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As is my habit in the mornings, I sit outside in what I now refer to as my sit spot. Have a cup of tea, do my rehab exercises and watch the surroundings waiting for the bird life to arrive. Not much was happening so I started scanning You tube and came across an old Chinese story told by Shia Lebeouf and how it effected him.
Your asking well what has this got to do with bushcraft? Well I was sitting there not getting any bushcraft done. My knee aching, my back aching, my shoulders aching and not finding any motivation to train, study or write. Then I listened to the story and my attitude changed.
I’m still in pain but my mind reset and I wanted to write this before having any pills and I’m sick of having pills.. Ive been pushing myself to get back on my feet and came to that place where your either working flat out on good days, doing nothing on bad days and doped up to the eye balls but not focusing on what is happening. Which is what happens when you have more bad days than good days. I didn’t need to focus I just needed to accept this is where I am at the moment and chip away a little every day.
The Parable of the Chinese Farmer
Once upon a time there was a Chinese farmer whose horse ran away. That evening, all of his neighbors came around to commiserate. They said, “We are so sorry to hear your horse has run away. This is most unfortunate.” The farmer said, “Maybe.” The next day the horse came back bringing seven wild horses with it, and in the evening everybody came back and said, “Oh, isn’t that lucky. What a great turn of events. You now have eight horses!” The farmer again said, “Maybe.”
The following day his son tried to break one of the horses, and while riding it, he was thrown and broke his leg. The neighbors then said, “Oh dear, that’s too bad,” and the farmer responded, “Maybe.” The next day the conscription officers came around to conscript people into the army, and they rejected his son because he had a broken leg. Again all the neighbors came around and said, “Isn’t that great!” Again, he said, “Maybe.”
The whole process of nature is an integrated process of immense complexity, and it’s really impossible to tell whether anything that happens in it is good or bad — because you never know what will be the consequence of the misfortune; or, you never know what will be the consequences of good fortune.
The moral of this story, is, of course, that no event, in and of itself, can truly be judged as good or bad, lucky or unlucky, fortunate or unfortunate, but that only time will tell the whole story. Additionally, no one really lives long enough to find out the ‘whole story,’ so it could be considered a great waste of time to judge minor inconveniences as misfortunes or to invest tons of energy into things that look outstanding on the surface, but may not pay off in the end.
The wiser thing, then, is to live life in moderation, keeping as even a temperament as possible, taking all things in stride, whether they originally appear to be ‘good’ or ‘bad.’ Life is much more comfortable and comforting if we merely accept what we’re given and make the best of our life circumstances. Rather than always having to pass judgement on things and declare them as good or bad, it would be better to just sit back and say, “It will be interesting to see what happens.”
Why not simply declare that everything is good and seek to find the good in the bad? The present is perfect.
My first night of Bird Language with Andrew the Bird Guy. My reasons for getting into Bird language were while having my leg in a brace for six months I would sit in my caravan doorway feeding the Rosella Parrots and listening to their conversations and wondered what they were saying to each other.
Where I’m currently located I’m not far from a major highway. Not much in the way of wildlife. I have Major Mitchells, Kookaburras first thing in the morning (5am), Minor birds, Sparrows and Magpies. Were supposed to be on the look out for Pied Currawongs and Owlet Night Jars But I have never heard their calls in this area. Its a two hour drive to decent bush land now.
Several good books were mentioned including The Peregrine by J.A. Baker and Landmarks by Robert Macfarlane. Ive noticed that the birds in my front yard have differing feeding times. The Sparrows feed at a different time to the Minor birds and then the Magpies come in after them.
The Sit Spot :
My past sit spots I have watched the Rosella’s mentioned above and had one place where I could sit for hours watching Wedge Tailed Eagles soar through the thermals. Here I have a chair in my front yard where I sit of a morning and do my rehab exercises for my knee with a cup of tea and talk to the birds. The Magpies have become so used to me that they now fly down to greet me every time I go outside to carve a spoon, to watch the traffic go past or take photos of the sunset..
I listen to their calls. The young ones wanting to be fed, the teenagers calling for mates. The mother takes care of them all with a care I have not seen before. I believe they usually throw out the babies after the first year, however they have several generations here in the yard with her.
The Corella’s nested in the trees across the road for one night. The noise lasted till three in the morning, hundreds of them. They seem to have moved on, not enough food in the area maybe?
Other than birds : The Peach trees have just finished fruiting , many rotted on the trees from the Black Parrots raiding the trees. The Plums are almost ready to pick. The Ribwort Plantain and the Comfrey are coming up every where. No bees but plenty of wasps. Not the pain in the butt ones, the ones that hunt spiders. Cabbage Moths are appearing but not bothering the vegetable patch. I can hear the odd Kookaburra in the background. The Sunsets are different everyday. I make a point of walking out the front to watch the changes every night.
I had just emailed 160 OT’s Occupational Therapists in the hope of finding one that could do a functional assessment for me and was taking a break and I always like to check out Dan Ward at Ochoco Bushcraft after dealing with medical issues rather than have a beer when dealing with the medical system. He was talking about having a backup buchcraft knife in a cross-draw rig on his latest video. He designed the knife with Sagebrush Customs to have a short blade but a full size grip which is missing on most neck knives.
It occurred to me that I had done something similar but had never thought of actually calling it a backup blade. I like larger blades as a primary 6 to 8 inches. I currently have a LT Wright Sospes on order with a 6 inch blade length. However I find when doing the normal bushcrafty jobs on courses a smaller knife length is handier for carving chores. So what I had done is modify the sheath of an ESSE RB3 to a cross-draw to carry on my left side for use with smaller jobs.
Has anyone else thought of having a similar system?
