddy coming home and telling his family he´d been observing humans...;-) "No, really, are there really some in the woods?"-"Yeah, but they were shy...";-)

On I went on my merry way... the herd came with me.

 

Then I came across this holly bush still carrying its berries... in March?:-)

It gave me a reminder that even in spring there is a hint of winter. Even if its just a memento. There´s death in life and life in death, and the hunter´s always prey. Message:-).