Becoming the Sword

It's an ever-growing trend to go one of two ways in today's society: we either embrace our emotions and become seen as weak-willed and wishy-washy (or in a positive light, nurturing and empathetic -- though the extremes taken are seldom so positive), or we become so hardened and callous to the world around us that we lose the capacity for true empathy.  This is particularly visible in the current trends in high-emotive/increasingly permissive parenting and low-empathy/increasingly self-centered teenagers -- one is most certainly partly responsible for the other, and the whole thing is certainly cyclical to previous generations.  This pattern of personal growth reminds me greatly of working with raw metals.  If steel is left too soft, it becomes unable to perform the task; if it becomes too hard and rigid, it snaps under the pressure far too easily.

I can say that I've seen both extremes from a very personal perspective.  As a child, I was very sensitive and the rigors of bullying and general frustrations left me little more than a weak and pitiable mess, both physically and emotionally.  I was very much the unrefined ore: soft, malleable, easily impressed upon by my surroundings, and easily broken for that weakness.  I knew what it felt like to be powerless in that environment; to feel as though there was no hope and no way out of the emotional quagmire that I had found myself residing in.  I would hardly call what I had in that period of my existence a "life".  I had a miserable time at school, and had grown to loathe most of my peers, but most of all I had grown to loathe and despise myself for my weakness.

When I removed myself from the situation (at the end of 8th grade, I insisted upon home schooling to complete my basic education), the first refinements were able to begin.  Those weaknesses that I had come to detest in myself were gradually worn away through a combination of simply removing myself from the triggers that made me so miserable, using humor to lash out at things which angered me, and beginning the steps to lose the morbid-obesity label that I had earned myself up until that point.  This path continued until very recently, in all honesty, when I began to realize just how little concern I had left for those who I don't know personally, and how readily I could simply switch off even that distinction.  It could be said that I had become so hardened to the world around me that I was on the verge of shattering.

In keeping with the metaphor, I had reached the point where a proper smith must decide whether to cease at the too-hardened point that has been reached, or to scrap the piece and start anew.  Of course, it's not really that simple to just discard part of yourself, it's more a question of softening that hardened outer-layer that's been tempered into place -- undoing the process, in a sense -- that matters.  You have to strive for that balance where you'll neither bend -- as the soft metal will do -- nor break -- as the hardened steel would.  Much as swordsmithing, this is a fine art that takes a lifetime to perfect, and I am by no means a master in finding that balance.

I still consider myself to be too hardened in many ways.  I lock any sort of outward show of emotions inside myself until I reach a breaking point, and even then that "break" is very controlled and carefully measured (always in solitude, mind you -- I think I'd be far too self-conscious to express it in front of someone else).  Much like tempered steel, I use the fueled fire of anger and frustration to hold my hardened exterior together.  Not the healthiest methods, but they have certainly proven efficient over the years.  Further exploration of the spiritual part of me in the last few years has made it much easier to comprehend a lot of the reasons that I react and handle things the way that I do, not to mention the aid in developing better coping mechanisms than turning myself into my own whipping post all the time.  I've been experimenting with the concept of resonant meditation (emotional resonance, not auditory) to remedy that, with some success of late.

The ultimate point of the process is this: Without being properly forged one cannot become fulfilled in their true purpose, and if one gives in to the forging too readily they can become far too rigid to sustain their integrity.  One must become as the sword to reach that fine balance of flexibility and strength in order to know their true potential.  It is a process that never truly ends.

The Warrior's Journey

For as long as I can remember, I've been fascinated with the ideal of the warrior.  More specifically, I've been fascinated by the ideal of the warrior as presented in ancient Europe, when warfare meant more than training to use guns and explosives, and battles were fought face to face.  I was drawn to the ideal that the medieval warrior presented: strong, skilled, fierce, and proud.  When most kids were playing with trucks, I was out in the yard swinging a plastic axe that I bought for Halloween and modified to be a bit more durable.  I was sparring with thin air, but it really does go back that far for me.  Eventually -- I can't quite pin-point when, but I want to say I was around 10 or so -- I transitioned to focus mainly on swords rather than axes, and the sword has been my passion ever since (to the point where I currently own a polypropelyne hand-and-a-half waster that I train with every few days, as well as a pair of matching training daggers -- and I've got plans to get my first real wooden shield in the very near future).

That warrior ideal has influenced my outlook on my philosophy quite a bit over the years, as well.  The deeper that I got into the Celtic traditions, it was the Morrigan and stories of warriors like Cu Chulainn that had me enthralled.  I wanted to emulate the uncompromising and indomitable spirit that the warrior tales presented.  I had always been headstrong as it was, and felt the need to take it upon myself to protect the people that I cared about.  I had a volatile temper that I had some difficulties controlling at that stage.  In my youth, I thought the free-flowing berserk battle rage was the epitome of power (I was an angry young man, and bitter in a lot of ways), but I grew up and quite quickly realized that there were flaws in that.  This is where the journey comes into play.

In exploring the concepts of the rest of the world, I picked up on other warrior cultures.  The vikings were striking in that they reflected a very similar berserk styling to Cu Chulainn that reinforced the ideal a bit at first.  The concept that a valorous death was the key to being judged worthy of the afterlife was appealing on a visceral level, but the more that I matured, the more I saw how impractical that was in a modern world.  Dying by the sword has become an antiquated notion.  So instead, I looked to more "disciplined" cultures for inspiration.  I'd always been intrigued by martial arts, and some of the concepts of orders like the Shao Lin seemed to fit my needs quite well -- self control and meditation being chief among them.  This is ultimately how I learned to control my temper, and I've had solid reins on it ever since.  It's a lot like forging a good weapon; you can't just take a piece of raw ore and expect it to turn into a sword.  You have to smelt it, hammer it until the metal is without flaws, and forge it into the right shape for it to be of any use.

When I started to branch and fine tune out my personal philosophies, the warrior ideal played a large part in those selections.  When I fully dedicated myself to the Celtic traditions, I chose to devote myself to the Morrigan, first and foremost.  This was an easy decision.  Not only did the Morrigan have the aspect of a war deity, but she also represented fertility and death, and as a triple-goddess, embodied the cyclical path of life.  Cernunnos was another heavily inspirational figure, as a god of nature and the hunt -- a different type of warrior in my view.  As my beliefs expanded, Odin was brought into the fold.  Like the Morrigan, Odin was associated with war, death, and rebirth of sorts, and like Cernunnos he was associated with the wild hunt.  Fitting further into what I value on a symbolic level, Odin is also heavily associated with the raven, a personal totem of mine that I often meditate on for insight and knowledge of my own reality.

On a semi-related note, I've had a rough couple of months because I'd gone so long without keeping these ideals in mind.  I started to be a little on-edge, and short-tempered.  Long story short, going back to basics and getting back into my sword training and meditation has really gotten me back on track.  It's all about having that outlet for any frustrations to be vented in a healthy way, and giving myself time to think and really center myself again.  It's easier said than done most times, but it all goes back to the sword analogy -- you've got to be forged before you can be functional.