FIELD REPORT #5

From a dream last night:
A stranger had arrived at my place, someone on a long journey. I didn’t know them but I could tell they were traveled, and that they were a good person in their heart, even though they had done plenty of bad things. I thought of myself, and my own life, and I decided to help them.

I had an army green canvas backpack, that in the dream belonged to my brother, and was still filled with old tools and belongings from years before, mostly from the land out here. I knew he would be ok with me passing it along.

Started to clear things out of it, and pulled out a short-hafted axe, that looked like it had been black once. I knew it had been around a long time. Well-used, and plenty of notches on its greying wood handle. A couple of the cracks were hairline and went all the way through.

It was old, and had been beat up a lot, but I knew it was important enough to keep.

The traveler saw my emotion while looking at it, memories rising to the surface unasked for. “You feel something from that axe,” he said.

“I feel like I am the axe,” I said, and I cried hard and for a long time. Then I woke up.

The dream is still clinging to me like spiderwebs as I write this. I’ve been thinking about it all morning as I drank my coffee. I guess I think I understand it.

Even though I often feel past my best use, and worn out, and sometimes on the verge of breaking altogether, I know the tool is still useful, and has some days of work left in it. I know there’s something important and valuable about being around for a long time and having put my edge to hard and rough work and tasks.

I can see the notches, and the ugliness and the cracks, but I think there’s something here worth saving, worth repairing, and worth seeing do more work.

Keep your head up - there’s a lot more work to be done.

8.19.26

Intake:
I am often re-reading the Havamal. There’s a wisdom in it that continues to reward revisits year after year, and just when I think I’ve remembered every verse, there’s a nuance, or a shift in the way I perceive a certain line, or a new way to apply it to something in my life.

As I work on the second installment of my article series on its wisdom for guests, hosts and travelers, I’ve been doing just that. Going back through it again, deeply, letting it sink in.

Some passages make me smile as they conjure old memories. Other parts sadden as I consider all the friends I’ve made and lost, or those who have gone on into the great next journey before me, who are being hosted at the great hall of their fathers.

There’s a grimoire in the PA Dutch tradition, written by a Johann Hohman, called “Long Lost Friend.” I always loved that title.

Good books, the truly excellent ones, are like that. Rare. An old tool worth saving. It’s worth revisiting them often, and listening to what they have to say. Every time you meet up, neither of you are quite the same, and the relationship grows with age, time, and experience.

Output:I’m writing this week’s field report a few days in advance, to make sure it gets out on time. “Life happens,” so they say, and I try to stay prepared.

This week, I had the pleasure of working two days in a row with a couple of the guys in the Wolves for a combined 25+ hours, sanding and refinishing the floor of the longhall. It seems like “layers” and worn out wood are a recurring theme for me this week…

Running that drum sander over floors that have seen over a decade of gatherings, beer drinking, fighting, blood, fire, tears, love and hatred, and watching it come clean, smooth, beautiful underneath.

Looking at my friends, my brothers, committed to finishing the job, even though it was going on 1am, all smiling, cracking jokes and proud of the work and the gift they were giving to our other brothers of our time and our effort.

Thinking about the future generations that might stand in that same place, maybe looking at a black and white photo of the guys who stood in there now, saying, “these were brothers in the old crew, back in the day. They laid out the way it’s supposed to be done.”

I hope the work I’ve done has lasting value.

I know the work I’ve done has had value for those I love here and now, and most days, that knowledge is enough to make everything worthwhile.

Treasure what you’ve got. Work hard to maintain it, and remember that even what is stained, worn, broken down or made ugly by the beatdown of the years often has a beauty and power beneath all that. You just have to work hard to expose the best parts of it. Do the work.

Takeaway:

Chuck Bukowski famously said, “find what you love and let it kill you.”

But Chuck was a miserable drunk.

I’d alter that statement and say instead, “find what you love and give your life to it.”

Wholly, completely, and without reservations. Leaving something in the tank is for the uncertain, the unsure, the fearful and the cautious. We get to live once, what the hell is the point of “loving cautiously?”

Give of yourself to those you care about with everything you have.

Show them often, and always, through everything at your disposal, but most especially through your actions. Act purely, not for reward, or with resentment. Hold onto few expectations and do what needs to be done for its own sake.

Life is worth living, but you have to have something worth living for. Let the nihilists let life kill them. Let us live for what is good.