Large Fierce Mammal

Piper Bill Millin was the personal piper to Simon Fraser, Lord Lovat, and led Lovat’s commando brigade into the surf of Sword Beach on D-Day. While the Crow is unidentified, this statue of Bill Millin stands in Caen, France (Source: The Heroic ‘Mad Bagpiper’ Of D-Day)

Songbirds

By LFM

When you think of “songbirds” and sweet melodies they make,
What you’re about to learn will seem a terrible mistake,
But Truth is Truth, however harsh and earthy be the song,
Uncaring of opinions where things do and don’t belong.

I speak, of course, of Crows, long may they flock and croak and caw!
A perfect child of Nature and devoid of any flaw!
Yet their overt musicality to many counts as din,
Such is rudely superficial as their Music lies within!

As one who’s called to Bagpipes may attract unfair disdain,
And bitter enmity from those who’d think him better slain,
There’s yet a brilliant number who strong take the other lean,
For Pipes and Crows, but Love and Hate, with nothing in between.

The Crow’s sweet caw, the Piper’s skirl, hear now this call to arms,
These serve a good far greater than mere causing of alarms,
For primal heart and spirit lies behind what comes to ear,
And lesson learned that many things are not as they appear.

Source: HERE

This Vegetative State

By LFM

A plant may heal, a plant may kill,
‘Tis neither good nor evil.
And left alone in sweet repose
Will rarely cause upheaval.

Each has its Way along its course
As Nature would decree it,
And any good or evil there
Takes human eyes to see it.

Bent one way to human will
A plant may end your pain,
Or save the life of one you love
As hand and skill would fain.

Another plant may nourish
And well feed the belly’s need
With infusions of vitality
From but a “lowly” weed.

Another bloom, bent darker still,
May serve as ward to menace
For he of heavy purse
And mortal enemies in Venice.

For those who treat with spirits
In dark wilds scarce known to men,
Grow sprigs of Power, and what they are,
Few but the Shamans ken.

So learn the Ways of plants my son
Lest come to bitter end,
You grind things under foot on which
Our very lives depend.

Source: HERE

This poem sprang spontaneously from the offering of a very tasty clutch of nuts proferred to my hand this morning by Mrs. LFM with the words, “I went shopping hungry.”

The advice that follows is something we’ve all heard, even as some of us know better than to take it too far, if at all, because Hunters and Cooks know better.

A Song of Groceries

By LFM

We’re warned to never shop for food
When hunger rides along,
Lest your real needs give way
To things that don’t belong.

For there the merest gust of wind,
No stronger than a fart,
May blow from shelves the damnedest things
And land them in your cart.

Are ya FEELIN’ me???

I would like you to read the following passage, consider if it is something that could be said of you, and if not then whether you need to broaden your horizons by paying more attention:

Some of the greatest Teachers I’ve ever had lived under rotting logs, swarmed me out of a half buried and long abandoned paint can, or charged me with horns lowered. Still others accepted and tolerated my presence for reasons of their own, and coming forward I will not limit my quest for knowledge to its delivery from those of my own Tribe. ~ To Sting or Not to Sting

Continue now to this rumination on the symbiosis of Predator and Prey, holding True whether or not you choose to participate:

The Hunter, likewise a part of the forest and regardless of species, is not alone in his predation, for the imperatives of competitors, his own kind and others, must be recognized and understood …

… Each seeks a quarry that evolution has imbued with an absolute oneness with its place in the scheme of things, and that lives its life not in the expectation of being hunted, but in the absolute certainty that it is being hunted at every moment. ~ On Hunting

Now, coming as we do from a species that has learned to substitute words for substance and expect absolution from consequences, there is this fundamental Truth on the subject of Communication: (more…)

Image courtesy of The Swordmaster’s Grimoire.

For those of you who don’t recognize the Latin phrase in today’s title, I will point you to my explanatory article A Bit About In Ferro Veritas which was published here more than a decade ago as part of a series that you can peruse by clicking here.

Let that stand as an introduction to today’s guest speaker, none other than the Esteemed Swordmaster Adam Crown who as always speaks to Universal Truths through the Veracity of steel. I encourage all of you to shut up, put your tail in neutral, and watch each of these brief video presentations to its conclusions. If you learn nothing else, it will be not to judge the value of a lesson by its framing. (more…)

LFM Photo — Click to enlarge.

“The steel is strong and solid providing a clear and imposing shell, while the sand shifts and subtly changes form depending on gravity and the action of the wind.” ~ J. Turner

A recent business matter at a far flung corner of the province afforded an opportunity to harness revenue generation in service to immediate gratification of the spirit of adventure. And so it was that on our return trip we espied the tip of this object projecting above its surrounding trees. An adjacent plaque explains its reason for being there …

LFM Photo — Click to enlarge.

The Artist’s website is here and her specific page for the piece featuring a dazzling autumnal photo of it is here.

“Edge presented, broad and stout, Point thrust clean through clouds of doubt …” ~ LFM (LFM Photo — Click to enlarge)

Learning of the sculpture’s intended dynamic interaction with wind and sand (in Winter, no doubt also with snow), and engaged on every level by its aggressive presence, this bubbled up …

Force of Nature

By LFM

Wrought of steel by Human hands,
And thrust toward the sky it stands
To slice the wind and pierce the mist,
Embodying the Artist’s gist.

Edge presented, broad and stout,
Point thrust clean through clouds of doubt,
Hilt in grip of Mother Earth,
Who gave its very essence birth.

So gritty tides now ebb and flow
Before this blade’s persistent blow,
In noble cause or basest crime,
Steel ever shapes the sands of Time.

LFM Photo — Click to enbiggen!

This year’s iteration of my natal day, being the annual observance of delight for those who wish me well, and disappointment for those who don’t, fell as always, coincident with St. George’s Day. The tableau above consists of representative physical manifestations of the former.

Clockwise from top left:

• The latest from my Esteemed Friend Stephen F. Kaufman who bestowed upon me the honour of writing the preface. This (autographed) copy arrived from New York with a perfect Swordsman’s timing, upon the very morning of! This broad spectrum approach to his much earlier, and best selling, interpretation of Musashi’s Book of Five Rings will see a deeper treatment here as weeks progress with me busy not being dead and all.
• The exquisite expressions of Love showered upon me by our three most excellent Sons; Viktor, Lukas, and Maksim; included this advice from middle LFM Son Lukas. But 8 years of age yet so solidly imbued with the Family ethos!
• An unexpected delight in the form of this very nice specimen of a British 1796 Pattern Infantry Officer’s Spadroon courtesy of Peter Thompson of whom I have previous written. Timely because interactions with idiots do happen notwithstanding.

Most of the day was spent in the divine company of Mrs. LFM whose gift of perfection all year through is a feast for my senses, and upon this singular day gives “birthday booty” its own special meaning.

Horse and Train (1954) by Alex Colville

“Indeed the safest road to Hell is the gradual one—the gentle slope, soft underfoot, without sudden turnings, without milestones, without signposts.” ~ C. S. Lewis, The Screwtape Letters

The road in this poem is certainly not the safest one described above. It’s rather steep, hard and potholed, all turnings sudden or otherwise are denied as a matter of faith, and while it may indeed be festooned with milestones and signposts, they are rendered inconsequential through those controlling travel upon it insisting the trip be prosecuted in Stygian obscurity.

Linear Thinking

By LFM

We careen down a road
As a planet sized load
In a handbasket woven from lies,
And a guy in the rear
Says he knows how to steer,
But just hopes he’s the last one that dies.

We rolled out of town
With the sun going down
And no headlights we knew how to use,
But the guy and his friends
Said the road has no bends,
True believers have nothing to lose.

Those suggesting a way
To turn night into day,
Who would dare even striking a spark,
Find its light quickly snuffed,
All revealings rebuffed,
By who’d rather speed on in the dark.

No tickets were sold
Ere the handbasket rolled
But the toll road will call for its due,
And the one who would steer
Leads his minions to sneer,
At the bill as they all look at you.

For whatever the toll,
You must swallow it whole,
In a room where the pachyderms sway,
Where it’s best not to stare,
Nor admit that they’re there,
Let alone give them names you can’t say.

Sex sells, and no mistake! Click to enbiggen. (Mrs. LFM Photo)

As I write, we are in the midst of a predicted three day fall of light, drifting snow creating conditions ideal for living exclusively off the avails of Hearth and Home. Never one to regard an equine endowment in the dentition, the exquisite Mrs. LFM (a sweet diversion in her own right) looked out upon the expanse of fresh powder and saw the gift of a key ingredient.

But first, to set the mood.

Bradford Angier‘s excellent book How to Stay Alive in the Woods was the text book for the hands on, and on the ground teachings of the Mentors I was deemed Worthy to grow up among. Coming from a way of being in the woods as known and practiced around the time I was personally too busy being born to care much about the outdoors, the book has gone through several editions since then and is not surprisingly still in print.

Mr. Angier had a tendency to begin chapters with bits of Wisdom by way of quotations relevant to the point about to be made, a favourite of which came to mind as today’s lesson was gelling toward fruition:

“There is usually little object in traveling tough just for the sake of being tough.” ~ Hudson’s Bay Company

Another is …

“A party living off the country must know how to get full value from everything available especially in the way of food.” ~ Royal Canadian Mounted Police

In recognition of those iconic expressions of Northern Spirit we will today look at Mrs. LFM’s deft use of resources. (more…)

Previously from Weihnachtsjäger School of Charm:

• Introductory Pontification
• Getting Your Head Right

Today’s Lesson

Timely Advice is Never Too Late

By LFM

Your use to the World comes from skills that you have,
And the things that you know how to do.
Some come by Nature, while others are learned,
Adding Value to all that is you.

But whose acts aren’t a match for the words that he speaks
Needs must hark to this lesson of old —
If you prove that you can’t or won’t do what you say,
There’ll be nought but to do as you’re told.

If you’ve spent much time here, and certainly as these lessons progress, you will know that I use terms, examples, and metaphors that may be controversial among those parts of the population prone to focusing on the wording instead of the meaning.

Whether your family, friends, colleagues, heirs, successors, or assigns agree with any specific utterance, singly or en masse, should be of no consequence to you for everyone is the villain in someone’s story, no man is of a piece, and even a blind squirrel finds a nut once in a while. (more…)