Interlude of a carving: The light is coming……..

I’m always interested in looking forward toward the future. Carving out new ways of looking at things.
Herbie Hancock

The legend of the light

                 

Prelude to a carving, The LEGEND of the LIGHT

 

 

ONE TREE WOODWORKS presents: The legend of the light.

Brought to you by: Wood and Words

Written by: Tohner Jackson

Directed by: Tohner Jackson

adaptation from a novella by: Tohner Jackson

The Legend of the Light:

The legend of the light was something he had heard of since he was a youth. It was stories that had been sung to him in the form of lullabies as a child. When he had finally  come of age for his own vision quest he asked the elders about the light. They reluctantly told him that the light was merely a legend created by our forefathers and that the light never existed and even if it did seeing it would surely ruin his life. This troubled the youth for he had dreamt that the light was searching for him. For the last 18 years of his life every night he had the same dream, in this dream there was nothing but infinite darkness and within this dark world there was a tunnel and at the end of it was this light. The light represented pure truth, a force so powerful once held one would never be the same. Once seen one would never forget. Because with this truth all the shackles of life would be removed fear, anxiety, doubt, regret, hate. After touching the light even love itself would be different. Though the dream would always end the same with a hand outstretched reaching from the static darkness just out of reach….holding the light.

The youth refused to  believe the elders, his dream was all to real for the light not to exist. The youth set out for his vision quest to find the truth, to find the light. He traveled for 7 days through woods so thick they barely allowed the sunlight to make its way to the ground. For seven nights he had his dream and every night it ended the same. Every night that is except for the 7 night on this night his life was to change. It was a remarkably dark night almost completely void of light the moon and stars hid behind the clouds.

The dream began the same way it always did the black static tunnel, the outstretched hand holding the light. But this time the light spoke and although the words were not of a language he had heard before  he had never understood anything more clearly. The outstretched hand moved closer reaching further out of the static darkness.

The elders had been wrong about the light it was not just a story……but had they been wrong about it ruining his life? When the youth awoke it was still dark his eyes watered from seeing  the light. It was time to go home this was to be the last day of his quest though he had seen what needed to be seen his heart was now saddened.  Now that he had seen the truth nobody would ever believe what it had told him. He knew he could never go home again. The legend of the light had found him. He now was the carrier of the light and the truth.

So was born the new legend of the light………………….

 

Wood…Working….On….Zen

 

 

 

“Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing
and rightdoing there is a field.
I’ll meet you there.

When the soul lies down in that grass
the world is too full to talk about.”
― Rumi

Meditation Bench

Hobbit(tual) Meditation Bench

© Onetreewoodwork

Dining Table

Material: Spalted Figured Sycamore, Inlaid stone from the Animas River, Colorado

Usage: Dining table

Carving Homage to Starry Night

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Starry Night

Starry Night…..Prelude to a carving..Homage…

The Meaning Of Vincent Van Gogh Starry Night

Vincent Van Gogh Starry Night
The painting by Vincent Van Gogh of the Starry Night has been duplicated time and time again by artists all over the world. It is one of the most recognizable pieces of art and is available in posters and many other forms in people’s homes. The Vincent Van Gogh Starry Night has a significant meaning because of where Van Gogh was when he painted the picture as well as his hopes and dreams prior.

When Van Gogh was younger, he was thinking about dedicating his life to those living in poverty through evangelization. This religious undertaking helped him to create the Starry Night painting that everyone knows today. He was in an asylum in 1889 when he painted the image of the night sky with stars sparkling in the moonlight. Count the stars and there will be 11 of them.

Genesis 37:9 reads, “…Behold, I have dreamed a dream more, and behold, the sun and the moon and the eleven stars made obeisance to me.” It is believed that the Van Gogh Starry Night is derived from this religious inspiration, which could very well be true because of the number of stars in the painting.

There are a significant amount of aspects to the Starry Night that attracts people to the painting beyond the bright colors of blue and yellow. The features are very exaggerated. Each of the stars has its own orb around them, helping people to view the movement as if Van Gogh was in a daydream when he wrote it. It could also have been part of his hallucinations and delusions, part of which makes the Starry Night such a significantly important piece in the art world.

The night sky and the crescent moon puts a person at ease, which, given where the Vincent Van Gogh Starry Night was created, an asylum, it reasons to believe that Van Gogh painted this in order to put his mind at rest for a little while.

When the stars are followed down into the rolling hills of the horizon, this demonstrates the world that Vincent Van Gogh left behind when he entered into the asylum. The windows of the buildings are reminiscent of the homes he lived in as a child and there is a steeple of a church that was included in the Vincent Van Gogh Starry Night as a way of remembering how he had wanted to dedicate his life to religious actions.

A deeper look at the Starry Night and one can see that there is a very large structure in the darkness on the left. This is often thought to mean how Van Gogh felt isolated from the rest of the world. This was his view of life in general and could speak a lot about his peace of mind when he painted this image. He had admitted himself into Saint Remy, however he still felt very isolated from the world. Most of his work during this time was of the asylum itself as well as the world outside of the asylum, usually at night.

The meaning of Vincent Van Gogh Starry Night has a lot to do with his mental state at the time that it was painted. Everyone views it as bright and uplifting, however when broken down piece by piece, it is often viewed as an ill man who is trying to have one last piece of contact with the outside world as he remembers it.

Nordic puukko inspired knife

I love knives, I have since I was a kid and my dad took me to Academy Sports store to buy me my first pocket knife to celebrate a year on the honor roll. Good grades were not always forthcoming and sometimes some bribery needed to happen. They are art, they are tool and I have had one on me almost everyday for the last 17 years. Today I decided to make a knife inspired by the Nordic puukko knife which is one of my favorite designs.

Taken from the all knowing Wikipedia :
The basic components of a puukko are a hilt and a blade along with a sheath, which can be attached to a belt. The blade is short, typically less than 100 mm.[1]
The flat back allows the user to place a thumb or his other hand on it to concentrate the force. Puukkos are used both as a tool for all kinds of carving, especially to work wood, and to clean the catches of anglers and hunters. Some puukko designs have a slightly upwards or downwards curved point, depending on what purpose the knife has. A hunting puukko’s tip is often curved downwards to make skinning and opening the animal easier and less messy. The blade is relatively short, usually about the same length as the handle. Fisherman’s puukkos sometimes have a small dovetail on point to ease scraping off the innards of a fish.
Most puukkos have a slight shoulder but no choil, since the point where the edge ends and the handle begins is also the point where most power can be applied. A puukko often has no guard to stop the hand from slipping onto the edge, but this is of no great importance, since it is primarily considered a cutting tool, not a stabbing weapon. In cases where the knife and the hand are expected to get wet, like if the puukko is meant for gutting fish or game, some form of guards are carved into the handle. The traditional length of the puukko blade is the same as one’s palm width, usually 90–120 mm. Carvers, huntsmen and leatherworkers favour shorter blades; woodworkers, carpenters and constructors longer. The Saami leuku, which is an outdoorsman’s tool, may have blade up to 400 mm, and historical väkipuukko up to 500 mm; it is more a machete or short sword (scramasax style) rather than true puukko.
Both factory forged and hand forged blades are often laminated. A thin layer of very hard steel (traditionally crucible steel made from limonite iron) is sandwiched between two layers of softer metal, which make the blade less brittle and facilitates repeated sharpening. Before the 19th century, almost all iron in Finland was made from limonite on charcoal blast furnaces, which yield very pure and high quality iron suitable for crucible steel. German silver steel was and is a popular core-steel material. Today both carbon steel and tool steel are used. The blade can be lightened and strengthened with a fuller.
The traditional material for the handle is birch. Also oak, ash, pine bark, horn (especially elk and reindeer), scrimshaw and bone are used. Often the handle is made from various materials between spacers. Today, however, industrially made puukkos often have plastic handles.
In Finland and northern Scandinavia many men put great pride in carving their puukko’s handle. Over generations, this knife has become intimately tied to Nordic culture, and in one or another version is part of many national costumes. A good puukko is equal parts artistic expression and tool. Making it requires a lot of different skills: not only those of a bladesmith, but also those of a carver, a jeweller, a designer, and a leatherworker to make the sheath — and if you master the difficult art of weaving birchbark, this is an opportunity to use it. Finest puukkos have blades of Damascus steel, and forging a blade using blister steel was considered the hallmark of a master smith. As the process of making wootz was rediscovered in Finland in the 1980s, some master smiths have made wootz puukkos.
[edit]Usage

Modern “Sissipuukko” (Ranger Puukko) intended for military use

Mora knife
Men’s and women’s puukkos do not significantly differ. The only difference is that women’s puukkos are often shorter, may have decorated sheaths, and are better suited for working with foodstuffs. Both boy and girl Scouts consider the puukko their scouting symbol as well as a handy tool. Getting a good puukko as a gift or present is considered a great honour in Finland.
In the Nordic countries, the puukko is an “everyday” knife that is used for everything from hunting, fishing, and garden work to opening boxes in the warehouse. Many traditional puukkos are nowadays manufactured in industrial or near-industrial scale by many companies, Marttiini and Iisakki Järvenpää Oy being the most notable. Bearing of sharp objects which could be used as weapons was banned in Finland in 1977. Since then, the puukko has lost its visibility in public places and been restricted to household work, hunting and fishing. In many industries the Mora knife which has a much cheaper construction is in use. The mora knife’s handle is typically plastic, and the blade is either stainless steel or of laminated construction; harder steel which forms the edge is clad in softer steel. In Finnish, these knives also are usually referred to as puukko.
In Finland carrying a blade in public spaces without a permit or job related reason is prohibited. Currently, the only urban areas where they can be seen carried openly are garrisons. The puukko is the only civilian item which can be openly worn as a part of a soldier’s combat gear without breaching Finnish Army regulations, and most conscripts bring their own puukkos with them into military service. It is a custom of Finnish conscripts, non-commissioned officers, and officer cadets to carry a decorated and engraved commemorative puukko of their year course as a part of their uniform, not unlike a commemorative dagger. This is rationalized as the carrying of a handy tool, but it also doubles as a symbolic sidearm. Puukkos proved to be good close combat weapons in the Winter War and Continuation War. The bayonet of the Rk-62 assault rifle has been designed to also function as a puukko, as was the rare bayonet for the M/39 Mosin-Nagant. Openly carrying a puukko, while technically illegal is not vigorously enforced. Construction workers often go to diners with a puukko hanging from their coveralls and in the rural and Northern parts of the land it is not uncommon to go shopping in the village stores wearing hunting clothes that includes a puukko.
In Finland, receiving a puukko as a gift is considered an honor. The idea behind this is the presenter gives the recipient a tool which is essential for both woodworking, preparing food and as a sidearm, and that the presenter takes into account the well-being of the recipient.[citation needed]