Warrior's Zen
She walked up and I didn't know if it had been minutes or hours.
Warrior's Zen
She walked up and I didn't know if it had been minutes or hours.
My cone of focus was so absolute that the radar built by years in the studio didn't register her. She knows to hold her ground in that moment. She stands there, watching. I don't know how long she's been there.
Time didn't slow. It disappeared entirely. The world outside stopped existing. Not blocked out. Not ignored. Gone.
The Greeks called it Ataraxia. The Taoists called it Wu Wei. The martial artists call it Mushin.
I call it Tuesday at the lathe.
The hands know things the mind hasn't processed yet. My grandfather was a craftsman. My father had a quiet command in everything he did. Both gone before I was sixteen. Both present every time something older than memory decides how to move.
The song doesn't explain that. It doesn't need to.
Something older in the marrow is deciding how to move.
That line didn't get written. It arrived.
Mushin isn't concentration. It isn't will or force. It's what arrives when everything else has run its course. The thinking drops away. The lathe keeps its tempo. The steel finds the groove.
And behind you, someone holds their ground. Their own kind of stillness. Their own energy in the room. Not watching from outside. Present.
Track 05. Ósynilegr Handr.
The steel finds the groove.
Something older in the marrow
is deciding how to move.
She is in the doorway.
I don't know how long.
My grandfather's hands.
My father's quiet command.
Both gone before sixteen.
Both here.
The lathe keeps its tempo.
The steel finds the groove.
