This morning I was at my mother in-law’s house putting up a canopy over the patio with my nephew. After that we stopped for lunch at a local pub, and we spent some time catching up and talking about music, which is something in which we both share a deep and common interest.

When I got home I decided it was time to trim the bonsaied Rosemary in the front yard. Rosemary, among other things, is a symbol of remembrance and growth. It’s also connected with protection and fidelity.

The fact that I’m writing this at a little after three on a cool and sunny Monday afternoon reminds me of just how blessed I am at this current stage of my life, and of the many things which have led me to this place – not the least of which is that certain unknowable yet ever-present something that has guided my every step along the way…

You never know where your decisions will take you.

For instance: standing in the garage on that chilly January morning, fashioning the bowl of an extremely crude spoon with my very first hook knife a little over seven years ago, I would never have expected that someday I would receive an invitation to talk about how the craft of spoon carving had influenced my own personal recovery and my spiritual healing work with others.

But that is exactly what happened on Easter Sunday.

The results of that invitation can be heard here:

Reclaiming Authenticity, April 10, 2024 | BBS Radio

In addition to being a very good friend, Jim Houck, the host of “Reclaiming Authenticity”, is also a counselor and a deeply dedicated spiritual practitioner.

I’ve decided to set this interview adrift with the sincere hope that those who find it receive as much from listening to it as I did from participating in the experience itself…

The splitting and stacking wrapped up earlier than I estimated it would. All told, I ended up with a little more than half-a-cord of pristine Silver Maple for the fire.

I found it piled out by the curb in front of a house I’d passed on one of my evening walks around the neighborhood; yet another indication of just how abundant my life currently seems to be.

I’m not really sure of where this is all headed, and I don’t actually feel as if I need to know. For now, it’s a chilly Sunday afternoon, the ornamental Pear trees across the street are blooming as if someone dared them to, and I’m sitting in my woodshop listening to Tom Waits, completely aware of every single bit of it…

Now that the weather has started to break, I’m back to evening walks around the neighborhood.

Last night I noticed some pieces of Peach wood buried amongst a pile of branches left by the side of the road after some of the trees in a local orchard had been pruned.

I’ve never worked with Peach before and this is a little bit narrower than I’m used to; but it’s still pretty green, so I’ll billet it up and get it under water until an appropriate project presents itself.

I’m learning to work with what’s in front of me these days; focusing less on outcomes and more on processes. It’s only taken a little shy of sixty-one years to get here. All things considered, I’d say that’s pretty good…

Webster’s online dictionary defines windfall as “something (such as a tree or fruit) blown down by the wind” or “an unexpected, unearned, or sudden gain or advantage.” In reading this, I’m reminded of the horse chestnuts we gathered as children from my friend’s front yard or the hours we’d spend flinging the overly ripened fruit that littered the ground beneath the Crabapple tree that grew in the field across the alleyway behind our houses.

It seems as if a sizeable number of my childhood’s happiest memories are the product of some kind of windfall or another.

The same can be said of my carving, which almost exclusively sources its wood from fallen and donated trees. It’s reassuring to think that the beginning of so many afternoons in the woodshop can be traced back to the generosity of others.

One such benefactor gifted me with the spalted Butternut seen in the picture above. The two days I spent processing the wood yielded three large tubs of billets which are now waiting patiently on the floor of my shop alongside containers of Pennsylvania Cherry, Black Walnut, Sweetgum, and others that likewise ended up there through the agency of providence.

In my spiritual work, I’ve often been presented with the idea of honoring the gift; of discovering what it is we’re here to do, and making the choices that best serve whatever that happens to be. In this way, we shape – and are shaped by – the very essence of our existence.

I hope to remember this whenever I find myself picking up a slab of wood and setting to work on it with one of the many tools I’ve also received as a gift; to take the time to carve in a little bit of gratitude for the generosity that continues to make all of this possible…

There’s a phenomenon I’ve experienced more than once when returning to my carving tools after laying them aside for a while. I’ve noticed that the work seems to flow a little easier; and I’m often surprised to find myself more intrinsically aligned with the natures of wood and blade than I’ve ever been before.

It’s as if that time of apparent rest was simply that…apparent; and although I was never really consciously aware of it, deep down in the marrow some hidden wisdom had settled in and was bubbling its way up towards fruition.

Biologists who study the life cycle of black bears tell us that a mother bear can birth and nurse a litter of cubs while hibernating in her den. Through a process not yet fully understood, she drastically reduces her metabolism; and from that place of mystery, new life emerges and takes hold.

Craftwork and recovery each share a bit of something in common with this.

Those of us who practice either occasionally find ourselves in dark and secret places. The terrain there is often difficult and unknowable, and traversing it requires more than a little faith that somewhere deep in the mystery something powerful and impactful is at work.

While we may not ever see its face or fully grasp its nature, its effects are there, and witnessed in the work of days and hands…

We collect our pain into bundles of black cloth and tobacco; gather them in; and crawl silently into the palpable medicine of the lodge as we have done so many times before.

Outside the seasoned Oak burns brightly, imparting heat as ancient wisdom into the Grandfathers, now fully awake. They’ve traveled miles and many millennia to share their stony stories; and we sit, huddled in the darkness, ready to listen.

After the sweat we take our prayers and offer them to the fire. One by one they disappear, releasing those things we once held so tightly to ourselves – at times perhaps, even more tightly than our own names.

Lately it seems there’s a healthy portion of letting go to the work; the opening up of secret places, and waiting in the spaces left behind.

Waiting…

Nothing so much about crafting this time as recovery. And yet with both, there is a shaping of something integral in the process; and in that shaping, a removal of that which is no longer needed, through practice often arduous and repetitive…

I have always felt a deep and personal connection to the cool, dampening mystery of Autumn. Shadows lengthen; and the trees draw in the last fading flickers of light, only to throw them back into the world before resigning themselves to the long, dark, healing sleep of Winter.

Leaves once green – now red and gold – whither and fade to brown, and the trees turn their attention towards the letting go of that which no longer serves them. . . and then they will rest; gathering their strength for next year’s growth.

Working with the bodies of dying trees makes tangible the transformative qualities of the cycle of death and rebirth. While it is certainly my hands and tools that shape these items, one could also argue that these are simply the means through which they enter the world.

Viewed from this perspective, my role in all of this seems far less that of creator than of midwife. . .

…you look upon your work and call it good…

I spent a couple of hours this morning repairing the edge of one of my carving axes.

After that I broke for lunch and worked in the kitchen until almost 4 o’clock.

Now I’m relaxing on the patio with a cup of coffee and a piece of cake; the events of the day settling in around me.

No matter what happens beyond this point, nothing can ever change the fact that my life was blessed with the gift of these last few hours…

There is an obvious sense of ritual about the process. Laying out the tools. Stropping the blades. Testing their sharpness against the hair on my left arm.

When speaking of ceremony, we often talk of entering liminal space; of crossing a line into that place where one experiences directly the presence of something beyond words – something powerful, unknown, and unknowable.

And yet, there is also an awareness of something familiar.

There’s a definite feeling of coming home…although we’re not quite certain what – or where – that home even is.

I find myself entering this place almost every time I pick up my tools to carve. Even if the billet I’m working on is as square as my current level of mastery will allow. Even if the template is precisely traced and my tools honed to their keenest edge, there’s still a bit of the Trickster in the recipe: a hidden inclusion in the wood, a random twisting of the grain, the occasional exchange of greetings with a neighbor walking by that momentarily pulls me back across the line from that place of silence and mystery.

And yet, these things are all still part of the ritual. Their very presence changes the objects in my hands; changes the hands themselves. It’s this transformative quality that lures me to the ceremony of this work – the slow and determined removal of excess matter obscuring the truth of whatever lies beneath it…