One of the great things that I have always loved about coming to The Ranch is the night.
The nearest city lights are 15 miles away and the nearest house is a mile away. As a result, the night sky here is magnificent. On moonless nights, you can still see the Milky Way. To someone who has to dwell amidst the city lights at this point in his life and someone who has loved the night as long as he has lived, there is something always magical about returning.
There is the light from the house, of course, but if I turn towards the North you cannot see it. Only myself, the trees, the wind, and the stars.
So when I am here, I will sometimes practice iaijutsu under the stars.
Practicing in the dark is not precisely the ideal way to practice, of course. Your ability to judge how you are performing the techniques is greatly reduced: you do not see anything, you have to feel it by the angle of your body. Balance is not really a problem, thankfully: most techniques only involve two or three steps and practicing on a driveway means the likelihood of hitting anything is almost non-extant. But it is, in many ways, not as direct a path to improvement as training in the light.
But practicing by starlight has other benefits. The wind walks through the trees. The nighttime noises of brush continue on in the background. The stars twinkle overhead as you draw and cut and sheathe. And while one does not get the benefit of seeing one actual cuts, one can learn from other things: the sound of a good cut (yes, even wood can make a sound if the angle is correct), the fact that one has to pay attention to one's balance, and the reality that paying attention to to how your body "feels" is just as important as how it looks.
Bowing out as one does at the end of every training session has a special sense though: instead of bowing to the dojo flag and to your sensei, you bow to the trees and stars and wind themselves. It is one of few moments that I feel that I am really able to honor God's creation.
Too few of us take the time or have the capacity to honour our Makers creation TB.
ReplyDeleteThank you Glen. Honored you think my humble offering rises to that level.
DeleteYears ago as a young boy, we would often get off the school bus at my grandfather's house and stay there until after dark while my parents worked in the fields. Then we would walk a mile through the fields to our house and sometimes having only starlight to guide us, no moon. I'm impressed now that I was able to do such a thing as a young boy because now as an adult, I would probably pack a flashlight along for just in case. I'm also impressed that my parents trusted me to do such a thing. Different worlds I guess.
ReplyDeleteLike you, I now live in the city and so when I find myself out at the farm and glance up at the stars, I almost tear up at the beauty that I've been missing. I resolve to not let it go as long before I see them again but then I go back to the city and forget.
Ed, We grew up in a small town environment with enough woods around that one could wander and not feel like you were in a city. I would walk for hours in the dark along the railroad tracks to and from town or - even in high school - we would go out far enough to a rural area and walk (those are all built up now).
DeleteYes, it is a different world now (From sixth grade on I use to walk or ride my bike to school, easily a 3-4 mile journey. My parents would not bat an eye. No way I would let my children do that now).
Coming here and remembering makes me want to come here and see it all the more. There is little the city can offer compared to it.
Lucky you. Our rural property sounds similar, but a year ago began a transformation for the worse. Wind generator windmills have cropped us around us, and the formerly dark sky has horizons of blinking red lights to warn off aircraft. Not pretty at all.
ReplyDeleteI can remember in years past, a single sodium pole light at least two miles distant. Now far more light around us.
I'm not really anti-social, I just want to be left in peace is all. Why they have to 'harsh my mellow ?'
Ugh, Anonymous. We live in foothills surrounded by trees, so fortunately there is little likelihood of that happening - what is more likely is that the property around our bubble will sell and, eventually, the street and home lights will appear among the trees.
DeleteI am not anti-social per se, but the idea of being left "alone" becomes more and more attractive in a world that wants to essentially track my every move and try to sell me something because of it.
Nature is where it is at.. especially for meteor showers and star gazing. And privacy. I spent my youth in woods that are now deep subdivisions.. progress?
ReplyDeleteSame here EGB. The woods and fields I roamed are now all built up and crowded with lights (not progress at all in my opinion). But the star gazing without the development is breathtaking.
Delete