balance

“The alchemists spent years in their laboratories, observing the fire that purified the metals. They spent so much time close to the fire that gradually they gave up the vanities of the world. They discovered that the purification of the metals had led to a purification of themselves”

Paulo Coelho, The Alchemist

This blade was a commission by a gentleman as a gift to a colleague, another gentleman who is a videographer. One of the parameters was to work video camera parts into the handle.

I am not a student of film. I don’t watch many movies or documentaries and when I do I find myself getting extremely upset, sad, or angry at something I most likely have little control over or isn’t even real. There’s a balance between being informed/entertained and being consumed that I have yet to straddle. Most of the time I watch things I find to be entertaining or inspiring and even then I get excited and have trouble concentrating or going to sleep. The world can be a an overwhelming place and mediums such as music, art, and film have the ability to amplify it immensely. About ten years ago I saw Chick Corea perform and it was so badass I couldn’t go to sleep.

Going back to observing the fire that purified the metals: in observation you can be purified or you can be consumed- that is the nature of the flame. Depending on how something is presented it isn’t difficult to find oneself consumed. Sometimes that is the intent and is part of what gives life it’s lustre.

I was sent a bit of the gentleman’s work. It was a brief snapshot of a community based non-profit and it was beautiful. It was a simple observation of this organization’s past, where they are now, and where they want to be in the future. From that place of observation a clear and wide view was provided. Space was left for the audience to decide for themselves what this organization was all about. That is discernment. It is about separation- the good from the bad, the bitter from the sweet, the wicked from the just, the right from the wrong. Because rarely is something completely one thing or the other.

When it becomes one thing or the other, we find ourselves in the realm of judgement. Judgement is more about polarization- that things are either one way or the other. This is where condemnation or condonation occurs. Be mindful when you hear polarizing statements like this:

“If you are not part of the solution, then you are part of the problem”

“You are either with us or against us”

“The friend of my enemy is my friend”

Judgement can be tricky because rarely is it solely about the situation or instance that is being judged. It is often a reflection of something in us that we don’t like, or might be causing us pain, or shines a light on a place of shame. When I find myself casting judgement, I find it coming from one of these places. Sometimes it’s difficult to find one’s way back to discernment from that realm.

I saw a profound maxim on the Facebook the other day: “Judge not, for thou hast fucked up in the past as well.”

There it is. I fucked up in the past and I haven’t dealt with it so I will cast judgement on those in similar situations because it makes me feel better about the shit I haven’t dealt with.

Not proper observation at all. You miss out on the nuanced bits of wonder that makes life sweet and also bitter.

This is the lesson of the Observer. To see that things are rarely one thing or the other. To look past yourself and your projections and to take things for their core value. There is something cleansing in that. It’s a bumpy journey, but a journey worth taking.

…….

For this blade I drew out several designs for the client to look at. He selected this one, a drop point design and a very effective out-of-doors use knife. It’s a departure from my normal “let the grinder design the blade” technique.

Profiled…

The runner up designs:

Centerline guide:

After heat treat I take the plunges to the spine…

The handle was going to be an extension of the recipient’s passion. After a bit of thought on how to work video equipment into the handle, I took a trip to the local pro audio store.
Gaffer’s tape. Used across the board by almost everyone in arts/entertainment production and operations, be them prince or pauper.

It’s a woven fabric tape. It leaves no residue when pulled up.
The process of sandwiching layers of resin between tape begins…

…and it just didn’t work. The resin wouldn’t set up for some reason. It was either due to the adhesive on the tape, the inability for the layers to breathe, the high humidity and low temps, or a combination of all three. I went at it three times and went through nearly a quart of resin. I pouted for a bit, and found myself in a funk of judgement.

Once I got past that and explored a bit more, I found Duvetyne. It’s a light-blocking cotton material used in the motion picture industry. It’s also used in the fine arts world. Sometimes stage side drops are made out of them as well. I wanted to keep to the idea of a blade that is an extension of this particular gentleman’s passion.

By this point I was too preoccupied to take pictures. This resin is an exothermic polymer and needs a bit of heat in the beginning. It’s been a bit humid this October and my work area has no climate control so I put it under a heat lamp. I had to babysit the setup for a bit because I had accidentally set the previous batch on fire by having it too close to the lamp….

The Observer. I left the handle unfinished- it’s the backstage area. She is O1 tool steel, homebrewed Duvetyne micarta, and steel hardware.

This was incredibly challenging and humbling but worth all the bumps and snags. Look a little deeper: there are profound lessons to be seen.

Sheath coming (very) soon

“Dance with a girl three times, and if you like the light of her eye and the tone of voice with which she, breathless, answers your little questions about horseflesh and music about affairs masculine and feminine, then take the leap in the dark.“

Anthony Trollope, Orley Farm

I had a dream where I met my feminine identity.

I was in a busy open air train station with one of my best friends. It was busy and it must have been cold because everyone was bundled up. From almost nowhere came a woman, small, but with hair the color of autumn and a lot of fire to her. She wore a loose fitting white Henley t-shirt, weathered jeans that were rolled up to mid-shin, and walked barefoot. There was a lion cub walking by her side. She also wore a long knife on her hip.

We didn’t speak but there was something very familiar about her. She was exquisitely beautiful but I didn’t desire her- I knew this being was a part of me. She paused for a moment, long enough for the lion cub to nuzzle my leg. Then they were both gone.

In the weeks leading up to this I had been reading a lot about women. The way many of them flow with emotions, and are incredibly adaptable to a variety of things the world deals them. I found this lady who does workshops for women, helping them to appreciate men. Her name is Alison Armstrong and her website is here. She has a lot of podcasts and in listening to her explain men to women (warning: she knows all of our secrets), she revealed many things about the fairer sex. Definitely worth checking out.

I think a lot of tension that comes from men’s interactions with women is that there is an expectation for them to complete something in us. What we don’t realize is that all those things we are looking for in women are already inside us- they just get buried. Society and culture tells us that men have to be this thing, stoic and unfeeling, and if you’re anything other than that you are less than. The Bible says women are to be quiet and subservient. There are a slew of women’s magazine articles with explicit instructions on how to make him love you more. Conversely there is a shitload of literature written for men on how to keep her by your side, how your six-pack abs will fix your love life and how to resolve your relationship woes in six painless steps.

To me this is total bullshit. We can’t find balance with another person till we find balance in ourselves. You are already complete, there is balance within you and you need no one to fill a place in you which you perceive to be empty. In the same way, it is not your responsibility to fill someone else’s emptiness, regardless of what society, modern media or ancient texts try to tell you. Balance yourself and everything else will compliment you.

Once things come into balance, fruition can occur. Seeds need the proper balance of temperature, moisture, and soil composition to germinate. A storm needs the proper meteorological conditions to develop into a force of nature. From this place of stability things can blossom outward. The possibilities are endless.

To the autumn-haired lady that lives somewhere inside of me: thank you for the lessons. This blade honors those lessons.

She has a gentle recurve on the blade- this helps to keep the knife edge from wandering too far when slicing through large volumes of material.

So here we are- fierce curves that betray a keen edge…

After heat treat… She is properly tempered- the blue near the spine of the blade means there is some flex and bend while the grey color near the cutting edge is hard and edgeworthy. Too much of one or the other and the blade will be brittle and prone to shattering, or won’t be hard enough to hold an edge. Proper balance is key…

I chose Cherrywood for the handle of the Lioness. In Celtic lore, Cherry possesses both masculine and feminine properties.

This is the blade that the autumn-haired woman carried. Gentle but strong, beautiful but functional, simple but so much depth… The way to fruition is to find a balance of the things within you. Don’t worry, it’s all there. Just have a peak around…this is the lesson of the Lioness