Cookies, tea, and steel ;-9

 A shitty day at work. An extremely shitty day at work. One of these days when you start to believe what your "fellow humans" tell you that you are. So, what to do? Off with me to the bus that´s bound for the countryside, bound for the woods. Walking through the green, feeling the earth underneath my feet, my disgust was immediately replaced by a sense of puzzlement. What the f*** do we think we are up to? What is it that is truly better than nature? Why do we still assume we are the crown of creation? Everything was like it always were, but there, in the ground, I immediately found this heart-shaped piece of bloomery steel that had waited there for hundreds of years, weathered and worn by the soil, rusted, pitted and torn. It told a tale to me.

 It was sometimes raining, sometimes the sun came out... but in the halls of the forest it mattered little. There was a serenity again under the stems and trunks of trees, that simply soothed my soul. Then it is that thought subsides; then it is my soul is soothed.

Vibrant was the light that fell through leaves still green; still it is summer, but all too soon it will all be gone. The season is rising in the heart of the soul. Not the season we mark in a calendar, a season well marked out and calculated, but something deeper and wilder than thought, something that is rising now with the mist, silently, and somewhat eerily. It is autumn, and it flourishes and blooms in the mycel of mushrooms and the reddening of leaves.

 It prospers in a quality of light and a musky scent...

 It moves like the ripples in a root; like the grain in the wood. Damascus steel knows it; it sings of autumn.

 Silence; solitude...

There it is I grow. There it is I must not grow.

 ...

 Over old hills the clouds drove by like flocks of wicked dragons; wind was singing loudly in the treetops.

 And layer upon layer of the world of man was peeled off of my soul revealing that, what I really am and always will be.

 Not the mushroom, rotting and pitted...

 Not even the path through the woods.

 But all and everything.

 More profanely spoken, I got myself some ´shrooms for stew.

 And then, by an old cabin, I sat down and had a cuppa tea and a coconut cookie. It was a feast all for myself, in the silence and the solitude of my beloved woods, cradled by the song of the wind and the water.

 Sometimes I find it hard to tell, and feel like I would not care to bother anymore; the wind has no words, but tells every secret there is. The water murmurs in the stream and sings all the songs one could dream up. Why then should I still talk to humans? Even friends and lovers cannot understand me. Noone can, but still I keep talking gibberish that does not fill the bill, does not hit the mark, as one might want to say - but still I keep talking. I sometimes ask myself if this is depression... but on the other hand, I sleep most sound and well, and I do not feel sad apart from the usual sadness everyone has. As long as I am in the woods, I am even happy as one can possibly be. It is not that, it is something else. It is at the same time far more complicated and far more simple than we humans think. Our human world is a laughing matter for it. We are definitely not the crown of creation, we are weird, a shaved ape playing at being god. But I do not want to evangelize anyone. I would not bother. No human being, including myself, is worth a fuss.  

 For words like value and worth are just that: Words. It is not what there really is. There is a language behind any language, a language without words. The trees know it, the sun, the wind, the rain. The squirrell, the hare, the fox and the wolf. All of them still know it.

 I followed the whispers through the thicket, along trails seldom trodden....

 Over hill and dale I walked.

 And found some spring steel, lying ancient and forgotten in the soil.

Yeah, it is junk lying in the forest, but to me it conveys meaning. Sometimes, when I read "Game of Thrones" and the author talks about "valyrian steel" or "dragon glass" someone finds in the woods I am absolutely laughing my head off. For things like these happen to me in actual. The average reader of this novel would not even be able to recognize it. It´s junk to them. It does not convey meaning to them. They buy pink fluffy unicorns and GoT merchandise in order to compensate for their loss; the loss of magic and meaning and a connection to the world. But without the loss of words you cannot feel the magic... without magic, steel or even tea and cookies in the woods will not convey meaning to anyone.

Without meaning, our world will die.

A hike to Schmiedefest @Krenzer Hammer crafts fair

 Last Saturday I met with Natalie and little Jonas to go on a foraging hike to the legendary crafts fair @ Krenzer hammer. (www.krenzer-hammer.de). We had an early start and were greeted by a snail and a bear family...

 ...and another snail.

 We had decided to take the small one foraging and collected a lot of herbs and ´shrooms for dinner. Jonas had a lot of fun climbing crosscountry on trails seldom trodden...

 ...spot the metalhead... ;-) Jonas forged with me on Highland Games Wuppertal and dropped by on Friday for the first time and joined in wit gusto. And it was a joy to have him around... he is a weird, but very intelligent kid that has fun doing things few kids of his age have.

 We came by some rock carvings where I told a dwarf tale... which he did not believe any... or did he? ;-)

 Did I mention this is a metalhead? ;-)

 Also it was really cool to have Natalie around with her bad humour and sarcastic remarks...

 I blurred this pic on purpose... for I don´t like duck faces any ... ;-)

There were a lot of wonders, big and small, by the trailside..

 Fairy rings...

 Oh so green was the moss...

 And trees by the crags standing guard...

 ...

 Along the murky stream we came to the Krenzer ironforge where the fair took place.

 And there it was I met Manfred and Rolf again... which came as no surprise. Manfred had a lot of really cool knife designs on display again...

 Top: Damascus blade with giraffe bone handle,

 the one below stag and a modified Karesuando blade.

 Manfred...

 This one is made from an old HSS saw blade with Micarta handle...

 ..in a somewhat unusual Kydex sheath with leather.

 Rolf was working doing leather designs witrh kids and adults alike...

 ...and Ruben from Ahlhauser Hammer was getting the knifemaking bug...

 We also met with Julia, Nick and Kathrin and had somewhat of a chat, before we went on our merry way to the ironforge. Unfortunately, the three of them did not care to join us. I suspect more than just a bit of scheming and plotting going on on their part, but as is, I am a paranoid bastard, cannot help it any and I refuse to make this my problem. So, off to Ahlhauser Hammer ironforge for the old foodie we went. It was raining hard then. Thiemo, Natalies boyfriend called what he should bring from the grocer´s and we decided to meet at the ironforge.

 There it was that Jonas unwrapped a piece of steel his brother found near the vicinity of a Solingen Burg smithy, and we probed it. Sorry for the bad pics, but there´s a structure in it and spark analysis showed roundabout 0,6-1,00 % carbon-it might as well be a piece of damascus...

Be this as it may ;-), we made a stew from the treasures we had found and some additions from the grocery store...

 Natalie doing some stunted Yoga... ;-)

 Jonas being off his rocker for joy of the steel we probed.. Idaresay we spoiled this kid a bit... he does not like veggies but ate two bowls of stew with no meat whatsoever in it, and I should say that mummy had a hard time convincing him not to take this iron rod to bed with him... ;-) but as his father came to fetch him, I daresay he was not THAT angry with us... ;-) so to say... ;-).

 Thiemo and Jonas. Folks, you´re good company.

 We sat by the fireside, we adults had a beer, and we talked and dreamed and laughed the night away.

Poifecc! ;-D