Samstag, 22. Februar 2014

Lost places and steel found;-) - a spring hike in winter

 Today was one of those days I felt the urge to simply get out into the not-so-wild. I packed up and took the bus towards the Sauerland, and made off  into the hills.
 The sun was shining, and the road led me into a rare-trodden part of the woods, where lie the remnants of a WWII explosives factory. Everywhere there were huge blocks of concrete, strewn as if blown by the wind, and the destruction of this work of man was almost utterly complete.
 ...
 The birds were singing, and it was very warm, and everywhere there was green sprouting delicately, and life springs up, gently still, but it wells up again.
 But there, on a tree branch, I saw the skull, presumeably of a wild pig. Someone had put it up there, and it faced directly towards the entrance of the hidden hall.
 There is a certain beauty in this coincidence in my book. It is almost as if death himself showed the way to the underground, the mysterium of the sprouting life welling up from root and mycel underneath, growing violently in to the darkness. Life is no less violent than death, but in our everyday notion of things we fail to see this. Of course, there was nothing superstitious about the hall. It was an old factory site, nothing more. Or is it?
 The interior. there are some strange shafts inside I first took for chimneys, but now I doubt it.


This is how those chimneys look from outside:

 On I went, leaving the dark behind, passing by tree and mossy stones, deeper into the woods.
 And thus I came towards the hilltop, and beneath the hill, there is an old dump site. Many old farmhouses have dumpster sites like this, and for those who know and are able to put it to use they are sometimes right treasure troves:
 Leaf spring steel. ANCIENT leaf spring steel, to be precise. Ancient leaf spring steel that has been cold-worked for ages and then left to rust, making for a very fine grain structure when forged correctly.
 Coincidentally;-) I found this hacksaw in my pack, oops, don´t know how it came there;-) and got me piece for forging what I like best to forge!;-)

Then, on top of the hill, there is the ruin of this old farmhouse, whereof hails one of my many storytelling knives (I made a post about it in January)



The ruin, strangled in ivy and little trees, has somewhat of a fairy, eerie atmosphere to it, and I took it in with my deep breaths.



All broken down to become something new, the place is now a place where worlds collide; where the veil between our cherished reality and the realm of something else is growing ever thinner with decay, and decaying are the threads of the weavings we surround ourselves with to assure ourselves that our path is the only one to be trodden. But the other world laughs at our plight of hiding behind our well-polished lies.

 And thus I weave, a cloth of dreams. Of the wind in the treetops and the silent gliding wings, and the song of the owls that led me over the hills and yonder, and towards the valley again. I want to weave this cloth of dreams and seam it with moonlight and starlight and the night winds in the woods. I want to wear it as a cloak when I have to walk amongst all-destroying Mammon´s disciples, to protect me against hate and iron.
 Towards the valley, and there, on the threshold I sat and took a sip of tea from my flask.
 And thus fell twilight, and strands of twilight I took with gentle hands to twine it into the cloth of my dreams, to interlace it with the fading sun and the rising of the light of stars.
And back I trod into the world that is no longer entirely my only abode. For this cloak is mine, and it is the other world´s dream, and it is a name, a mask and a mirror I wear.

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