My machete and me

After 2 ½ weeks of working in the woods and cutting hazel, my machete and me became good friends. It’s a very special tool, it came to me by post all the way from Brazil send by a man I don’t know and never even thanked properly.

Time was running out and I knew I had to leave my safe haven soon. One morning I woke up and the sun was shining. After 2 ½ weeks of snow and hail, wind and rain, thunder storms and fog she was a sight for sore eyes. My body ached from the heavy physical work and was stiff after a rough night in a cold tent. I was waiting for the coffee to come to the boil when a thought entered my mind: “I’m miserable”. I thought about that thought for a second and wondered where that thought came from.

I examined the premise of being miserable.

“Do I feel miserable?”
Well my hands are stiff and so is my back, my head hurts from a branch that nearly knocked me out yesterday. I have scratches and bruises everywhere from working in the woods and cutting the bramble and my throat hurts. But still, adding all that up does not make me feel miserable.

So if it’s not something physical it must be something psychological, I checked.

“Do I experience miserable?”
I look out over the mountain meadow and feel happy. I hear the birds sing their morning song and I feel safe. My skin is touched by the wind and the sun and I feel grounded. I smell the coffee in the cold morning air and I feel home. So miserable, no.

“Do I think miserable?”
I’m content about what I have achieved considering the weather, I had some inspiring new ideas, and no thoughts that spell out doom or gloom. In short no thought to classify as miserable.

Yet something in me mentioned the word miserable.

I looked at my machete stuck in a block of oak; might as well say that my machete is miserable. I smiled. By placing it outside “me” and sticking it on an inanimate object it became ridiculous. Miserable, pfff, nonsense. I know my trusted machete friend does not experience feelings or thoughts of being miserable. I also know that the machete and the oak it is leaning into are as much a part of me as the wind, the cold, the sun and the mountain.  And miserable we are not.

The balance that I became one with in that moment tells me there is no need to dissect this further, there is only need to stay one with all.