Yesterday I simply wanted to get out of the city, and thus I took the bus to the hills. When I was just seated, someone called my name, and who stood there? Harald, the guy who taught me the very beginnings of the real side of the craft. He corrected my scrollwork, showed me many projects, and last but not least showed me how to forge-weld the steel. Once we worked together in a museum, where we both fared not too well. I was mobbed out, and he was kept low. An accomplished craftsman, all he was told to do was ridiculous work. If he did a good job, he was yelled at. It´s not my opinion alone, it was also stated in an article in the
Hephaistos, a blacksmith´s magazine where the museum was called the "Phantasialand der geknechteten Handwerker" (event park of enslaved craftsmen). Anyway, Harald had a hard time, and was sick for a long time, and I put a lot of energy into him which ultimately lead to a break in our relationship, for I could not help him in any other way. I respect him, for he managed to get a hold on his problems. We had a chat of old times together and a cuppa coffee, and he showed me a striker knife he made from chainsaw chain damascus after a drawing I made long ago. By the way, the writing are hieratic runes I developed long ago... as a writing version of the carved
Futhark rune forms. The knife he made is not exactly the one on the sketch, but I like it nonetheless. have to do it myself soemtime soon! We talked a bit longer about this and that, about dreams and pains and plans on life, and then I went on my merry way. I hope Harald will continue on the great path he is on, and I hope we can do this again sometime. Maybe we will meet in the smithy, where this guy simply belongs, and it´s my turn now to give something back.
The hills called loudly. Winter is still restinging heavily upon the snow-ravaged-land, but spring is already on the way. The sun shone, not warm yet, but sun it was.
Into those snowy woods I went, still in winterly, deadly silence... but this silence was broken by the tweeting of some birds already fluttering around and calling to the sky for spring to come.
Dark it rests still, the cloak of the ancient, ice-cold lord, but the golden bough is sprouting already. Everywhere plant´s hips were sprouting, and there was an atmosphere of a violent breakthrough in spite of all the ice.
The creek was singing aloud under the veil of ice that still covers its waters.
Towards the lake I came, that lake I passed along so many times, where I passed my childhood and the days of my youth, and as often as I have seen it, so many faces did it bear. Never did it look the same, and the older I get, the more I see it with a sense of awe. I have never travelled far, have not seen many countries, but I have seen the worlds within the world, the multiplying faces of nature that never get to any end, that spring forth with violent vigour...;-)(alliteration is fun).
...
And as I walked on, the trail besides the lake, I came to the hillside of the birch grove I like so much, deep in thought and in a sense of wonder, and I bowed towards the four places of the wind and the law of the universe, and to the spirits, and the forces of the land, when in the distance I heard two raven croak, and it was a hair-rousing experience, in a good sense of the word. Oh, I remember, and I think, and thus Huginn and Muninn might fly within my soul...
I sat there, on top of the hill, and time passed, or not, and I meditated on past and the flow of time, on the burden of the years and the dance of youth within my step that´s springy still, but nearing old age with every stride.
I drank a cuppa tea, and let the sun sink, sink lower still...
And through the twilit woods I made my way home.
