The black arts of forging encompass the kingdom of memory and consciousness.

My mind has been doing unfamiliar things at work. I don’t mean I am daydreaming or fantasizing, thinking out philosophical questions or the question of what’s for dinner. I’ll be doing something that doesn’t require my total concentration- sand blasting, grinding or polishing (things I could still considerably hurt myself doing.) and memories, dreamscapes, people and places I haven’t thought of since the first time they occurred to me bubble up from my subconscious so richly and distinctively it’s as if they were occurring again or a synthesis of their essence were presenting itself to me. Maybe it’s because my life these days, even with the study I do is so much more about action than contemplations and processing. This has never happened before to me to this extent. I remember reading Mutant Message From Down Under. In it the tribe’s people held that dreaming is a natural part of waking life. That much of the sickness in modern life was because people did not dream together and were not allowed to during their waking lives. They felt this was the greatest deprivation of modern life. I take these experiences as a good sign. At very least I haven’t lost a digit while they’ve occurred and I feel tranquil and timeless when they do. Maybe its just that I am finally at peace enough during certain activities at the forge when I am uninterrupted to let my subconscious roam. A former mentor suggested that the sword was absorbing my psychic reality. I hope so.

last modified Aug 7, 2007 at 14:30

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