Chopped Wood Quotes

Chop your own wood and it will warm you twice

I left the jutra to chop wood. I began my walk through the snow, five kilometers to the tree line. That's when I saw it. A tiny silver of gold appeared between shades of gray on the horizon. I stared at the amber band of sunlight, smiling. The sun had returned. I closed my eyes. I felt Andrius moving close. "I'll see you," he said. "Yes, I will see you," I whispered "I will." I reached into my pocket and squeezed the stone.

People love chopping wood. In this activity one immediately sees results.

Violence harms the one who does it as much as the one who receives it. You could cut down a tree with an axe. The axe does violence to the tree, and escapes unharmed. Is that how you see it? Wood is soft compared to steel, but the sharp steel is dulled as it chops, and the sap of the tree will rust and pit it. The mighty axe does violence to the helpless tree, and is harmed by it. So it is with men, though the harm is in the spirit.

Before enlightenment, chop wood, carry water. After enlightenment, chop wood, carry water.

The whole trouble lies in that people think that there are conditions excluding the necessity of love in their intercourse with man, but such conditions do not exist. Things may be treated without love; one may chop wood, make bricks, forge iron without love, but one can no more deal with people without love than one can handle bees without care.

. . . I feel we don’t really need scriptures. The entire life is an open book, a scripture. Read it. Learn while digging a pit or chopping some wood or cooking some food. If you can’t learn from your daily activities, how are you going to understand the scriptures? (233)

There was an exhausted woodcutter who kept wasting time and energy chopping wood with a blunt ax because he did not have the time, he said, to stop and sharpen the blade.

We're neither pure, nor wise, nor good We'll do the best we know. We'll build our house and chop our wood And make our garden grow. And make our garden grow!

High technology has done us one great service: It has retaught us the delight of performing simple and primordial tasks - chopping wood, building a fire, drawing water from a spring

Aim for the chopping block. If you aim for the wood, you will have nothing. Aim past the wood, aim through the wood; aim for the chopping block.

Can I get a lock for my tent? Bears can't unzip tents, Lana. Well, chainsaw psychos who wander the woods looking for young girls all alone to chop up into pieces can. There are no chainsaw psychos! I can't believe you've never been camping. It's safe, Lana. I promise. Easy for you to say. You'll be snuggled up safely in the arms of Beau Vincent. I'm more than positive he could take on a black bear.

The gods made the earth for all men t' share. Only when the kings come with their crowns and steel swords, they claimed it was all theirs. "My trees," they said, "you can't eat them apples. My stream, you can't fish here. My wood, you're not t' hunt. My earth, my water, my castle, my daughter, keep your hands away or I'll chop 'em off, but maybe if you kneel t' me I'll let you have a sniff." You call us thieves, but at least a thief has t' be brave and clever and quick. A kneeler only has t' kneel.

Everyone wants to be great, until it’s time to do what greatness requires.

There’s a Zen saying I often cite that goes, “Before enlightenment, chop wood, carry water. After enlightenment, chop wood, carry water.” The point: Stay focused on the task at hand rather than dwelling on the past or worrying about the future.

I have done without electricity, and tend the fireplace and stove myself. Evenings, I light the old lamps. There is no running water, and I pump the water from the well. I chop the wood and cook the food. These simple acts make man simple; and how difficult it is to be simple!

Dream BIG. Start small. Be ridiculously faithful.

They had chopped wood here too; then they were gone. Gone to the fields, the small towns, the cities – where they died. There was always news coming back to the quarter about someone who had been killed or who had been sent to prison for killing someone else: Snowball, stabbed to death in a nightclub in Port Allen; Claudee, killed by a woman in New Orleans; Smitty, sent to the state penitentiary for manslaughter. And there were others who did not go anywhere but simply died slower

So I thought I’d feel different afterward, after the visible neon sign proclaiming 'virgin' had blinked out on my forehead. I’d spent years obessessing about it, so it seemed like somthing should have changed. Maybe it would have if I’d still been at Ceder Falls High School surrounded by the gossip and the braggadocio of teenage boys. But on my uncle's farm, nobody noticed, or at least nobody said anything. The next day, like every day, we dug corn, chopped wood, and carried water. And it didn’t really change much between Darla and me, either. Yes, making love was fun, but it wasn’t really any more fun than anything we’d already been doing together. Just different.

He had no heart. And, you know, a man who gives up his heart is little better than a tin can...and all the Baum's Castorine in the world couldn't make him better. That's why he was so determined to find one. Sometimes, when the tin woodman leaves home, when he goes on the road, leaving his family to sell his chopped wood, he feels so hollow he bangs on his chest, just to hear the echo inside. That's what it's like to be a man of tin. It's very lonely.

Good lord. Building stone patios, chopping wood, and walking everywhere was a workout video he needed to put on the market. ASAP.

Maybe he got tired of waiting and he'd gone without me though I doubted that was the case and decided he was probably doing something Max-ish. Chopping wood. Building a barn. Saving a child in distress or climbing a tree to rescue a cat. Stuff like that.

The fact that we heated most of the old farmhouse with nothing but a woodstove was a source of great pride for my father and endless inspiration for witticisms like, “Chop your own wood it’ll warm you twice!

I thought I heard an axe chop in the woods It broke the dream; and woke up dreaming on a train. It must have been a thousand years ago In some old mountain sawmill of Japan. A horde of excess poets and unwed girls And I that night prowled Tokyo like a bear Tracking the human future Of intelligence and despair.

The way I played music there was the way I wanted to farm, chop wood, cook, make love, raise children. Everything. A lo of it had to do with things I felt while I played. If only I could feel that sense of total absorption in what I was doing when I was doing other things. It was more than absorption, it was spontaneity, competence, a sense of grace and playfulness, of being in touch with an inexhaustible source of energy and beauty.

So I decided to do it [hike the Appalachian Trail]. More rashly, I announced my intention - told friends and neighbors, confidently informed my publisher, made it common knowledge among those who knew me. Then I bought some books... It required only a little light reading in adventure books and almost no imagination to envision circumstances in which I would find myself caught in a tightening circle of hunger-emboldened wolves, staggering and shredding clothes under an onslaught of pincered fire ants, or dumbly transfixed by the sight of enlivened undergrowth advancing towards me, like a torpedo through water, before being bowled backwards by a sofa-sized boar with cold beady eyes, a piercing squeal, and slaverous, chopping appetite for pink, plump, city-softened flesh.

They was this rich fella, an he makes like he’s poor, an they’s this rich girl, an she purtends like she’s poor too, an’ they meet in a hamburg’ stan’ Why? I don’t know why-that’s how it was. Why’d they purtend like they’s poor? Well, they’re tired of bein’ rich. Horseshit! You want to hear this, or not? Well, go on then. Sure, I wanta hear it, but if I was rich, if I was rich I’d get so many pork chops-I’d cord ‘em up aroun’ me like wood, an’ I’d eat my way out. Go on.

Trees, now—Slothrop’s intensely alert to trees, finally. When he comes in among trees he will spend time touching them, studying them, sitting very quietly near them and understanding that each tree is a creature, carrying on its individual life, aware of what’s happening around it, not just some hunk of wood to be cut down. Slothrop’s family actually made its money killing trees, amputating them from their roots, chopping them up, grinding them to pulp, bleaching that to paper and getting paid for this with more paper. “That’s really insane.” He shakes his head. “There’s insanity in my family.” He looks up. The trees are still. They know he’s there. They probably also know what he’s thinking. “I’m sorry,” he tells them. “I can’t do anything about those people, they’re all out of my reach. What can I do?” A medium-size pine nearby nods its top and suggests, “Next time you come across a logging operation out here, find one of their tractors that isn’t being guarded, and take its oil filter with you. That’s what you can do.

I have the honour to be quite of your Lordship's opinion," said Mr. Lovel, looking maliciously at Mrs. Selwyn, "for I have an insuperable aversion to strength, either of body or mind, in a female." "Faith, and so have I," said Mr. Coverley; "for egad I'd as soon see a woman chop wood, as hear her chop logic." "So would every man in his senses," said Lord Merton; "for a woman wants nothing to recommend her but beauty and good nature; in every thing else she is either impertinent or unnatural. For my part, deuce take me if ever I wish to hear a word of sense from a woman as long as I live!" "It has always been agreed," said Mrs. Selwyn, looking round her with the utmost contempt, "that no man ought to be connected with a woman whose understanding is superior to his own. Now I very much fear, that to accommodate all this good company, according to such a rule, would be utterly impracticable, unless we should chuse subjects from Swift's hospital of idiots.

Even though you are equipped with life changing wisdom that could transform lives, you must not share it without an invitation. Most people just want to be heard and loved, they don't want your wisdom, and that is OK. Sometimes, you can actually become the greatest impediment to other people growing when you try and force things on them. In time, if they see you model it, they will probably start to ask.

but that was life. Chop wood, carry water.

Feel like I just chopped two cord of wood and shit m’brains out while I was doin it,” the older man gasped.

Run over to the chopping block and fetch me some of those green hickory chipsâ€

Not many people have a timber forest of their own,

Simplicity, simplicity, simplicity! I say, let your affairs be as two or three, and not a hundred or a thousand; instead of a million count half a dozen, and keep your accounts on your thumbnail. In the midst of this chopping sea of civilized life, such are the clouds and storms and quicksands and thousand-and-one items to be allowed for, that a man has to live.

The three weapons to use against axe cuts are: (a) sense enough not to get cut, (b) a good working knowledge of how to apply a tourniquet, if the worst occurs, and (c) a philosophical attitude.

If we think we have twenty-four hours to achieve a certain purpose, today will become a means to attain an end. The moment of chopping wood and carrying water is the moment of happiness. We do not need to wait for these chores to be done to be happy. To have happiness in this moment is the spirit of aimlessness. Otherwise, we will run in circles for the rest of our life. We have everything we need to make the present moment the happiest in our life, even if we have a cold or a headache. We don't have to wait until we get over our cold to be happy. Having a cold is a part of life.

You shall see rude and sturdy, experienced and wise men, keeping their castles, or teaming up their summer’s wood, or chopping alone in the woods, men fuller of talk and rare adventure in the sun and wind and rain, than a chestnut is of meat; who were out not only in ‘75 and 1812, but have been out every day of their lives; greater men than Homer, or Chaucer, or Shakespeare, only they never got time to say so; they never took to the way of writing. Look at their fields, and imagine what they might write, if ever they should put pen to paper. Or what have they not written on the face of the earth already, clearing, and burning, and scratching, and harrowing, and plowing, and subsoiling, in and in, and out and out, and over and over, again and again, erasing what they had already written for want of parchment.

The porcelain shatters, and shards fly on the wood floor of my tiny apartment above the main street where I live in deep anonymity. The pieces splinter in all directions, and I sigh. I want to chop off my hand.

I was chopping vegetables in the kitchen when I heard voices outside our front door – a woman’s, bright as polished brass, and a man’s, low and dark like the wood of the table I was working on. They were the kind of voices we heard rarely in our house. I could hear rich carpets in their voices, books and pearls and fur.

Wood is soft compared to steel, but the sharp steel is dulled as it chops, and the sap of the tree will rust and pit it. The mighty axe does violence to the helpless tree, and is harmed by it. So it is with men, though the harm is in the spirit.

For dinner Jade microwaves some Stars-n-Flags. They're addictive. They put sugar in the sauce and sugar in the meat nuggets. I think also caffeine. Someone told me the brown streaks in the Flags are caffeine. We have like five bowls each. After dinner the babies get fussy and Min puts a mush of ice cream and Hershey's syrup in their bottles and we watch The Worst That Could Happen, a half hour computer simulation of tragedies that have never actually occurred but theoretically could. A kid gets hit by a train and flies into a zoo, where he's eaten by wolves. A man cuts his hand off chopping wood and while he's wandering around screaming for help is picked up by a tornado and dropped on a preschool during recess and lands on a pregnant teacher.

Tori felt like she'd accidentally wandered into the men's locker room. Everywhere she looked there was rippling muscle. Testosterone hung thick in the air, and she had the overwhelming urge to chop some wood or fix a carburetor... maybe skin an animal or two.

But inside itself, in the very sap of it, the tree (so to speak) never forgot that other tree in Narnia to which it belonged. Sometimes it would move mysteriously when there was no wind blowing: I think that when this happened there were high winds in Narnia and the English tree quivered.... However that might be, it was proved later that there was still magic in its wood. For when Digory was quite middle-aged...there was a great storm all over the south of England which blew the tree down. He couldn't bear to have it simply chopped up for firewood, so he had part of the timber made into a wardrobe, which he put in his big house in the country. And though he himself did not discover the magic properties of that wardrobe, someone else did....

Past events leave traces in the memory like an ax chopping wood. Chips fly; they remain where they fall even after the wood has been used to light the stove.

A burial should be more than a fire pit, arena seating, and a squirming politician strapped to a pile of wood. There should also be marshmallows.

Carrying water and chopping wood are just as much spiritual practices as reading scriptures.

You don’t chop wood to use today, you chop wood today so that you can build a good fire tomorrow.

You fuel your heart with six things: what you watch, what you read, what you listen to, who you surround yourself with, how you talk to yourself, and what you visualize.

Never stop. Truly, never stop. Keep cleaning, cooking, chopping your own wood. Go on walks with the dog. Dig in your garden. We are meant to be busy. Idle hands do the Devil’s work.

Howard had a pine display case, fastened by fake leather straps and stained to look like walnut. Inside, on fake velvet, were cheap gold-plated earrings and pendants of semiprecious stones. He opened this case for haggard country wives when their husbands were off chopping trees or reaping the back acres. He showed them the same half-dozen pieces every year the last time he came around, when he thought, This is the season - preserving done, woodpile high, north wind up and getting cold, night showing up earlier every day, dark and ice pressing down from the north, down on the raw wood of their cabins, on the rough-cut rafters that sag and sometimes snap from the weight of the dark and the ice, burying families in their sleep, the dark and the ice and sometimes the red in the sky through trees: the heartbreak of a cold sun. He thought, Buy the pendant, sneak it into your hand from the folds of your dress and let the low light of the fire lap at it late at night as you wait for the roof to give out or your will to snap and the ice to be too thick to chop through with the ax as you stand in your husband's boots on the frozen lake at midnight, the dry hack of the blade on ice so tiny under the wheeling and frozen stars, the soundproof lid of heaven, that your husband would never stir from his sleep in the cabin across the ice, would never hear and come running, half-frozen, in only his union suit, to save you from chopping a hole in the ice and sliding into it as if it were a blue vein, sliding down into the black, silty bottom of the lake, where you would see nothing, would perhaps feel only the stir of some somnolent fish in the murk as the plunge of you in your wool dress and the big boots disturbed it from its sluggish winter dreams of ancient seas. Maybe you would not even feel that, as you struggled in clothes that felt like cooling tar, and as you slowed, calmed, even, and opened your eyes and looked for a pulse of silver, an imbrication of scales, and as you closed your eyes again and felt their lids turn to slippery, ichthyic skin, the blood behind them suddenly cold, and as you found yourself not caring, wanting, finally, to rest, finally wanting nothing more than the sudden, new, simple hum threading between your eyes. The ice is far too thick to chop through. You will never do it. You could never do it. So buy the gold, warm it with your skin, slip it onto your lap when you are sitting by the fire and all you will otherwise have to look at is your splintery husband gumming chew or the craquelure of your own chapped hands.

I promise that I did not bring you along to make you split firewood,” said Marra. Fenris laughed. The two older women had gone inside to sleep, and it was only the two of them and a very small fire, well away from the barn. “It’s alright,” he said. “I’ve done many things that were terribly important, lives hanging in the balance and so forth. There is something pleasant about chopping wood. If I miss a stroke, nothing awful happens. If a piece of wood is not quite right, it will still burn. If I stack it and it isn’t perfect, clans will not fall.

Is not the Great Executor always there to kill? To do the killing for the Great Executor Is to chop wood for a master carpenter, And you would be very lucky indeed if you did not hurt your own hand!

When they turned off, it was still early in the pink and green fields. The fumes of morning, sweet and bitter, sprang up where they walked. The insects ticked softly, their strength in reserve; butterflies chopped the air, going to the east, and the birds flew carelessly and sang by fits. They went down again and soon the smell of the river spread over the woods, cool and secret. Every step they took among the great walls of vines and among the passion-flowers started up a little life, a little flight. 'We’re walking along in the changing-time,' said Doc. 'Any day now the change will come. It’s going to turn from hot to cold, and we can kill the hog that’s ripe and have fresh meat to eat. Come one of these nights and we can wander down here and tree a nice possum. Old Jack Frost will be pinching things up. Old Mr. Winter will be standing in the door. Hickory tree there will be yellow. Sweet-gum red, hickory yellow, dogwood red, sycamore yellow.' He went along rapping the tree trunks with his knuckle. 'Magnolia and live-oak never die. Remember that. Persimmons will all get fit to eat, and the nuts will be dropping like rain all through the woods here. And run, little quail, run, for we’ll be after you too.' They went on and suddenly the woods opened upon light, and they had reached the river. Everyone stopped, but Doc talked on ahead as though nothing had happened. 'Only today,' he said, 'today, in October sun, it’s all gold—sky and tree and water. Everything just before it changes looks to be made of gold.' ("The Wide Net")

Leo had asked gently. “Let’s look at the situation honestly, Win. You have nothing in common with him. You’re a lovely, sensitive, literate woman, and he’s … Merripen. He likes to chop wood for entertainment. And apparently it falls to me to point out the indelicate truth that some couples are well-suited in the bedroom but not anywhere else.” Win had been shocked out of her tears by his bluntness. “Leo Hathaway, are you suggesting—” “Lord Ramsay now, thank you,” he had teased. “Lord Ramsay, are you suggesting that my feelings for Merripen are carnal in nature?” “They’re certainly not intellectual,” Leo had said, and grinned as she punched him in the shoulder.

The gods made the earth for all men t’ share. Only when the kings come with their crowns and steel swords, they claimed it was all theirs. My trees, they said, you can’t eat them apples. My stream, you can’t fish here. My wood, you’re not t’ hunt. My earth, my water, my castle, my daughter, keep your hands away or I’ll chop ’em off, but maybe if you kneel t’ me I’ll let you have a sniff. You call us thieves, but at least a thief has t’ be brave and clever and quick. A kneeler only has t’ kneel.

My trees, they said, you can’t eat them apples. My stream, you can’t fish here. My wood, you’re not t’ hunt. My earth, my water, my castle, my daughter, keep your hands away or I’ll chop ’em off, but maybe if you kneel t’ me I’ll let you have a sniff.

And yet, for all this, for all that he was unparalleled in depicting tyrants knee-deep in blood, Shakespeare was a little naive. Because his monsters had doubts, bad dreams, pangs of conscience, guilt. They saw the spirits of those they had killed rising in front of them. But in real life, under real terror, what guilty conscience? What bad dreams? That was all sentimentality, false optimism, a hope that the world would be as we wanted it to be, rather than as it was. Those who chopped the wood and made the chips fly, those who smoked Belomory behind their desks at the Big House, those who signed the orders and made the telephone calls, closing a dossier and with it a life: how few of them had bad dreams, or ever saw the spirits of the dead rising to reproach them." (p 94)

After dinner the babies get fussy and Min puts a mush of ice cream and Hershey's syrup in their bottles and we watch The Worst That Could Happen, a half-hour of computer simulations of tragedies that have never actually occurred but theoretically could. A kid gets hit by a train and flies into a zoo, where he's eaten by wolves. A man cuts his hand off chopping wood and while wandering around screaming for help is picked up by a tornado and dropped on a preschool during recess and lands on a pregnant teacher. ("Sea Oak")

Once upon a time, in a faraway forest, there lived a tree that was different from all the other trees in the woods. While the other trees grew perfectly straight toward the sky, this particular tree grew in loops, twists, and turns. It was known as the Curvy Tree by all who saw it, and many humans and animals came from far and wide to see its splendor. When the humans and animals were away, in a language that only could be heard by the plants of the forest, the other trees would taunt the poor Curvy Tree. ‘We hate your bark and your branches and your leaves that twist and turn! One day they will chop you into firewood and you will forever burn!’ It made the Curvy Tree very sad, and if you spoke Plant you would hear it cry itself to sleep every night. Years later, on the last day of winter before spring began, loggers traveled to the forest looking for wood, not to burn, but to build with. They cut down every tree in the woods to build houses, tables, chairs, and beds. When they finally left the forest, only one tree remained, and I bet it will come as no surprise when I tell you it was the Curvy Tree. The loggers had seen how its trunk and branches twisted and turned and they knew they could never use its wood to build with. And so the Curvy Tree was left alone to grow in peace now that all the other trees were gone. The end.

At childhood’s end, the houses petered out into playing fields, the factory, allotments kept, like mistresses, by kneeling married men, the silent railway line, the hermit’s caravan, till you came at last to the edge of the woods. It was there that I first clapped eyes on the wolf. He stood in a clearing, reading his verse out loud in his wolfy drawl, a paperback in his hairy paw, red wine staining his bearded jaw. What big ears he had! What big eyes he had! What teeth! In the interval, I made quite sure he spotted me, sweet sixteen, never been, babe, waif, and bought me a drink, my first. You might ask why. Here’s why. Poetry. The wolf, I knew, would lead me deep into the woods, away from home, to a dark tangled thorny place lit by the eyes of owls. I crawled in his wake, my stockings ripped to shreds, scraps of red from my blazer snagged on twig and branch, murder clues. I lost both shoes but got there, wolf’s lair, better beware. Lesson one that night, breath of the wolf in my ear, was the love poem. I clung till dawn to his thrashing fur, for what little girl doesn’t dearly love a wolf? Then I slid from between his heavy matted paws and went in search of a living bird – white dove – which flew, straight, from my hands to his hope mouth. One bite, dead. How nice, breakfast in bed, he said, licking his chops. As soon as he slept, I crept to the back of the lair, where a whole wall was crimson, gold, aglow with books. Words, words were truly alive on the tongue, in the head, warm, beating, frantic, winged; music and blood. But then I was young – and it took ten years in the woods to tell that a mushroom stoppers the mouth of a buried corpse, that birds are the uttered thought of trees, that a greying wolf howls the same old song at the moon, year in, year out, season after season, same rhyme, same reason. I took an axe to a willow to see how it wept. I took an axe to a salmon to see how it leapt. I took an axe to the wolf as he slept, one chop, scrotum to throat, and saw the glistening, virgin white of my grandmother’s bones. I filled his old belly with stones. I stitched him up. Out of the forest I come with my flowers, singing, all alone. Little Red-Cap

What should he be like, this lost man? A romantic, a man with a dream, a man with brown skin and blue eyes, living in a hut on a snowy mountain top, chopping wood and catching fish and swimming in cold mountain streams; a rough, free man with a kind heart and a shaggy beard, a man who owed allegiance to no one, who gave a damn for money and politics, and cities and civilizations, who was his own master, who lived at one with nature knowing no fear. But that was not Major Roberts—that was the man I wanted to be. He was not a Frenchman or an Englishman, he was me, a dream of myself.

I prayed to a mystery. Sometimes I was simply aware of the mystery. I saw a flash of it during a trip to New York that David and I took before we were married. We were walking on a busy sidewalk in Manhattan. I don't remember if it was day or night. A man with a wound on his forehead came toward us. His damp, ragged hair might have been clotted with blood, or maybe it was only dirt. He wore deeply dirty clothes. His red, swollen hands, cupped in half-fists, swung loosely at his sides. His eyes were focused somewhere past my right shoulder. He staggered while he walked. The sidewalk traffic flowed around him and with him. He was strange and frightening, and at the same time he belonged on the Manhattan sidewalk as much as any of us. It was that paradox -- that he could be both alien and resident, both brutalized and human, that he could stand out in the moving mass of people like a sea monster in a school of tuna and at the same time be as much at home as any of us -- that stayed with me. I never saw him again, but I remember him often, and when I do, I am aware of the mystery. Years later, I was out on our property on the Olympic Peninsula, cutting a path through the woods. This was before our house was built. After chopping through dense salal and hacking off ironwood bushes for an hour or so, I stopped, exhausted. I found myself standing motionless, intensely aware of all of the life around me, the breathing moss, the chattering birds, the living earth. I was as much a part of the woods as any millipede or cedar tree. At that moment, too, I was aware of the mystery. Sometimes I wanted to speak to this mystery directly. Out of habit, I began with "Dear God" and ended with "Amen". But I thought to myself, I'm not praying to that old man in the sky. Rather, I'm praying to this thing I can't define. It was sort of like talking into a foggy valley. Praying into a bank of fog requires alot of effort. I wanted an image to focus on when I prayed. I wanted something to pray *to*. but I couldn't go back to that old man. He was too closely associated with all I'd left behind.

In fact, when the scaffold is there, all erected and prepared, it has something about it which produces hallucination. One may feel a certain indifference to the death penalty, one may refrain from pronouncing upon it, from saying yes or no, so long as one has not seen a guillotine with one's own eyes: but if one encounters one of them, the shock is violent; one is forced to decide, and to take part for or against. Some admire it, like de Maistre; others execrate it, like Beccaria. The guillotine is the concretion of the law; it is called vindicte; it is not neutral, and it does not permit you to remain neutral. He who sees it shivers with the most mysterious of shivers. All social problems erect their interrogation point around this chopping-knife. The scaffold is a vision. The scaffold is not a piece of carpentry; the scaffold is not a machine; the scaffold is not an inert bit of mechanism constructed of wood, iron and cords. It

It’s not about living in a sleek loft with three pieces of designer furniture. It’s not daring, nor dramatic, nor even all that difficult. What is minimalism then? It’s eliminating the excess. It’s asking “why” before you buy. It’s embracing the concept of enough. It’s living lightly and gracefully on the Earth. It’s uncovering who you are when all of the logos, brand names, and clutter are stripped away. It’s simple, it’s ordinary, and it’s accessible to everyone—from singles to families, teenagers to retirees. I’m reminded of the saying, “Zen is chopping wood and carrying water.” In other words, the world of enlightenment is none other than our everyday world.

Things are what they are, and whatever will be will be. That meant, among other things, that you didn’t make a fuss, especially when there was good reason to do so: for example, when they heard the news about his father’s death. In accordance with family tradition, Allan reacted by chopping wood, although for an unusually long time and without saying a word.

Let them talk more munitions and airplanes and battleships and tanks and gases why of course we’ve got to have them we can’t get along without them how in the world could we protect the peace if we didn’t have them? Let them form blocs and alliances and mutual assistance pacts and guarantees of neutrality. Let them draft notes and ultimatums and protests and accusations. But before they vote on them before they give the order for all the little guys to start killing each other let the main guy rap his gavel on my case and point down at me and say here gentlemen is the only issue before this house and that is are you for this thing here or are you against it. And if they are against it why goddam them let them stand up like men and vote. And if they are for it let them be hanged and drawn and quartered and paraded through the streets in small chopped up little bits and thrown out into the fields where no clean animal will touch them and let their chunks rot there and may no green thing ever grow where they rot. Take me into your churches your great towering cathedrals that have to be rebuilt every fifty years because they are destroyed by war. Carry me in my glass box down the aisles where kings and priests and brides and children at their confirmation have gone so many times before to kiss a splinter of wood from a true cross on which was nailed the body of a man who was lucky enough to die. Set me high on your altars and call on god to look down upon his murderous little children his dearly beloved little children. Wave over me the incense I can’t smell. Swill down the sacramental wine I can’t taste. Drone out the prayers I can’t hear. Go through the old holy gestures for which I have no legs and no arms. Chorus out the hallelujas I can’t sing. Bring them out loud and strong for me your hallelujas all of them for me because I know the truth and you don’t you fools. You fools you fools you fools…

Sometimes in winter there comes a spell of snowstorms and sunshine and terrific contentment. On snowy afternoons there is a special blessedness in saying, oh it is too snowy to chop wood this afternoon. And the gray snow sifts down, and one takes off one's boots and sits by the fire and is glad of the way wool socks smell; and a pie is baking in the oven, and the gray snow is sifting down.

Tibet's Sky Burial In Tibet cold makes it hard to pierce the earth and wood, like air, is rare, Death is no occasion for woe, but mirth - So you're cut up into tiny tidbits bare. They leave you chopped up upon a mountaintop, your corpse ambrosial alms for the circling birds. You ate crow all your life, now the crow eats you. In Tibet, everything comes full circle, our lives, our deaths, our words.

Dan would entertain Owen and me by describing Mr. Tubulari’s pentathlon, his “winterthon.” “The first event,” Dan Needham said, “is something wholesome, like splitting a cord of wood—points off, if you break your ax. Then you have to run ten miles in deep snow, or snowshoe for thirty. Then you chop a hole in the ice, and—carrying your ax—swim a mile under a frozen lake, chopping your way out at the opposite shore. Then you build an igloo—to get warm. Then comes the dogsledding. You have to mush a team of dogs—from Anchorage to Chicago. Then you build another igloo—to rest.” “THAT’S SIX EVENTS,” Owen said. “A PENTATHLON IS ONLY FIVE.” “So forget the second igloo,” Dan Needham said. “I WONDER WHAT MISTER TUBULARI DOES FOR NEW YEAR’S EVE,” Owen said. “Carrot juice,” Dan said, fixing himself another whiskey. “Mister Tubulari makes his own carrot juice.

The blackjack oak is a hard tree. I chopped ours down. Sitting to the side of our wooded acre. Standing 20-feet tall. The ax was old. Older than I was at the time. A weathered handle hurt the hands. A rusty head barely cut. Chipped away at the tree. Over hours. Over days. And the tree fell. A creak. A crack. A soft thud on sandy ground. My blistered hands dropped the ax. Tired legs limped away. Summers were long then. And trees fell.

Looking out the window, I wondered how many of those kids had parents who were losing it, or parents who were gone, taken off without a forwarding address, or parents who had buried themselves alive, who could argue and chop wood and make asses of themselves without being fully conscious. How many of them believed what they were saying when they blathered on about what college they'd go to and what they'd major in and how much they'd earn and what car they'd buy. They repeated that stuff over and over like an incantation that, if pronounced exactly right, would open the door to the life of their dreams. If they looked at their parents, at their crankiness and their therapy and their prescriptions and their ragged collections of kids, step-kids, half-kids, quarter-kids, and the habits that had started in secret but now owned them, body and soul, then they might curse that spell.

Chopping wood is meditation. Carrying water is meditation. Be mindful 24 hours a day, not just during the one hour you may allot for formal meditation or reading scripture and reciting prayers. Each act must be carried out in mindfulness. Each act is a rite, a ceremony. Raising your cup of tea to your mouth is a rite. Does the word "rite" seems too solemn ? I use that word in order to jolt you into the realization of the life-and-death matter of awareness.

A short lightning flash of white snow flew into the woods frightening the animals there a hare hops around the bird-cherry there a bobcat lies in wait for an underwater mouse puffed out its muzzle raised its tasseled tail mangy beast of prey to you woodpeckers and rabbits are as scrambled eggs to us only the oak stands paying no attention to anyone itself just recently fallen from the sky the pain not yet abated the branches had not drawn apart not a reproach nor an answer did I deserve oh my spurs seize me chop me and beat me right in the back right in the back oh he’s fast I thought I see before me the torah but no the lun a tic the lunatic of my words one thing I won’t repeat will not repeat my whole life through this is ladies and gentlemen ladies and gentlemen my attentive audience that leap the leap from the heights of treesongers down on to the boards of stone the tables of stone tables of oh giant Numbers.

If the seasons bleed into each other like a watercolor painting, it means not enough fish and berries to last the winter, not enough wood chopped for the stove, not enough meat in the freezer. One year winter came so fast and so hard, the leaves on the birch trees didn't even have time to turn yellow and fall off; they froze solid green on the branches. They clung there for months on skinny skeleton arms, the color so blindingly wrong it was creepy. Every year it's a race between the seasons, and that year fall lost.

Coughing, eyes burning, Loren looked up to see Tanner gaping at her, his mouth full of donut. He was standing in the kitchen—by himself, thank the Star. Well, aside from his wolf Familiar. Silver looked just as confused as Tanner, ears erect. As silence stretched on, Silver looked up at Tanner, a whimper that begged for answers slipping through his whiskery chops. “Why are you in the fireplace?” Tanner demanded. A crumb fell off his donut. Silver slurped it up off the floor, forgetting all about those answers he’d wanted a moment ago as his big tongue dampened the wood. “Do I need to call Darien?” She got up and dusted the soot off her soiled clothes. She stank—horribly. “If you call him, I’m taking those donuts away.” Mortifer ducked under her arm and scampered away, slipping the whiteboard and marker under the couch on his way to the fridge. Looking thoroughly offended, Tanner snatched up the box of donuts from Whisking Witch and clutched it to his chest. “I mean it,” she warned. Tanner merely bit off another bite of donut and walked away, box tucked under his arm, Silver following on his heels.

Seth returned with the ax to the private door. So much for stealth. If the garage door and elevator had not alerted the zombies, this should do the job. The ax was fairly heavy, but, choking up a little, he gave it a solid swing, and the bit crunched into the wood about a foot away from the doorknob. He wrenched it free and attacked the door again. A few more strokes and he had chopped a hole in the door large enough to reach his hand through. Seth wiped the handle of the ax with his shirt before setting it aside, just in case vampires knew how to check for fingerprints.

After situating herself on a huge flat-sided rock, Baby Suggs bowed her head and prayed silently. The company watched her from the trees. They knew she was ready when she put her stick down. Then she shouted, 'Let the children come!' and they ran from the trees toward her. 'Let your mothers hear you laugh,' she told them, and the woods rang. The adults looked on and could not help smiling. Then 'Let the grown men come,' she shouted. They stepped out one by one from among the ringing trees. 'Let your wives and your children see you dance,' she told them, and groundlife shuddered under their feet. Finally she called the women to her. 'Cry,' she told them. 'For the living and the dead. Just cry.' And without covering their eyes the women let loose. It started that way: laughing children, dancing men, crying women and then it got mixed up. Women stopped crying and danced; men sat down and cried; children danced, women laughed, children cried until, exhausted and riven, all and each lay about the Clearing damp and gasping for breath. In the silence that followed, Baby Suggs, holy, offered up to them her great big heart. She did not tell them to clean up their lives or to go and sin no more. She did not tell them they were the blessed of the earth, its inheriting meek or its glorybound pure. She told them that the only grace they could have was the grace they could imagine. That if they could not see it, they would not have it. 'Here,' she said, 'in this here place, we flesh; flesh that weeps, laughs; flesh that dances on bare feet in grass. Love it. Love it hard. Yonder they do not love your flesh. They despise it. They don't love your eyes; they'd just as soon pick em out. No more do they love the skin on your back. Yonder they flay it. And O my people they do not love your hands. These they only use, tie, bind, chop off and leave empty. Love your hands! Love them. Raise them up and kiss them. Touch others with them, pat them together, stroke them on your face 'cause they don't love that either. You got to love it, you! And nom they ain't in love with your mouth. Yonder, out there, they will see it broken and break it again. What you say out of it they will not heed. What you scream from it they do not hear. Flesh that needs to be loved. Feet that need to rest and to dance; backs that need support; shoulders that need arms, strong arms I'm telling you. And O my people, out yonder, hear me, they do not love your neck unnoosed and straight. So love your neck; put a hand on it, grace it, stroke it and hold it up. And all your inside parts that they'd just as soon slop for hogs, you got to love them. The dark, dark liver-love it, love it, and the beat and beating heart, love that too. More than eyes or feet. More than lungs that have yet to draw free air. More than your life-holding womb and your life-giving private parts, hear me now, love your heart. For this is the prize.

If you only knew about the stupid crush I had on you.” “Oh, I knew.” Her mouth dropped open. “No way. I was stealth.” “You mean when you used to hide in the loft and watch me work?” She grimaced. “Fine. So I liked when you used to chop wood. You’d get hot and take off your shirt.” She slid him a sly smile. “Teenage Alice thanks you.” “Good to know.” He cocked his head. “And grown up Alice?” She bit her lower lip while looking at his mouth. “She’s … undecided.” What an adorably sexy liar. “You’re flirting with me again.” “Am I?” He smiled. “You’re just playing with me right now. Let me know when you mean it.

a’ these?” I asked, because I knew I couldn’t do it myself. Penelope smiled and took the dead rabbit without blinking. Other hand asked for my knife. “Maybe you should collect some wood,” she said, soft enough that it didn’t sound like an order but firm enough that I knew she meant it. She went off by the fire while I dragged back a few thick branches what had fallen in the storm. I tended the flames and watched her working. Gentle and soft she went at that rabbit like it was a teddy bear she didn’t want to rip. Prized off the skin ’stead a’ pulling it. Nicked at the fur ’round the feet ’stead a’ chopping them off. I couldn’t watch. “Stop it, stop it,” I said, shaking my head. “It ain’t a baby

Our life is frittered away by detail. An honest man has hardly need to count more than his ten fingers, or in extreme cases he may add his ten toes, and lump the rest. Simplicity, simplicity, simplicity! I say, let your affairs be as two or three, and not a hundred or a thousand; instead of a million count half a dozen, and keep your accounts on your thumb-nail. In the midst of this chopping sea of civilized life, such are the clouds and storms and quicksands and thousand-and-one items to be allowed for, that a man has to live, if he would not founder and go to the bottom and not make his port at all, by dead reckoning, and he must be a great calculator indeed who succeeds. Simplify, simplify.

Gregory was in the walls, in the crawl space between the board floor of the cabin and the bitter ground. He was gone, but he was everywhere. He was on the small pantry shelf where canning was removed. The air of the cabin still held Gregory. He filled and expanded every dark corner, tight, to exploding. He was jammed between her legs so that no matter how she moved, he was inside of Agnes. She couldn't shake him from her vestments or burn him from the stove. He nested in the books, of course. She couldn't stand to touch their pages. He was in the sweet, fragrant wood Mary Kashpaw chopped, split, and piled. In the cloth of curtains, the clasp of doors, he waited. She turned the handle, let the light in, and he came, too, solid and good and alive.

The fire petered out so Foucault suggested that he chop some wood. As he walked to the woodpile we could see him from the porch. David warned him about the large rattlesnakes that were around, but this did not deter Foucault in the slightest. After selecting some choice pieces, Foucault chopped the wood with great alacrity. Everybody unabashedly gawked in astonishment, as if to say, How is it that an esteemed Parisian intellectual can learn to chop wood with such dexterity? One could not imagine a Voltaire or Sartre accomplishing such as task so readily. 'But I am just an ordinary man,' I heard Michel say to John, who had gone out to help him. Subsequently, the Bear Canyon bad called him Country Joe Foucault, referring, I suppose, to his down-to-earth manner and skills.

Necessities 1 A map of the world. Not the one in the atlas, but the one in our heads, the one we keep coloring in. With the blue thread of the river by which we grew up. The green smear of the woods we first made love in. The yellow city we thought was our future. The red highways not traveled, the green ones with their missed exits, the black side roads which took us where we had not meant to go. The high peaks, recorded by relatives, though we prefer certain unmarked elevations, the private alps no one knows we have climbed. The careful boundaries we draw and erase. And always, around the edges, the opaque wash of blue, concealing the drop-off they have stepped into before us, singly, mapless, not looking back. 2 The illusion of progress. Imagine our lives without it: tape measures rolled back, yardsticks chopped off. Wheels turning but going nowhere. Paintings flat, with no vanishing point. The plots of all novels circular; page numbers reversing themselves past the middle. The mountaintop no longer a goal, merely the point between ascent and descent. All streets looping back on themselves; life as a beckoning road an absurd idea. Our children refusing to grow out of their childhoods; the years refusing to drag themselves toward the new century. And hope, the puppy that bounds ahead, no longer a household animal. 3 Answers to questions, an endless supply. New ones that startle, old ones that reassure us. All of them wrong perhaps, but for the moment solutions, like kisses or surgery. Rising inflections countered by level voices, words beginning with w hushed by declarative sentences. The small, bold sphere of the period chasing after the hook, the doubter that walks on water and treads air and refuses to go away. 4 Evidence that we matter. The crash of the plane which, at the last moment, we did not take. The involuntary turn of the head, which caused the bullet to miss us. The obscene caller who wakes us at midnight to the smell of gas. The moon's full blessing when we fell in love, its black mood when it was all over. Confirm us, we say to the world, with your weather, your gifts, your warnings, your ringing telephones, your long, bleak silences. 5 Even now, the old things first things, which taught us language. Things of day and of night. Irrational lightning, fickle clouds, the incorruptible moon. Fire as revolution, grass as the heir to all revolutions. Snow as the alphabet of the dead, subtle, undeciphered. The river as what we wish it to be. Trees in their humanness, animals in their otherness. Summits. Chasms. Clearings. And stars, which gave us the word distance, so we could name our deepest sadness.

How was Gengo to know, Saigyo reflected, that this unheroic existence imposed even greater torment than the icy lashings of the Nachi Falls in its thousand-foot leap? How was Gengo to realize that Saigyo had not slept a single night undisturbed since he had fled his home for the Eastern Hills, that his sleep was haunted by the cries of his beloved daughter from whom he had torn himself. Who knew that during the day, when he went about his tasks of drawing water and chopping wood as he composed verses, the sighting of the wind in the treetops of the valleys below and the pines surrounding the temple sounded to him like the mourning of his young wife, and so troubled his nights that sleep no longer visited him? Never again would Saigyo find peace. He had wrenched asunder the living boughs of the tree that was his life. Remorse and compassion for his loved ones would dog him to the end of his days.

Golden Rule #17 Don’t mine stone with your bare hands. Long, long ago, there was a noob named Steven. He harvested wood with his bare hands because he thought using tools was a waste of resources. Why reduce tool durability? Why bother crafting axes at all? Steven’s hands had no durability, as far as he knew. Even if it took him longer to chop down trees this way, he could save materials. He could punch and punch all day and never waste any crafting tools. Steven was the kind of guy who, after loaning his best friend a wooden sword six months earlier, would ask for exactly one stick and two oak planks to be returned. Once, Steven and two friends bought a cake together. The cake cost six emeralds and was cut into six slices. That meant each person had to pay two emeralds. However, one of Steven’s cake slices was slightly smaller than the rest, so he argued that he should have to pay only 1.75 emeralds instead.

Akira thought for a minute, then said, “John, I want to share with you the most important piece of wisdom my sensei ever shared with me. The ultimate illusion of the human experience is control6. The person you want beside you in battle is the guy who has surrendered the outcome, and surrendered to the fact that he might die. When you surrender the outcome, you are freed up to be at your best, to be in the moment, and to trust your training. It is the one who has surrendered the outcome who ironically has the greatest chance of survival. It is the one who has surrendered the outcome who has the greatest chance of success. It is the one who has surrendered to the fact that he could fail, who has the greatest likelihood of not failing. Until you surrender the outcome, you will always be the greatest enemy to your own success. In order to reach your greatest potential you must operate with a heart posture of gratitude, commit to the controllables, surrender the outcome, and trust the process.

When warm weather came, Baby Suggs, holy, followed by every black man, woman, and child who could make it through, took her great heart to the Clearing--a wide-open place cut deep in the woods nobody knew for what at the end of the path known only to deer and whoever cleared the land in the first place. In the heat of every Saturday afternoon, she sat in the clearing while the people waited among the trees. After situating herself on a huge flat-sided rock, Baby Suggs bowed her head and prayed silently. The company watched her from the trees. They knew she was ready when she put her stick down. Then she shouted, "Let the children come!" and they ran from the trees toward her. "Let your mothers hear you laugh,"she told them, and the woods rang. The adults looked on and could not help smiling. Then "Let the grown men come," she shouted. They stepped out one by one from among the ringing trees. "Let your wives and your children see you dance," she told them, and groundlife shuddered under their feet. Finally she called the women to her. “Cry,” she told them. “For the living and the dead. Just cry.” And without covering their eyes the women let loose. It started that way: laughing children, dancing men, crying women and then it got mixed up. Women stopped crying and danced; men sat down and cried; children danced, women laughed, children cried until, exhausted and riven, all and each lay about the Clearing damp and gasping for breath. In the silence that followed, Baby Suggs, holy, offered up to them her great big heart…“Here,” she said, “in this here place, we flesh; flesh that weeps, laughs; flesh that dances on bare feet in grass. Love it. Love it hard. Yonder they do not love your flesh. They despise it… No more do they love the skin on your back. Yonder they flay it. And O my people they do not love your hands. Those they only use, tie, bind, chop off and leave empty. Love your hands! Love them! Raise them up and kiss them. Touch others with them, pat them together, stroke them on your face ‘cause they don’t love that either. You got to love it - you! And no, they ain’t in love with your mouth. Yonder, out there, they will see it broken and break it again. What you say out of it they will not heed…What you put into it to nourish your body they will snatch away and give leavins instead. No they don’t love your mouth. You got to love it." "This is flesh I’m talking about here. Flesh that needs to be loved. Feet that need to rest and to dance; backs that need support; shoulders that need arms, strong arms I’m telling you. And oh my people, out yonder, hear me, they do not love your neck unnoosed and straight. So love your neck; put a hand on it, grace it, stroke it, and hold it up. And all your inside parts that they’d just as soon slop for hogs, you got to love them. The dark, dark liver - love it, love it, and the beat and beating heart, love that too. More than eyes or feet…More than your life-holding womb and your live-giving private parts, hear me now, love your heart. For this is the prize."" -Baby Suggs

One further complication in the link between self-sufficiency and simplicity is worth noting. Self-sufficiency may be part of the traditional notion and the Romantic ideal of simple living, but in fairly obvious ways using technology can simplify our lives considerably. Which is simpler, washing all your clothes and sheets by hand, or using a washing machine? Collecting and chopping wood to make a fire to cook over, or turning on the gas burner and pushing the electric ignition button? Walking across town and back to deliver a message, or making a phone call? The point here is that the concept of simple living contains crosscurrents. Reducing our dependence on infrastructure and technology may bring us closer to simple living in one sense—we are more self-sufficient—but takes us away from it in other ways since it makes basic tasks much more difficult, arduous, and time-consuming. And in some ways technology can even help us to be more self-sufficient, as when we use a washing machine to do our own laundry instead of using servants or sending it out.

Ghost House I dwell in a lonely house I know That vanished many a summer ago, And left no trace but the cellar walls, And a cellar in which the daylight falls, And the purple-stemmed wild raspberries grow. O’er ruined fences the grape-vines shield The woods come back to the mowing field; The orchard tree has grown one copse Of new wood and old where the woodpecker chops; The footpath down to the well is healed. I dwell with a strangely aching heart In that vanished abode there far apart On that disused and forgotten road That has no dust-bath now for the toad. Night comes; the black bats tumble and dart; The whippoorwill is coming to shout And hush and cluck and flutter about; I hear him begin far enough away Full many a time to say his say Before he arrives to say it out. It is under the small, dim, summer star. I know not who these mute folk are Who share the unlit place with me- Those stones out under the low-limbed tree Doubtless bear names that the mosses mar. They are tireless folk, but slow and sad, Though two, close-keeping, are lass and lad- With none among them that ever sings, And yet, in view of how many things, As sweet companions as might be had.

Convinced that struggle was the crucible of character, Rockefeller faced a delicate task in raising his children. He wanted to accumulate wealth while inculcating in them the values of his threadbare boyhood. The first step in saving them from extravagance was keeping them ignorant of their father’s affluence. Until they were adults, Rockefeller’s children never visited his office or refineries, and even then they were accompanied by company officials, never Father. At home, Rockefeller created a make-believe market economy, calling Cettie the “general manager” and requiring the children to keep careful account books.16They earned pocket money by performing chores and received two cents for killing flies, ten cents for sharpening pencils, five cents per hour for practicing their musical instruments, and a dollar for repairing vases. They were given two cents per day for abstaining from candy and a dime bonus for each consecutive day of abstinence. Each toiled in a separate patch of the vegetable garden, earning a penny for every ten weeds they pulled up. John Jr. got fifteen cents an hour for chopping wood and ten cents per day for superintending paths. Rockefeller took pride in training his children as miniature household workers. Years later, riding on a train with his thirteen-year-old daughter, he told a traveling companion, “This little girl is earning money already. You never could imagine how she does it. I have learned what my gas bills should average when the gas is managed with care, and I have told her that she can have for pin money all that she will save every month on this amount, so she goes around every night and keeps the gas turned down where it is not needed.”17 Rockefeller never tired of preaching economy and whenever a package arrived at home, he made a point of saving the paper and string. Cettie was equally vigilant. When the children clamored for bicycles, John suggested buying one for each child. “No,” said Cettie, “we will buy just one for all of them.” “But, my dear,” John protested, “tricycles do not cost much.” “That is true,” she replied. “It is not the cost. But if they have just one they will learn to give up to one another.”18 So the children shared a single bicycle. Amazingly enough, the four children probably grew up with a level of creature comforts not that far above what Rockefeller had known as a boy.

The Sandwich Maker would pass what he had made to his assistant who would then add a few slices of newcumber and fladish and a touch of splagberry sauce, and then apply the topmost layer of bread and cut the sandwich with a fourth and altogether plainer knife. It was not that these were not also skilful operations, but they were lesser skills to be performed by a dedicated apprentice who would one day, when the Sandwich Maker finally laid down his tools, take over from him. It was an exalted position and that apprentice, Drimple, was the envy of his fellows. There were those in the village who were happy chopping wood, those who were content carrying water, but to be the Sandwich Maker was very heaven. And so the Sandwich Maker sang as he worked. He was using the last of the year’s salted meat. It was a little past its best now, but still the rich savour of Perfectly Normal Beast meat was something unsurpassed in any of the Sandwich Maker’s previous experience. Next week it was anticipated that the Perfectly Normal Beasts would appear again for their regular migration, whereupon the whole village would once again be plunged into frenetic action: hunting the Beasts, killing perhaps six, maybe even seven dozen of the thousands that thundered past. Then the Beasts must be rapidly butchered and cleaned, with most of the meat salted to keep it through the winter months until the return migration in the spring, which would replenish their supplies. The very best of the meat would be roasted straight away for the feast that marked the Autumn Passage. The celebrations would last for three days of sheer exuberance, dancing and stories that Old Thrashbarg would tell of how the hunt had gone, stories that he would have been busy sitting making up in his hut while the rest of the village was out doing the actual hunting. And then the very, very best of the meat would be saved from the feast and delivered cold to the Sandwich Maker. And the Sandwich Maker would exercise on it the skills that he had brought to them from the gods, and make the exquisite Sandwiches of the Third Season, of which the whole village would partake before beginning, the next day, to prepare themselves for the rigours of the coming winter. Today he was just making ordinary sandwiches, if such delicacies, so lovingly crafted, could ever be called ordinary. Today his assistant was away so the Sandwich Maker was applying his own garnish, which he was happy to do. He was happy with just about everything in fact.

Our father was a rumor, an echo, something only to be seen out of the corner of your eye. Our father was a woodsman, arms like tree limbs, beard as if born from bear, disappearing for days, for weeks, returning with so many things—tiny bird skulls, beads on a string, flowers for mother with purple blossoms and veiny leaves. The wood was stacked along one side of the cabin as high as it could go, the steady chop, the split of the timber, just part of the day, or so we were told. Our father was the cold creek that ran south of our home, filled with silver-backed fish with blood-orange meat, whispering every time we neared it, quenching our thirst, promises of sleepy peace if only we'd step a bit closer. Our father was the frosty moon that pasted the land with silence as our breath formed clouds of pain, feet bruised and bleeding, his laughter running over the mountain, guiding us down one ravine and up the other, wandering from hill to valley and back, some elusive destination always out of reach. Our father was time, stretched in every direction, elastic as a rubber band, as slow and anchored as a wall of granite, our eyes closing, waking up sore, grey where black had been. All lies. Everything she had ever told us was a lie. She never loved us, or it wouldn't be like this. (from "Asking for Forgiveness.")

In fact, when the scaffold is there, all erected and prepared, it has something about it which produces hallucination. One may feel a certain indifference to the death penalty, one may refrain from pronouncing upon it, from saying yes or no, so long as one has not seen a guillotine with one's own eyes: but if one encounters one of them, the shock is violent; one is forced to decide, and to take part for or against. Some admire it, like de Maistre; others execrate it, like Beccaria. The guillotine is the concretion of the law; it is called vindicte; it is not neutral, and it does not permit you to remain neutral. He who sees it shivers with the most mysterious of shivers. All social problems erect their interrogation point around this chopping-knife. The scaffold is a vision. The scaffold is not a piece of carpentry; the scaffold is not a machine; the scaffold is not an inert bit of mechanism constructed of wood, iron and cords. It seems as though it were a being, possessed of I know not what sombre initiative; one would say that this piece of carpenter's work saw, that this machine heard, that this mechanism understood, that this wood, this iron, and these cords were possessed of will. In the frightful meditation into which its presence casts the soul the scaffold appears in terrible guise, and as though taking part in what is going on. The scaffold is the accomplice of

In the white bowl, the paper caught fire, burning like a desperate flower, blooming and dying at the same time. Its scents came on tendrils of smoke, wrapping themselves around me. We missed you. I inhaled, and Victoria's kitchen disappeared around me. It was early morning in the cabin, winter; I could smell the woodstove working to keep the frost at bay. My father had fed the sourdough starter, and the tang of it played off the warm scent of coffee grounds. I could smell my own warmth in the air, rising from the blankets I'd tossed aside. I remembered that morning. It was the first time I ever saw the machine. I must have been three, maybe four years old. I'd woken up and seen my father, standing in the middle of the room, a box in his hands, bright and shiny and magical. I remembered racing across the floor, my bare feet tingling from the chill. What is it, Papa? It's wonderful. I want to know. And he'd put the shiny box aside and lifted me up high and said, You are the most wonderful thing in the world, little lark. The last of the paper crumbled to ash. I stood there, trying to remember what had happened next- but I couldn't. Did my father show me the machine, or did we go outside and chop wood? You'd think I'd remember, but I didn't. What I remembered was how it felt to be held in his arms. To be loved that way, before everything else happened. And in that moment, I felt whole. "Oh," I heard Victoria say, and when I turned to her, her eyes were filled with tears.

Okay, imagine that you love chopping wood in your backyard,” I said. “You do it for fun. To relax. To enter a flow state. Then, one day, your neighbor pops his head over the fence and asks you if you could chop him some wood, too. He offers you $20. Suddenly, the thing you love doing becomes a business. Before you know it, you’re chopping wood for all your neighbors. You buy a truck and start selling door-to-door. It’s just you and a bunch of buddies, side by side, chopping wood and working outside. The business grows. And grows. And grows. And a decade later you wake up. You’re in a little glass office, perched atop one of many sawmills. You look down at the hundreds of workers beneath you, operating the industrial equipment on the factory floor. Huge logs getting fed into machines that slice the wood. Totally automated. “And there you are. Isolated in your little office, wearing a suit, the air-conditioning blowing a chill down your back. No axe. No fresh air. No friendly coworkers. Just you sitting in your office, doing some paperwork—alone. That is what it feels like to build a business this big.” He looked dejected and I wondered if I should have just shut my mouth and told him it was awesome. He could learn the truth on his own. Every founder dreams about getting to the end—the part where they’ve created the billion-dollar behemoth—but ironically, once there, we all fantasize about going back to the beginning. After all, the beginning is the best part, and most of us probably wouldn’t have kept going if we knew about all the speed bumps. The journey is the reward.

Before she could think of what to say, he grasped the axe and turned toward her, his face a mass of angles in the lanternlight. "Step back." This was a man who expected to be heeded. He did not wait to see if she followed his direction before he lifted the axe high above his head. She pressed herself into the corner of the dark room as he attacked the furniture with a vengeance, her surprise making her unable to resist watching him. He was built beautifully. Like a glorious Roman statue, all strong, lean muscles outlined by the crisp linen of his shirtsleeves when he lifted the tool overhead, his hands sliding purposefully along the haft, fingers grasping tightly as he brought the steel blade down into the age-old oak with a mighty thwack, sending a splinter of oak flying across the kitchen, landing atop the long-unused stove. He splayed one long-fingered hand flat on the table, gripping the axe once more to work the blade out of the wood. He turned his head as he stood back, making sure she was out of the way of any potential projectiles- a movement she could not help but find comforting- before confronting the furniture and taking his next swing with a mighty heave. The blade sliced into the oak, but the table held. He shook his head and yanked the axe out once more, this time aiming for one of the remaining table legs. Thwack! Penelope's eyes went wide as the lanternlight caught the way his wool trousers wrapped tightly around his massive thighs. She should not notice... should not be paying attention to such obvious... maleness. But she'd never seen legs like his. Thwack! Never imagined they could be so... compelling. Thwack! Could not help it. Thwack!

—a slave was owned by a Continental Army soldier who'd been killed in the French and Indian War. The slave looked after the soldier's widow. He did everything, from dawn to dark didn't stop doing what needed to be done. He chopped and hauled the wood, gathered the crops, excavated and built a cabbage house and stowed the cabbages there, stored the pumpkins, buried the apples, turnips, and potatoes in the ground for winter, stacked the rye and wheat in the barn, slaughtered the pig, salted the pork, slaughtered the cow and corned the beef, until one day the widow married him and they had three sons. And those sons married Gouldtown girls whose families reached back to the settlement's origins in the 1600s, families that by the Revolution were all intermarried and thickly intermingled. One or another or all of them, she said, were descendants of the Indian from the large Lenape settlement at Indian Fields who married a Swede—locally Swedes and Finns had superseded the original Dutch settlers—and who had five children with her; one or another or all were descendants of the two mulatto brothers brought from the West Indies on a trading ship that sailed up the river from Greenwich to Bridgeton, where they were indentured to the landowners who had paid their passage and who themselves later paid the passage of two Dutch sisters to come from Holland to become their wives; one or another or all were descendants of the granddaughter of John Fenwick, an English baronet's son, a cavalry officer in Cromwell's Commonwealth army and a member of the Society of Friends who died in New Jersey not that many years after New Cesarea (the province lying between the Hudson and the Delaware that was deeded by the brother of the king of England to two English proprietors) became New Jersey.

Isn't there something in Genesis about not looking back? A stupid glance over my shoulder showed her expression relaxing, glad I wasn't taking anything that couldn't be replaced and glad I didn't destroy anything that couldn't be repaired. "Do you care for me, Georgia?" I asked her. "Tell me you don't and I'm out of your life forever." She stood in the driveway with her arms wrapped around herself like she was freezing. "Andre is on his way." "I didn't ask you about no Andre." "He'll be here in a minute." My head hurt, but I pressed her. "It's a yes-or-no question." "Can we talk when Andre gets back? We can-" "Stop talking about him. I want to know if you love me." "Andre…" She said his name one time too many. For what happened next, she would have to take some of the blame. I asked her a simple question and she refused to give me a simple answer. I turned from her and made a sharp left turn, pounding across the yard, feeling the dry grass crunch under my shoes. Six long strides put me at the base of the massive tree. I touched the rough bark, an instant of reflection, to give Old Hickey the benefit of the doubt. But in reality, a hickory tree was a useless hunk of wood. Tall, and that's all. To break the shell of a hickory nut, you needed a hammer and an act of Congress, and even then you needed a screwdriver to get at the meat, which was about as tasty as a clod of limestone. Nobody would ever mourn a hickory tree except Celestial, and maybe Andre. When I was a boy, so little I couldn't manage much more than a George Washington hatcher, Big Roy taught me how to take down a tree. Bend your knees, swing hard and low, follow up with a straight chop. Celestial was crying like the baby we never had, yelping and mewing with every swing. Believe me when I say that I didn't slow my pace, even though my shoulders burned and my arms strained and quivered. With every blow, wedges of fresh wood flew from the wounded trunk peppering my face with hot bites. "Speak up, Georgia," I shouted, hacking at the thick grey bark, experiencing pleasure and power with each stroke. "I asked you if you loved me.

I stand so abruptly that Leiza startles. “If Violet wants to find me, I’ll be outside chopping wood,” I tell her, causing her to choke back a sound that suspiciously resembles a smothered laugh. When I eye her, she’s the picture of seriousness, nodding once again. “Of course, Alpha,” she says so graciously. Tearing my shirt over my head, I toss it to the ground. Leiza’s phone rings, and she puts it aside. “A vampire is calling me. That can’t be good,” she says as she meets my eyes, almost asking for permission to answer Shera’s call. “They’re trying to reach me. Not you. They can kiss my ass. I need a minute to deal with this.” “I thought you were tired and going to get some sleep,” Leiza states, and then swallows down whatever else is on the tip of her tongue. “I’m no longer tired,” I point out dryly. Another nod from Leiza, and I walk out shirtless to go chop some fucking wood for the fireplace Violet rarely ever uses. There’s an axe wedged into one of the piles of wood near the chopping block, making this simpler than expected, so I get to work. Before I can even make one small pile, Damien is wheeling into the driveway, barely putting the brake on, before he hops out. His eyes narrow on me, and then his brow furrows. It’s when his lips start to twitch that I bristle, feeling a little too transparent. “Didn’t realize you’d gotten this pathetic, mongrel,” he drawls. “And here I thought our calls were being ignored so you could have Violet to yourself.” “I’m holding an axe,” I warn him. “Not a Van Helsing axe,” he volleys with a growing grin. The side door swings open for Violet as she walks out, eyeing me first from my spot near the sidewalk by the street, and then Damien next. “What’re you doing shirtless?” she asks, looking back over at me. “It’s like ten degrees out here. People are going to think that’s weird.” Damien restrains a smile. “You were almost out of wood,” I tell her, gesturing to the…fucking full wood chamber on the side of her house. I couldn’t squeeze another piece in there if I wanted to. Violet glances from it, to me, to Damien, and then to the wood again. “Tiara keeps it filled, and we hardly use it, since the heat is on…” She lets her words trail off, clearly confused. Damien outright grins. “Just what are you doing, exactly?” Damien muses. Tossing the axe to the ground, I glare over at him. “Why are you here?

But who is going to decide what each person’s capabilities or needs are? Probably it’ll be some commission as usual. But what kind of commission? Probably a ‘troika’ (that is, a group of three judges carrying out the Party’s will). So they will summon me and say, ‘All right, Nathaniel, what are your capabilities? You can chop twenty cubic meters of wood per day. And what are your needs? A bowl of gruel. There.’ That is their main principle.

Aim for the chopping block. If you aim for the wood, you will have nothing.

161. Chop Wood and Carry Water Layman Pang, more than a thousand years ago, wrote: My daily activities are not unusual, I’m just naturally in harmony with them. Grasping nothing, discarding nothing . . . Drawing water and chopping wood.

In the daylight that followed my arrival, the pale grey Trappe resembled not so much an abbey as a hospital, an asylum or a reformatory. It dwindled off into farm buildings, and came to an end in the fields where thousands of turnips led their secret lives and reared into the air their little frostbitten banners. Among the furrows an image mouldered on its pedestal; and, under a sky of clouded steel, the rooks cawed and wheeled and settled. Across the December landscape, flat and waterlogged with its clumps of drizzling coppice and barren-looking pasture-land, ran a rutted path which disappeared beneath an avenue of elm-trees. Willows, blurred and colourless as the detail of an aquatint, receded in the mist; and, here and there, the pallor of the woods was interrupted by funereal clumps of pine. Isolated monks, all of them hooded and clogged, at work in the fields, ploughing or chopping wood, dotted this sodden panorama and the report of their falling axes reached the ear long seconds after the visual impact. Others were driving slow herds of cattle to graze.

Eventually Win had accepted that the feelings she had for Merripen were not reciprocated. She had even cried on Leo's shoulder. Her brother had pointed out that she had seen very little of the world and knew next to nothing about men. "Don't you think it's possible your attachment to Merripen was a result of proximity as much as anything else?" Leo had asked gently. "Let's look at the situation honestly, Win. You have nothing in common with him. You're a lovely, sensitive, literate woman, and he's… Merripen. He likes to chop wood for entertainment. And apparently it falls to me to point out the indelicate truth that some couples are well-suited in the bedroom but not anywhere else." Win had been shocked out of her tears by his blunt-ness. "Leo Hathaway, are you suggesting-" "Lord Ramsay now, thank you," he had teased. "Lord Ramsay, are you suggesting that my feelings for Merripen arc carnal in nature?" "They're certainly not intellectual," Leo had said, and grinned as she punched him in the shoulder.

As with everything else in life, the instructions remain the same, despite changing circumstances: Chop wood, carry water.

Lamb chop, yuk.

But when a woman gets proud and conceited and carries on like this one did she is hard to cure. The fact was, her husband was too kind to her. He did not give her plenty of work to keep her busy and out of mischief. Instead of making her chop the wood and carry the water, and do other hard things, he did it for her, for he was very proud of her and she was indeed a beautiful woman. He did, however, make her stay in their wigwam instead of allowing her to go about wherever she liked.

There’s a way of triumphant accomplishment that comes from lowering dead or unwanted trees. (Not to say the joys of yelling, But that feeling fades pretty quickly once you look down and see unsightly—and very stubborn—Stump milling. If you hire a landscaper or arborist to chop down the trees, they typically leave the stumps behind, unless you pay a further fee. Stump-removal prices vary widely across the country and are supported by the diameter of the stump, but it typically costs between $100 and $200 to get rid of a stump that’s 24 inches in diameter or smaller. And that’s a good price if you’ve only got one stump to get rid of . But, if you've got two or more stumps, you'll save a substantial amount of cash by renting a stump grinder. A gas-powered stump grinder rents for about $100 per day, counting on the dimensions of the machine. And if you share the rental expense with one or two stump-plagued neighbors, renting is certainly the more economical thanks to going. you will need a vehicle with a trailer hitch to tow the machine, which weighs about 1,000 pounds. Or, for a nominal fee, most rental dealers will drop off and devour the grinder. To remove the 30-in.-dia. scarlet maple stump, I rented a Vermeer Model SC252 stump grinder. it's a strong 25-hp engine and 16-in.-dia. cutting wheel that's studded with 16 forged-steel teeth. this is often a loud, powerful machine with a classy mechanism , but it's surprisingly simple to work . But, before you crank up the motor and begin grinding away, it’s important to prep the world for the stumpectomy. Start by ensuring all kids and pets are indoors, or if they’re outdoors, keep them well faraway from the world and under constant adult supervision. Then, use a round-point shovel or garden mattock to get rid of any rocks from round the base of the stump [1]. this is often important because if the spinning cutting wheel hits a rock, it can shoot out sort of a missile and cause serious injury. Plus, rocks can dull or damage the teeth on the cutting wheel, which are expensive to exchange. Next, check the peak of the stump. If it’s protruding out of the bottom quite 6 inches approximately, use a sequence saw to trim it as on the brink of the bottom as possible [2]. While this step isn’t absolutely necessary, it'll prevent quite little bit of time because removing 6 inches of the Stump grinding with a chainsaw is far quicker than using the grinder. After donning the acceptable safety gear, start the grinder and drive it to within 3 feet of the stump. Use the hydraulic lever to boost the cutting wheel until it’s a couple of inches above the stump. Slowly drive the machine forward to position the wheel directly over the stump's front edge [3]. Engage the facility lever to start out the wheel spinning, then slowly lower it about 3 in. in to the stump grinding. Next, use the hydraulic lever to slowly swing the wheel from side to side to filter out all the wood within the cutting range. Then, raise the wheel, advance the machine forward a couple of inches, and repeat the method. While operating the machine, always stand at the instrument panel, which is found near the rear of the machine and well faraway from the cutting wheel. Little by little, continue grinding and advancing your way through to the opposite side of the stump. Raise the cutting wheel, shift into reverse, and return to the starting spot. Repeat the grinding process until the surface of the Stump removal is a minimum of 4 in. below the extent of the encompassing ground. At now, you'll drive the grinder off to at least one side, far away from the excavated hole. Now, discover all the wood chips and fill the crater with screened topsoil [4]. (The wood chips are often used as mulch in flowerbeds and around trees and shrubs.) Lightly rake the soil, opened up a good layer of grass seed, then rake the seeds into the soil [5]. Water the world and canopy the seeds with mulch hay.

Then I got the idea of the portable diathermy machine. I rented one, took it on the bus going home that night. There sat all the tired commuters with their wrist radios, talking to their wives, saying, 'Now I'm at Forty-third, now I'm at Forty-fourth, here I am at Forty-ninth, now turning at Sixty-first.' One husband cursing, 'Well, get out of that bar, damn it, and get home and get dinner started, I'm at Seventieth!' And the transit-system radio playing 'Tales from the Vienna Woods,' a canary singing words about a first-rate wheat cereal. Then—I switched on my diathermy! Static! Interference! All wives cut off from husbands grousing about a hard day at the office. All husbands cut off from wives who had just seen their children break a window! The 'Vienna Woods' chopped down, the canary mangled! Silence! A terrible, unexpected silence. The bus inhabitants faced with having to converse with each other. Panic! Sheer, animal panic!" "The police seized you?" "The bus had to stop. After all, the music was being scrambled, husbands and wives were out of touch with reality. Pandemonium, riot, and chaos. Squirrels chattering in cages! A trouble unit arrived, triangulated on me instantly, had me reprimanded, fined, and home, minus my diathermy machine, in jig time.

We see this even more in Seven Brides For Seven Brothers (1954), with Mercer again at MGM, collaborating with composer Gene De Paul. This one has a real Broadway score, every number embedded in the characters’ attitudes. Ragged, bearded, buckskinned Howard Keel has come to town to take a wife, and a local belle addresses him as “Backwoodsman”: it’s the film’s central image, of rough men who must learn to be civilized in the company of women. The entire score has that flavor—western again, rustic, primitive, lusty. “Bless Yore Beautiful Hide,” treating Keel’s tour of the Oregon town where he seeks his bride, sounds like something Pecos Bill wrote with Calamity Jane. When the song sheet came out, the tune was marked “Lazily”—but that isn’t how Keel sings it. He’s on the hunt and he wants results, and, right in the middle of the number, he spots Jane Powell chopping wood and realizes that he has found his mate. But he hasn’t, not yet. True, she goes with him, looking forward to love and marriage. But her number, “Wonderful, Wonderful Day,” warns us that she is of a different temperament than he: romantic, vulnerable, poetic. They don’t suit each other, especially when he incites his six brothers to snatch their intended mates. Not court them: kidnap them. “Sobbin’ Women” (a pun on the Sabine Women of the ancient Roman legend, which the film retells, via a story by Stephen Vincent Benét) is the number outlining the plan, in more of Keel’s demanding musical tone. But the six “brides” are horrified. Their number, in Powell’s pacifying tone, is “June Bride,” and the brothers in turn offer “Lament” (usually called “Lonesome Polecat”), which reveals that they, too, have feelings. That—and the promise of good behavior—shows that they at last deserve their partners, whereupon each brother duets with each bride, in “Spring, Spring, Spring.” And we note that this number completes the boys’ surrender, in music that gives rather than takes. Isn’t

That was when Bernard Pine pulled out a handgun. Wilde didn’t hesitate. The moment he realized what was happening he was already on the move. No one with a gun expects that. Not at first. One of the two men in this room—Wilde—was highly trained in combat. The other wasn’t. Pine had made the mistake of standing too close. Wilde took a quick step toward him. With one hand, he snatched the gun. With the other, he formed a classic chop and delivered it without much force to Pine’s throat. If you throw that blow too hard, you do permanent damage. Wilde was just aiming for a choke, a gag reflex, a muscle release. It did the trick.

The businessman said, “I believe that if you spend six months outdoors chopping wood, digging in the soil, reading the Bible, and fishing in the deep lakes you will become a new man.

At the end of the sixth step, I have people disengage their beam of heart energy, and bring it back into their own hearts. This is important because we need to understand the boundaries between us and other. It’s delightful to blend energy with other people, but it’s vital to be able to disengage and re-inhabit your own energy space. When people open their eyes, I have them look around and notice the objects in their environment. I might ask, “Notice the smallest green object you can see” or “What’s the biggest round object?” That’s because we lose our sense of self in Bliss Brain, and it’s important to come back fully to local reality. Life goes on. Chop wood, carry water.

the reason it takes longer is because with one eye on the goal, you only have one eye for the journey.

He could make his way back to Russia and retreat into the woods and spend the rest of his life chopping wood and hunting deer, but he had grown rather accustomed to living in big cities and being paid a decent amount of money and, for lack of a better word, being respected for who he was and what he did.

Happiness is always with you. It has nothing to do with the weather, it has nothing to do with chopping wood, it has nothing to do with digging a hole in the garden. Happiness has nothing to do with anything. It is just the nonexpectant, relaxed, at-ease state of your being with existence. And it is there; it does not come and go. It is always there, just like your breathing, your heartbeat, the blood circulating in your body.

King was convicted of trespassing in his own hotel and sentenced to hard labor for a week. In local and national papers, King explained to reporters that the long of days chopping wood and cutting grass, supervised by guards riding horseback on the roadside, caused him no despair; on the contrary, he had been “morally strengthened” by his attack on the “idol of segregation.” He told an Alabama reporter, “I consider myself in approximately the same situation as early Christian martyrs who were put to death for refusing to put incense on the statue of the emperor. We refused to put a pinch of incense on the idol of segregation.

The same people who'd mocked her for her love of reading, and gossiped about her father, now cozied up with a good book while enjoying a fire fueled by wood cut with her father's wood-chopping machine. Many minds had been changed those past few years. Particularly when word of her father's prize-winning invention had spread and Monsieur René le Prince, an entrepreneur (a new profession, funnily enough, born out of the word adventurer,) proposed a partnership. With Monsieur le Prince's resources, Maurice's knack for machinery, and Belle's cleverness, they had formed a formidable team. They traveled to other fairs and looked for new innovations to support, Belle often finding successes in the inventors no one else would take a chance on.

I want to become the type of person people love being around because my life inspires them to become everything they are capable of being.

Chopping wood is meditation. Carrying water is meditation. Be mindful 24 hours a day, not just during the one hour you may allot for formal meditation or reading scripture and reciting prayers. Each act must be carried out in mindfulness. Each act is a rite, a ceremony. Raising your cup of tea to your mouth is a rite. Does the word "rite" seems too solemn ? I use that word in order to jolt you into the realization of the life-and-death matter of awareness.

Ellen chopped the wood at the woodpile in the yard and she carried water from an old well in the rear of the pasture. She was afraid to pass beyond the ways allotted to her by her labours, and so the region beyond the pond stood off as a picture, unexplored

But choosing to believe that anything that happens is in your best interest will turn all of the challenges and circumstances into a refinery that will shape your character and skills, and will develop within you an ability to change the world.

Isn’t it wonderful? Isn’t it marvelous? I chop wood and carry water.

Humility is not thinking less of your self, but thinking of your self less.

The organs and elements either generate or destroy each other in a particular pattern. This idea is a reflection of the Chinese principle of restoring equilibrium through balancing opposites (yin-yang) or of wuxing, which refers to the interlocking nature of the five elements. The idea of wuxing explains that each element exerts a generative and subjugative influence on one another. Wood will generate (or feed) fire and fire will generate new earth. Elements also subjugate or destroy each other. A practitioner diagnoses which elements might need to be generated or decreased and will figure treatment accordingly. Understanding this cycle is the key to creating balance within the system. GENERATIVE INTERACTIONS wood feeds fire fire creates earth earth bears metal metal collects water water nourishes wood DESTRUCTIVE INTERACTIONS These are often called “overcoming” interactions, as they involve one element being destroyed or changed by another: wood parts earth earth takes in water water quenches fire fire melts metal metal chops wood The ancient Chinese had a different idea of anatomy than Western physicians. Instead of being characterized by their position in the body, the organs were understood by the role they played within the overall system. They were therefore described by their interdependent relationships and connection to the skin via the blood (xue), fluids, meridians, and the three vital treasures described below. Just as organs flow in five phases, so do the seasons and points on the compass. There are four directions, with China representing the fifth (at the center). Unlike the Western compass, the Chinese compass emphasizes the south. This is summer, the hottest time of the year. It is appropriately linked to fire. West is the setting of the sun and is associated with autumn and metal, while north is winter and water (the opposite of the south). East, the rising sun, is linked with spring and wood. Earth is related to the center of the compass and late summer. If any of these phases are out of balance, the entire system is unbalanced. Blocks or stagnation anywhere can result in problems, as can excess or lack. A proper diagnosis will integrate all of these factors. FIGURE 4.20 THE FIVE CHINESE ELEMENTS THE THREE VITAL TREASURES The Three Treasures, sometimes called the Three Jewels, are keystones in traditional Chinese medicine. From the Taoist perspective, these three treasures constitute the essential forces of life, which are considered to be three forms of the same substance. These three treasures are: •​Jing, basic or nutritive essence, seen as represented in sperm, among other substances. •​Chi, life force connected with air, vapor, breath, and spirit. •​Shen, spiritual essence linked with the soul and supernaturalism. Most often, jing is related to body energy, chi to mind energy, and shen to spiritual energy. These three energies cycle, with jing serving as the foundation for life and procreation, chi animating the body’s performance, and shen mirroring the state of the soul.

Sometimes I wonder whether this is a punishment for you,” she said through her teeth. “But what could you have done to piss off her Immortal Majesty?” “Don’t use that tone when you talk about her.” “Oh, I can use whatever tone I want. And you can taunt and snarl at me and make me chop wood all day, but short of ripping out my tongue, you can’t—” Faster than lighting, his hand shot out and she gagged, jolting as he grabbed her tongue between his fingers. She bit down, hard, but he didn’t let go. “Say that again,” he purred.

Can I expect to do something useful with you today, or will it be more sitting and growling and glaring? Or will I just wind up chopping wood for hours on end?” He merely stared into the hall and she followed, still braiding her hair.

Resigned that I wasn’t going back to sleep, I rolled up and got out of bed once another glance at my phone confirmed it was seven thirty and instantly peeked out the window. There was a dull, repetitive sound coming from out there. It was Mr. Rhodes. Chopping wood. Shirtless. And I mean shirtless. I’d expected something nice beneath his clothes from the way he filled them out, but nothing could have prepared me for the sight of… him. Reality. If I wasn’t already pretty sure that there was dry drool on my face, there would have been five minutes after seeing all…. That through the window. A pile of foot-long logs were tossed around his feet, with another small pile that he’d obviously already chopped, just to the side. But it was the rest of him that really drew my attention. Dark chest hair was sprinkled high over his pectorals. The body hair did nothing to take away from the hard slabs of abdominal muscles he’d been hiding; he was broad up top, narrow at the waist, and covering all that was firm, beautiful skin. His biceps were big and supple. Shoulders rounded. His forearms were incredible. And even though his shorts grazed his knees, I could tell the rest of his downtown area was nice and muscular. He was the DILF to end all DILFs. My ex had been fit. He’d worked out several times a week at our home gym with a trainer. Being attractive had been part of his job. Kaden’s physique had nothing on Mr. Rhodes though. My mouth watered a little more. I whistled. And I must have done it a lot louder than I’d thought because his head instantly went up and his gaze landed on me through the window almost immediately. Busted. I waved. And inside… inside, I died. He lifted his chin. I backed away, trying to play it off. Maybe he wouldn’t think anything of it. Maybe he’d think I’d whistled… to say hi. Sure, yeah. A girl could dream. I backed up some more and felt my soul shriveling as I made my breakfast, making sure to stay away from the window the rest of the time. I tried to focus on other stuff. You know, so I wouldn’t want to have to move out from shame. Was I tired? Absolutely. But there were things I wanted to do. Needed to do. Including but not limited to getting away from Mr. Rhodes so my soul could come back to life. So an hour later, with a plan in mind, a sandwich, a couple bottles of water, and my whistle in my backpack, I headed down the stairs, hoping and praying that Mr. Rhodes was back in his house. I wasn’t that lucky. He had a shirt on, but that was the only difference. Darn.

You could cut down a tree with your axe,” Raen said. “The axe does violence to the tree, and escapes unharmed. Is that how you see it? Wood is soft compared to steel, but the sharp steel is dulled as it chops, and the sap of the tree will rust and pit it. The mighty axe does violence to the helpless tree, and is harmed by it. So it is with men, though the harm is in the spirit.

A student asked the master, "What is the secret to tranquility?" The master replied, "Before enlightenment, chop wood, carry water. After enlightenment, chop wood, carry water.

Zen is to eat, breathe, cook, carry water, and scrub the toilet, to infuse every act of body, speech, and mind with mindfulness, to illuminate every leaf and pebble, every heap of garbage, every path that leads to our mind’s return home. Only a person who has grasped the art of cooking, washing dishes, sweeping, and chopping wood, someone who is able to laugh at the world’s weapons of money, fame, and power, can hope to descend the mountain as a hero.

chop wood carry water

Before Enlightenment I chopped wood and carried water. After Enlightenment I chopped wood and carried water. Zen saying I’m for truth, no matter who tells it. I’m for justice, no matter who it is for or against. Malcolm X

Coming home in May, I hit the ground running. I couldn’t feel anything if I kept busy, so I became the most task-oriented person in town. The garden I planted at Samuel’s was overflowing with blooms. Gus’s class snacks were lavish Pinterest-worthy creations. My garden was incredibly tidy. All the little sprouts of weeds were targets for my suppressed emotions. Kill kill kill. I worried Jeffrey. I knew I was a shell of myself. I knew that he could see it. So I avoided him. He found me down in the garden one day. I had collected a heap of rocks that were left over from a landscaping project. Pulling them out, one by one from the back of the Rhino, I was laying a path through our large vegetable garden that would allow me easier access to our snap peas, beans, tomatoes, and cucumbers at the back of the garden. I’d pinched my hand between two large stones and blood caked my knuckles. “Talk to me," he said, hands shoved deep down in his pockets. “What are you talking about? I’m fine." I was angry. I’d wanted to talk months before. I’d wanted him to hold me in bed while I cried. I’d wanted him to not have been so difficult about getting pregnant in the first place. I’d wanted him not to disappear to go chop wood and then get resentful that I was doing the exact same thing. What’s good for the goose, right? I’d wanted him to know I was angry and then apologize. And these mantras of anger had been running around in my head for months. But then — “I’m sorry," he said. Jeffrey had finally seen me. We talked about our grief. We talked about how we both left like failures. We talked about how lonely we were. Suddenly, standing there with his hands in his pockets, Jeffrey was a different person. He was incredibly vulnerable. He talked to me about how much he valued me and that this was him home and that was worth any fight. And as we talked, he started helping me. He stood and went to get a whole bunch of rocks, laying pathways through the garden for me. Each path was a manifestation of what he was saying. We worked on this garden together.

He said that greatness is a bunch of small things done well, added up over time, that most people think are too small to matter.

falling in love with the process of becoming great, and doing the boring work (chop wood carry water) with excellence.

He looks masculine and broody, as if he’s just finished training some soldiers before riding a horse and then chopping down a tree. Every single one of those images of Osrik flits through my mind, making butterflies skitter through my stomach. I wonder if he does chop wood? Maybe I could be near a window to watch…

Pecan Bar Recipe 2/3 cup brown sugar 1/3 cup flour 1 teaspoon salt 1 1/2 cups dark corn syrup 4 large eggs from Fenrir’s coop 2 teaspoons vanilla extract 1 1/2 cups chopped pecans (let the pups help but make ‘em wash their paws) 1 Heat oven to 350°F or close enough over a fire. 2 Make a pie crust, you know how to do that 3 Bake it crispy 4 Meanwhile, make everything else and put it in the crust. If it smells and tastes good here you’re on the right track. If not, eat it anyway, we don’t waste food in Fenrir. 5 Bake until all the wolves are beating down your door because they followed the smell from the woods. Cut into bars. No storage instructions because there won’t be any left to save.

In the tin-covered porch Mr Chawla had constructed at the rear of the house she had set up her outdoor kitchen, spilling over into a grassy patch of ground. Here rows of pickle jars matured in the sun like an army balanced upon the stone wall; roots lay, tortured and contorted, upon a cot as they dried; and tiny wild fruit, scorned by all but the birds, lay cut open, displaying purple-stained hearts. Ginger was buried underground so as to keep it fresh; lemon and pumpkin dried on the roof; all manner of things fermented in tightly sealed tins; chilli peppers and curry leaves hung from the branches of a tree, and so did buffalo curd, dripping from a cloth on its way to becoming paneer. Newly strong with muscles, wiry and tough despite her slenderness, Kulfi sliced and pounded, ground and smashed, cut and chopped in a chaos of ingredients and dishes. ‘Cumin, quail, mustard seeds, pomelo rind,’ she muttered as she cooked. ‘Fennel, coriander, sour mango. Pandanus flour, lichen and perfumed kewra. Colocassia leaves, custard apple, winter melon, bitter gourd. Khas root, sandalwood, ash gourd, fenugreek greens. Snake-gourd, banana flowers, spider leaf, lotus root …’ She was producing meals so intricate, they were cooked sometimes with a hundred ingredients, balanced precariously within a complicated and delicate mesh of spices – marvellous triumphs of the complex and delicate art of seasoning. A single grain of one thing, a bud of another, a moist fingertip dipped lightly into a small vial and then into the bubbling pot; a thimble full, a matchbox full, a coconut shell full of dark crimson and deep violet, of dusty yellow spice, the entire concoction simmered sometimes for a day or two on coals that emitted only a glimmer of faint heat or that roared like a furnace as she fanned them with a palm leaf. The meats were beaten to silk, so spiced and fragrant they clouded the senses; the sauces were full of strange hints and dark undercurrents, leaving you on firm ground one moment, dragging you under the next. There were dishes with an aftertaste that exploded upon you and left you gasping a whole half-hour after you’d eaten them. Some that were delicate, with a haunting flavour that teased like the memory of something you’d once known but could no longer put your finger on. Pickled limes stuffed with cardamom and cumin, crepuscular creatures simmered upon the wood of a scented tree, small river fish baked in green coconuts, rice steamed with nasturtium flowers in the pale hollow of a bamboo stem, mushrooms red – and yellow-gilled, polka-dotted and striped. Desire filled Sampath as he waited for his meals. Spice-laden clouds billowed forth and the clashing cymbals of pots and pans declared the glory of the meal to come, scaring the birds from the trees about him.

Often when I do interviews and press events from space, I’m asked what I miss about Earth. I have a few answers I always reach for that make sense in any context: I mention rain, spending time with my family, relaxing at home. Those are always true. But throughout the day, from moment to moment, I’m aware of missing all sorts of random things that don’t even necessarily rise to the surface of my consciousness. I miss cooking. I miss chopping fresh food, the smell vegetables give up when you first slice into them. I miss the smell of the unwashed skins of fruit, the sight of fresh produce piled high in grocery stores. I miss grocery stores, the shelves of bright colors and the glossy tile floors and the strangers wandering the aisles. I miss people. I miss the experience of meeting new people and getting to know them, learning about a life different from my own, hearing about things people experienced that I haven’t. I miss the sound of children playing, which always sounds the same no matter their language. I miss the sound of people talking and laughing in another room. I miss rooms. I miss doors and door frames and the creak of wood floorboards when people walk around in old buildings. I miss sitting on my couch, sitting on a chair, sitting on a bar stool. I miss the feeling of resting after opposing gravity all day. I miss the rustle of papers, the flap of book pages turning. I miss drinking from a glass. I miss setting things down on a table and having them stay there. I miss the sudden chill of wind on my back, the warmth of sun on my face. I miss showers. I miss running water in all its forms: washing my face, washing my hands. I miss sleeping in a bed—the feel of sheets, the heft of a comforter, the welcoming curve of a pillow. I miss the colors of clouds at different times of day and the variety of sunrises and sunsets on Earth.

He’s Mack. My heart bursts into flutters even as I let out a long exhale of relief. He’s alive. Thank God, he’s still alive and healthy enough to chop wood. I don’t know if he heard me calling before, but he must hear me when I say, “Mack!” He turns his head slightly in my direction, his eyes resting on my face for only a couple of seconds. Then he turns back to his wood chunk. Repositions it. Brings down the axe again, chopping it into two neat pieces. He doesn’t say a word. “Mack, what the hell?” I march closer to him, moving to stand in his eyeline. “So you’re just going to ignore me?” “What the hell are you doing here?” he demands, curt but not loud or angry. “What do you think I’m doing here? Everyone is really worried about you, so Cal, Rachel, and I drove out here to find you.” This must catch his attention. He lowers the axe and glances past me in the direction I came. “They’re not here. They’re waiting at the border for us. But it isn’t safe.

Against my will, my eyes glide to the massive erection at my eye level. It points toward his navel and nearly pokes from the top of his boxer briefs, but the thickness is what holds my attention. Disgustingly thick. Horrifyingly big. Fuck an ax. He could probably chop wood with that thing. It would certainly split me in half, I think, and my cheeks blaze hot.

The Gar Wood was a 1947 Ensign, its lines designed for cutting small chop at high speed, not for coping with deep-water swell. The boat teetered at the crest of the wave then tipped down the other side, nearly swamping.

Oh, I can use whatever tone I want. And you can taunt and snarl at me and make me chop wood all day, but short of ripping out my tongue, you can’t—” Faster than lightning, his hand shot out and she gagged, jolting as he grabbed her tongue between his fingers. She bit down, hard, but he didn’t let go. “Say that again,” he purred. She choked as he kept pinching her tongue, and she went for his daggers, simultaneously slamming her knee up between his legs, but he shoved his body against hers, a wall of hard muscle and several hundred years of lethal training trapping her against a tree. She was a joke by comparison—a joke—and her tongue— He released her tongue, and she gasped for breath. She swore at him, a filthy, foul name, and spat at his feet. And that’s when he bit her.

Oh Finn, thought Maia, I know I should be glad you’re free and happy, and I am glad. Only I really don’t know what to do here anymore. But Finn wasn’t happy. Both he and the boat seemed somehow sluggish, and he couldn’t quite get rid of the knot in his stomach. He had moored by a huge dyewood tree. The water flowed quietly in a deep channel; nowhere better could be found. So why? He’d had his supper of beans and roasted maize; the deck was piled with chopped wood; the dog had gone ashore to find his own supper and came back with a smug expression and blood on his jaws. Everything was fine. A group of howler monkeys came swinging through the trees, making their evening racket, half screech, half laughter, and stopped when they saw the Arabella. Perhaps I should have gone to Westwood, thought Finn. “They’d have knocked all this rubbish out of me. Foreseeing disasters…” What did he think could happen to Maia in the Carters’ bungalow? The whole point about the Carters’ bungalow was that nothing happened in it. It was the most boring house in the world--and the Indians had promised to look after her. “No harm will come to your friend,” Furo had said. So why did the unease get worse all the time? He remembered saying good-bye to Maia. She had come out of the house in her dressing gown; she ran so lightly, but when he’d hugged her she felt wonderfully solid. No, Maia would be all right. “I’m not going back,” said Finn aloud. And in the trees, the monkeys threw back their heads and roared.

Don’t you think it’s possible your attachment to Merripen was a result of proximity as much as anything else?” Leo had asked gently. “Let’s look at the situation honestly, Win. You have nothing in common with him. You’re a lovely, sensitive, literate woman, and he’s … Merripen. He likes to chop wood for entertainment. And apparently it falls to me to point out the indelicate truth that some couples are well-suited in the bedroom but not anywhere else.” Win had been shocked out of her tears by his bluntness. “Leo Hathaway, are you suggesting—” “Lord Ramsay now, thank you,” he had teased. “Lord Ramsay, are you suggesting that my feelings for Merripen are carnal in nature?” “They’re certainly not intellectual,” Leo had said, and grinned as she punched him in the shoulder.

Just as a critic jumps at an obscure modern poem to tear it apart and bring out the hidden meaning, this woodcutter was ripping open the pith of the massive logs. God seemed to have designed him to chop wood--he derived the greatest pleasure in life by chopping monster-like logs.

In the advertisement, anonymous hands wielded shiny shiny blades that chopped through butter and animal bone as if they were the same thing, through ice and tendon and untreated wood as if there was no difference between anything in the world—only a slight variation in grain, visible once something has been split in half.

Still, he always approahed the job with a faint reluctance, disliking the manner of it more than the result. Chopping down a tree for timber was straight-forward; girdling it seemed somehow mean-spirited, if practical, leaving the tree to die slowly, unable to bring water from its roots above the ring ot bare, exposed wood. It was not so unpleasant in the fall, at least, when the trees were dormant and leafless already; it must be rather like dying in their sleep, he thought. Or hoped.

Often, the King would dance himself, rolling his scapulars and weaving his steps around the skulls of his favourite victims. Or he would amuse himself by teaching little boys to chop heads, and when they made a mess of it shout, 'Not that way, you fool! Think of chopping wood!' 

unlimited arrows from the enchanted book, I’d just use his house to craft some arrows instead; seems fair enough. I chopped and I chopped until my inventory was full of wood, then I took off running before anyone saw me.

He took a moment to regain his composure, but he got it right on the next take and finally began to make the Bolognese sauce. The pan on the stove had butter that we had already partially melted, and he poured in some olive oil. Then he stirred in the previously identified chopped vegetables, and after several minutes (which would later be edited out), the vegetables were translucent. When he added the finely chopped beef, Sally told the viewers, "You could also use a very good grade of hamburger." He poured in some milk, let it evaporate, and then added crushed tomatoes, red wine, and broth. "Now you must cook the sauce two, three hours until it is done," he said. The cameras stopped and we swapped the pan for an identical one with a finished sauce. We also poured boiling water and cooked spaghetti into the pot that had been sitting empty on the stove.

Tell me again why doing the nasty would be a bad idea?” Hayden asks. I force myself to focus, setting the cucumber onto the wood chopping block and starting to cut it into neat slices. “Because. You’re a man-whore jerkoff. And I’m pretty sure my vagina fell off after my last disaster of a relationship.

Grilled Chicken Wings with Burnt-Scallion Barbeque Sauce ____________ Makes 12 pieces I am borderline obsessed with chicken wings. It’s the perfect food after a long work shift or on a chill day with your friends, crushin’ cheap American beers in the backyard. It’s food that allows you to let your guard down. After all, you’re eating food cooked on the bone with your hands and licking the sauce from your fingers in between chugs of ice-cold beer. Pure heaven. Note that the wings must be brined overnight. Brine 8 cups water ¼ cup kosher salt 1 tablespoon sorghum (see Resources) Wings 6 chicken wings, cut into tips and drumettes 3 tablespoons green peanut oil (see Resources) 1 tablespoon Husk BBQ Rub ¾ cup thinly sliced scallions (white and green in equal parts) ½ cup dry-roasted peanuts, preferably Virginia peanuts, chopped Sauce 10 scallions, trimmed 1 tablespoon peanut oil Kosher salt 1 cup Husk BBQ Sauce 1 tablespoon Bourbon Barrel Foods Bluegrass Soy Sauce (see Resources) 1 cup cilantro leaves Equipment 1 pound hickory chips Charcoal chimney starter 3 pounds hardwood charcoal Kettle grill For the brine: Combine the ingredients for the brine. I brine the wings using either a heavy-duty plastic bag that the wing tips can’t puncture or a Cryovac machine (you use a lot less brine this way). Place the wings in the brine and turn to cover well. Refrigerate overnight. Soak the wood chips in water for a minimum of 30 minutes but preferably overnight. For the sauce: Toss the scallions in the peanut oil and season with salt. Lay them out on the grill rack and heavily char them on one side, about 8 minutes (the charred side should be black). Remove them from the grill and cool for about 5 minutes. Clean the grill rack if necessary. Put the scallions and the remaining sauce ingredients in a blender and process until smooth, about 3 minutes. Set aside at room temperature. For the wings: Fill a chimney starter with 3 pounds hardwood charcoal, ignite the charcoal, and allow to burn until the coals are evenly lit and glowing. Distribute the coals in an even layer in the bottom of a kettle grill. Place the grill rack as close to the coals as possible. Drain the wings; discard the brine. Dry the wings with paper towels, toss in the peanut oil, and season with the BBQ rub. Place the wings in a single layer on the grill rack over the hot coals and grill until they don’t stick to the rack anymore, about 5 minutes. Turn the wings over and grill for 8 minutes more. Transfer the wings to a baking sheet. Drain the wood chips. Lift the rack from the grill and push the coals to one side. Place the wood chips on the coals and replace the rack. After about 2 minutes, place the wings in a single layer over the side of the grill where there are no coals. Place the lid on the grill, with the lid’s vents slightly open; the vents on the bottom of the grill should stay closed. Smoke the wings for 10 minutes. It’s important to monitor the airflow of the grill: keeping the lid’s vents slightly open allows a nice steady flow of subtle smoke. Remove the wings from the grill, toss them in the sauce, and place them on a platter or in a serving pan. Top with the chopped scallions and peanuts and serve.

God can’t heal your leg?” the boy challenged. “Ben!” The mother snapped out of her stupor. “Sure God can heal my leg--” started the Reverend. “Then why don’t He?” Silence. Only the sounds of the axe. Chock. Chock. Chock. Desire welled up in the Reverend. Fierce, caressing lust. The woodpile. The feel of his own axe handle. Worn from using it every single day. Using it everyday in front of his own house. Chopping. Chopping wood for his fire-- Suddenly a small pop. The mother had hit the child -- flat hand against right ear. The boy’s head rocked. The boy named Ben glanced at his glowering mother. Then he retreated. Crying. “Reverend, I am so sorry. He doesn’t know any better, and we’ve been meaning to get him to church, but we just -- ” “Ma’am,” said the Reverend. He touched his hat. The woman did not say another word. The Reverend’s leg brace squeaked as it touched Samson’s flank, almost as if it laughed and tattled on the preacher’s desire to move on. Which they did.

Before I build a fire in the pit in the backyard, I sneak Emmy away for a quick walk alone in the pines and along the river. The Sanpoil's current will give her strength. It's nine o'clock and still not dark. I build the fire. Aunt will need more wood chopped before September. Ray drums in his Seattle Mariners cap, and Lena dances in a buckskin dress and Emmy's funky sunglasses. Emmy and I sit side by side in camp chairs that have seen better days. My aunt's house has seen better days. My people have seen better days. Though not for a long, long time. Emmy watches Lena. Ray drums and sings. I sing too because I can't help it. I pray because I can't help it.

TINY CRAB CAKES 1 egg 1½ cups fresh breadcrumbs (see Note) ¼ cup finely chopped scallions (2–3 scallions) 1 tablespoon mayonnaise 1 teaspoon lemon juice (juice of about ⅙ medium lemon) ½ teaspoon Worcestershire sauce ¼ teaspoon seafood seasoning mix, such as Old Bay 8 ounces fresh lump-style crabmeat, picked over 2–3 tablespoons vegetable oil Scallion brushes for garnish (optional; see page 19) MAKES ABOUT 24 MINI CAKES (4–6 SERVINGS) 1. To make the Curry-Orange Mayo, whisk together the mayonnaise, curry powder, orange zest, orange juice, and Tabasco in a small bowl. Refrigerate for at least 2 hours or up to 3 days. When ready to serve, transfer to a pretty bowl and sprinkle with the scallions. 2. To make the crab cakes, lightly beat the egg in a large bowl. Add ¾ cup of the breadcrumbs, the scallions, mayonnaise, lemon juice, Worcestershire sauce, and seasoning mix. Stir well to blend. Add the crabmeat and mix gently, being careful not to shred the crabmeat entirely. 3. Spread the remaining ¾ cup of breadcrumbs onto a plate. Form the crab mixture into 24 cakes, using a scant tablespoon for each one, and dredge lightly in the crumbs. Arrange on a wax paper-lined baking sheet. 4. Heat 2 tablespoons of the oil in one or two large skillets over medium heat. Cook the cakes until golden brown and crisp on one side, about 2 to 2½ minutes. Flip and repeat. The cakes should be hot inside. Repeat with any remaining cakes, adding more oil as necessary. Serve immediately, or place on a foil-lined baking sheet, wrap well, and refrigerate for up to 24 hours, or freeze for up to 2 weeks. 5. If you make the cakes ahead, remove from the refrigerator or freezer 30 minutes prior to reheating. Preheat the oven to 375°F. Bake the cakes until hot and crisp, 10 to 15 minutes. 6. Arrange on a platter with the sauce for dipping, and garnish with the scallion brushes, if desired. Note: Tear 3 slices of good-quality bread into pieces and whir in a food processor to make breadcrumbs. Portland Public Market The Portland Public Market, which opened in 1998, continues Maine’s long tradition of downtown public markets, dating back to the 19th century. Housed in an award-winning brick, glass, and wood structure, the market, which was the brainchild of Maine philanthropist Elizabeth Noyce, is a food-lover’s heaven. Vendors include organic produce farms; butchers selling locally raised meat; purveyors of Maine-made cheeses, sausages, and smoked seafood; artisan bakers; and flower sellers. Prepared take-away food includes Mexican delicacies, pizza, soups, smoothies, and sandwiches, and such well-known Portland culinary stars as Sam Hayward (see page 127) and Dana Street (see page 129) have opened casual dining concessions.

There’s something where the student was. Something massive. Something growing. It’s human in shape, I’ll give it that. Squat powerful legs, broad as my chest, thickening at the thigh, ropes of muscle bursting through the jeans he was wearing. Above the waist—an inverted pyramid of flesh, each abdominal muscle a chopping board of flesh, the pectorals as wide as the hood of the car Kayla just cut away, but thicker, vault door thick. And the arms... They grow longer, knuckles strike the ground. Forearms thicker than the thighs. Biceps thicker still. Shoulder muscles like a cow’s carcass dragged over the joint. He’s colossal, ten feet tall and still going. Twelve foot now.

Filming wildlife documentaries couldn’t have happened without John Stainton, our producer. Steve always referred to John as the genius behind the camera, and that was true. The music orchestration, the editing, the knowledge of what would make good television and what wouldn’t--these were all areas of John’s clear expertise. But on the ground, under the water, or in the bush, while we were actually filming, it was 100 percent Steve. He took care of the crew and eventually his family as well, while filming in some of the most remote, inaccessible, and dangerous areas on earth. Steve kept the cameraman alive by telling him exactly when to shoot and when to run. He orchestrated what to film and where to film, and then located the wildlife. Steve’s first rule, which he repeated to the crew over and over, was a simple one: Film everything, no matter what happens. “If something goes wrong,” he told the crew, “you are not going to be of any use to me lugging a camera and waving your other arm around trying to help. Just keep rolling. Whatever the sticky situation is, I will get out of it.” Just keep rolling. Steve’s mantra. On all of our documentary trips, Steve packed the food, set up camp, fed the crew. He knew to take the extra tires, the extra fuel, the water, the gear. He anticipated the needs of six adults and two kids on every film shoot we ever went on. As I watched him at Lakefield, the situation was no different. Our croc crew came and went, and the park rangers came and went, and Steve wound up organizing anywhere from twenty to thirty people. Everyone did their part to help. But the first night, I watched while one of the crew put up tarps to cover the kitchen area. After a day or two, the tarps slipped, the ropes came undone, and water poured off into our camp kitchen. After a full day of croc capture, Steve came back into camp that evening. He made no big deal about it. He saw what was going on. I watched him wordlessly shimmy up a tree, retie the knots, and resecure the tarps. What was once a collection of saggy, baggy tarps had been transformed into a well-secured roof. Steve had the smooth and steady movements of someone who was self-assured after years of practice. He’d get into the boat, fire up the engine, and start immediately. There was never any hesitation. His physical strength was unsurpassed. He could chop wood, gather water, and build many things with an ease that was awkwardly obvious when anybody else (myself, for example) tried to struggle with the same task. But when I think of all his bush skills, I treasured most his way of delivering up the natural world. On that croc research trip in the winter of 2006, Steve presented me with a series of memories more valuable than any piece of jewelry.

Steve had the smooth and steady movements of someone who was self-assured after years of practice. He’d get into the boat, fire up the engine, and start immediately. There was never any hesitation. His physical strength was unsurpassed. He could chop wood, gather water, and build many things with an ease that was awkwardly obvious when anybody else (myself, for example) tried to struggle with the same task. But when I think of all his bush skills, I treasured most his way of delivering up the natural world. On that croc research trip in the winter of 2006, Steve presented me with a series of memories more valuable than any piece of jewelry.

On our return from the bush, we went straight back to work at the zoo. A huge tree behind the Irwin family home had been hit by lightning some years previously, and a tangle of dead limbs was in danger of crashing down on the house. Steve thought it would be best to take the dead tree down. I tried to lend a hand. Steve’s mother could not watch as he scrambled up the tree. He had no harness, just his hat and a chainsaw. The tree was sixty feet tall. Steve looked like a little dot way up in the air, swinging through the tree limbs with an orangutan’s ease, working the chainsaw. Then it was my turn. After he pruned off all the limbs, the last task was to fell the massive trunk. Steve climbed down, secured a rope two-thirds of the way up the tree, and tied the other end to the bull bar of his Ute. My job was to drive the Ute. “You’re going to have to pull it down in just the right direction,” he said, chopping the air with his palm. He studied the angle of the tree and where it might fall. Steve cut the base of the tree. As the chainsaw snarled, Steve yelled, “Now!” I put the truck in reverse, slipped the clutch, and went backward at a forty-five-degree angle as hard as I could. With a groan and a tremendous crash, the tree hit the ground. We celebrated, whooping and hollering. Steve cut the downed timber into lengths and I stacked it. The whole project took us all day. By late in the afternoon, my back ached from stacking tree limbs and logs. As the long shadows crossed the yard, Steve said four words very uncharacteristic of him: “Let’s take a break.” I wondered what was up. We sat under a big fig tree in the yard with a cool drink. We were both covered in little flecks of wood, leaves, and bark. Steve’s hair was unkempt, a couple of his shirt buttons were missing, and his shorts were torn. I thought he was the best-looking man I had ever seen in my life. “I am not even going to walk for the next three days,” I said, laughing. Steve turned to me. He was quiet for a moment. “So, do you want to get married?” Casual, matter-of-fact. I nearly dropped the glass I was holding. I had twigs in my hair an dirt caked on the side of my face. I’d taken off my hat, and I could feel my hair sticking to the sides of my head. My first thought was what a mess I must look. My second, third, and fourth thoughts were lists of every excuse in the world why I couldn’t marry Steve Irwin. I could not possibly leave my job, my house, my wildlife work, my family, my friends, my pets--everything I had worked so hard for back in Oregon. He never looked concerned. He simply held my gaze. As all these things flashed through my mind, a little voice from somewhere above me spoke. “Yes, I’d love to.” With those four words my life changed forever.

That wild-man look,” Jack told Erin. “Not unusual around here. Lotta farmers, loggers and ranchers don’t shave in winter. And they don’t usually wear Sunday best to chop wood or feed sheep. Ian Buchanan fits right in, and seems like a civil man. I wouldn’t worry.” Marcie

The first thing you should make is a tool to help you get more wood. This would be an Axe. An Axe can also be used as a weapon, so it’s the perfect first thing to make. This is the crafting recipe and it needs to be made in your Crafting Bench:   Once you have made your Axe, go find more trees and see how easier it is to chop them down now! Next, with some of the new wood you’ve collected, we need to make a Pickaxe. This will help us with two things: 1) Getting cobblestone to improve our tools and 2), helping us build a shelter for our first night!

He holds up a single finger. I stand behind a tree and smile because I know this part of the speech. “I have one rule,” he says. “If you break it, I’ll send you back to the center immediately.” The young men all look at him with expectant faces. “My daughter is home for the summer from college. If you touch her, if you look at her, if you talk to her, if you think inappropriate thoughts about her, I will chop your nuts off while you sleep.” He picks up a hatchet he had on the picnic table for dramatic effect and slams it into the wood. He waits for a minute, and I see the young men all ball into themselves. I cover my mouth to hold in a laugh. It’s always the same routine. He threatens, and then they spend the week avoiding me.

CHANNELING SEXUAL ENERGY The Buddha was thirty-five, still very young, when he became enlightened. At this age we have a lot of sexual energy. It’s wonderful if we can use this energy for the benefit of all beings, just as the Buddha did. The young monastics in our practice center spend a lot of time chopping wood, gardening, cooking, doing sitting meditation, and practicing walking meditation. They organize retreats, take care of their brothers and sisters, and of the friends who come from far away to spend time at our center and practice with us. They are using their energy in physical ways and living a fulfilling life. This helps them notice and be aware, without judgment, of sexual energy and learn to handle it well.

Aye, and another thing,’ said a woman, ‘it’s cruel hard to take a man away from his home, when there’s work to be done there. I cannat chop t’wood and dig up t’clamps, as well as everything else I have to do, and when my man gets back from t’mill he is too cold and too tired to do it. When he worked upstairs he helped me with ploughing and sowing and tending t’beasts.’ ‘But what is it you want me to do?’ Paul said helplessly. ‘Close t’factory, Master,’ Will said concisely, ‘that’s what.’ ‘Let us go back to the old way,’ said someone else. ‘It’s not natural for a man to be working away from his home.

Maybe he got tired of waiting and he’d gone without me, though I doubted this was the case and decided he was probably doing something Maxish. Chopping wood. Building a barn. Saving a child in distress or climbing a tree to rescue a cat. Stuff like that.

What joy could you have missed along the way by attaching the value of success to a task you love?

the handless ax, which was possibly used to chop wood.

In a world were global warming is a real concern, why not consider using bamboo in place of wood? The planet needs the wood so the forests should not be chopped down when bamboo can do all the things wood can and more. We really need to find something which is friendly to the ecology of the planet and guess what? We have already found it - IN BAMBOO!

General Skills: Fire Making - 7 Furniture Repair - 3 Tidying - 3 Wood Chopping - 6 Cooking Class: Basic Meal Preparation - 9 Knife Work - 5 Scholarship Class: Basic Reading - 7 Basic Writing - 5

That was years ago, and we’ve all long since buried the hatchet.” Seems someone is ready to chop wood again. He releases a heavy sigh. “I’m not mad, I’m just clueing him in a little.” “Thanks for that.” My sarcasm is thick.

He smelled masculine, with a hint of cloves and orange twigs from that cologne of his, mixed with freshly chopped wood. She was entranced by it,

He put in a real nice split rail fence for us last year when I was laid-up because of my back,” said Bubba. “Did good work. Nice wood.” “She doesn’t care about his wood, Bubba.” His wife smacked his shoulder. “She wants a job.” I might care about his wood, I thought, picturing a hot, shirtless guy chopping wood and then putting up a split rail fence, sweat glistening on his tanned pecs.

Words put pictures in your mind. Pictures in your mind impact how you feel. How you feel impacts what you do. What you habitually do impacts your destiny.

Before enlightenment, chop wood, carry water. After enlightenment, chop wood, carry water.

Esther, I have things I need to tell you. But I’m too wound up right now to do it.” “Where will you go?” she asked, feeling the tears rising once more. “Not far, sweetheart. I’ll never be far.” And with that, he squeezed past her and out the door, leaving Esther alone in the cabin. She took a deep breath and looked around her. In a moment, she heard the unmistakable sound of wood chopping. Glancing out the window confirmed it as Hank stood with an axe next to a pile of downed tree limbs. Doesn’t this man have any other ways to emotionally regulate? But she knew he didn’t. Maybe because nobody had ever shown him how. Maybe because he’d never allowed himself to feel deeply enough to require them.

And we’d all jump around like we’s dancing.  One time we didn’t hear Pappy coming, and he walked in right while we’s jumping and sanging.  He had a awful mighty big temper.  He grabbed his horse whip and started hitting Mammy.” Maggie gasped and grabbed Betty Lou’s hand as Grandpa continued his story.  “Johnny and Jimmy took the whip away from Pappy.  Johnny ran out to the chopping block and cut it up in pieces with the ax.  They was scared to come back in the house, so they hid out in the woods for days till they saw Pappy hitch up the buggy and start off.  Then they come in and told Mammy they’s going to leave.  She helped pack up their clothes in bundles and fixed some food, and they left.  That’s the last I ever seen them.  Mammy never played the mandolin again.  I thought she’d probably burnt it up or something.” “How old was you then?” Jeannie asked. “I’s about six, I guess.  Johnny and Jimmy was about fifteen or sixteen.  Mammy knowed they needed to leave because Pappy had such a temper, he’d probably killed them.  But after that, she never would sing no more.

They had chopped wood here too; then they were gone. Gone to the fields, the small towns, the cities – where they died. There was always news coming back to the quarter about someone who had been killed or who had been sent to prison for killing someone else: Snowball, stabbed to death in a nightclub in Port Allen; Claudee, killed by a woman in New Orleans; Smitty, sent to the state penitentiary for manslaughter. And there were others who did not go anywhere but simply died slower

Becoming a more skillful and efficient runner is more like growing a beard than it is like chopping wood.

But, this man looked like if Santa played rugby and chopped wood in his spare time. His chest was broad and his thighs were thick. And holy shit he was sporting quite the cockstand. Yep.

Some say that it was hard to keep going while annihilation crept around the doorstep. But not you. You found it easier to soak yourself in the balm of denial and continue the machinations of what life has always been for you: chopping wood, fetching water, making soup, making babies, losing sleep, starting fires, complaining, getting drunk, normal human shit.

I spent the last month building this with the help of many of the villagers. This is our own castle.” “What?” Gaston opened the door to reveal the cozy inside. It was one room with a giant bed and a fireplace with flames crackling as they nipped at newly chopped wood. “This stopped being about sex, Adam.” Gaston left the door open and walked up to him. “I think somewhere in that cold, dark, spider-filled castle … I fell in love with you.” “You did?” “Yes.” Gaston grinned softly. “While you mourned and then sulked, I’ve been building this place. I hoped, I hope it’ll be our home.” Gaston turned to stare at the house fondly. “It’s not perfect or a grand castle, but … if you want it can be ours.” “I … I want.” Adam sputtered. “I want this. I want you.” He wanted it all so badly that his head swam in emotions and his body felt a surge of desire. “Gaston…” But he couldn’t have it.

The gelding had a broad back, making for a comfortable ride. Yedan rode at a canter. Ahead, the hills thickened with scrub, and beyond was a forest of white trees, branches like twisted bones, leaves so dark as to be almost black. Just before them and running the length of the wooded fringe rose dolmens of grey granite, their edges grooved and faces pitted with cup-shaped, ground-out depressions. Each stone was massive, twice the height of a grown man, and crowding the foot of each one that he could see were skulls. He slowed his mount, reined in a half-dozen paces from the nearest standing stone. Sat motionless, flies buzzing round the horse’s flickering ears, and studied those grisly offerings. Cold judgement was never short of pilgrims. Alas, true justice had no reason to respect secrets, as those close-fisted pilgrims had clearly discovered. A final and fatal revelation. Minute popping sounds in the air announced the approach of dread power, as the buzzing flies ignited in mid-flight, black bodies bursting like acorns in a fire. The horse shied slightly, muscles growing taut beneath Yedan, and then snorted in sudden fear. ‘Hold,’ Yedan murmured, his voice calming the beast. Those of the royal line among the Shake possessed ancient knowledge, memories thick as blood. Tales of ancient foes, sworn enemies of the uncertain Shore. More perhaps than most, the Shake rulers understood that a thing could be both one and the other, or indeed neither. Sides possessed undersides and even those terms were suspect. Language itself stuttered in the face of such complexities, such rampant subtleties of nature. In this place, however, the blended flavours of compassion were anathema to the powers that ruled. Yet the lone figure that strode out from the forest was so unexpected that Yedan Derryg grunted as if he had been punched in the chest. ‘This realm is not yours,’ he said, fighting to control his horse. ‘This land is consecrated for adjudication,’ the Forkrul Assail said. ‘I am named Repose. Give me your name, seeker, that I may know you—’ ‘Before delivering judgement upon me?’ The tall, ungainly creature, naked and weaponless, cocked his head. ‘You are not alone. You and your followers have brought discord to this land. Do not delay me—you cannot evade what hides within you. I shall be your truth.’ ‘I am Yedan Derryg.’ The Forkrul Assail frowned. ‘This yields me no ingress—why is that? How is it you block me, mortal?’ ‘I will give you that answer,’ Yedan replied, slipping down from the horse. He drew his sword. Repose stared at him. ‘Your defiance is useless.’ Yedan advanced on him. ‘Is it? But, how can you know for certain? My name yields you no purchase upon my soul. Why is that?’ ‘Explain this, mortal.’ ‘My name is meaningless. It is my title that holds my truth. My title, and my blood.’ The Forkrul Assail shifted his stance, lifting his hands. ‘One way or another, I will know you, mortal.’ ‘Yes, you will.’ Repose attacked, his hands a blur. But those deadly weapons cut empty air, as Yedan was suddenly behind the Forkrul Assail, sword chopping into the back of the creature’s elongated legs, the iron edge cutting between each leg’s two hinged knees, severing the buried tendons—Repose toppled forward, arms flailing. Yedan chopped down a second time, cutting off the Assail’s left arm. Blue, thin blood sprayed on to the ground. ‘I am Shake,’ Yedan said, raising his sword once more. ‘I am the Watch.’ The sudden hiss from Repose was shortlived, as Yedan’s sword took off the top of the Forkrul Assail’s head.

You can't chop wood for us, but you want to marry a wood cutter's son?

And sometimes, when I find that sweet solitude, I hear warnings about isolation. Some summers, when I was alone in the wilderness, content in my tiny trailer at the edge of the lake, I would not speak to or see another human being for weeks. There, I could slow it all down. I felt the power of life being lived around and within me. I became like a sun warmed rock in the centre of the stream. The water parted around me, eddied in spirals, and flowed on, gently wearing away all my sharp edges. Once, a man who is my lover and friend, I wanted to be more, came to see me there unexpectedly. I had just split an arm load of wood and was carrying it into the trailer as he appeared. He stayed only briefly. Later he told me, “When I came down the driveway and saw you standing there with the wood in your arms, your face glowing from the wind off the lake and the effort of chopping wood, I thought, ‘She belongs to this place. She’s at home here, alone in the bush. She’s not missing me, doesn’t need me here.’ I felt like an intruder.” His observation surprised me. I heard the voice of my mother warning, “You are too independent. Don’t get too good at being alone or you’ll end up by yourself. Everyone needs someone.” Her fear finds a small corner in me, but I resist the idea that I will be with another only to avoid being alone. Surely, the ability to truly be with myself does not exclude the willingness to fully be with another. I do not seek isolation. The longing for another remains even when I am able to be with myself, although it is smaller, a whisper that tugs at me gently. Even there, in my place of solitude in the wilderness, I found myself at moments wanting to turn to someone and share my awe at the brilliance of the full moon on the still water, the delight of watching otters playing at the edge of the stream. But the loneliness was bittersweet and bearable because I knew myself and the world in a way I sometimes do not when I let my life become too full of doing things that do not really need to be done.

Everyone wants to be great, until it’s time to do what greatness requires. Dream BIG. Start small. Be ridiculously faithful. Focus on what you can control.

At home, Rockefeller created a make-believe market economy, calling Cettie the “general manager” and requiring the children to keep careful account books.16They earned pocket money by performing chores and received two cents for killing flies, ten cents for sharpening pencils, five cents per hour for practicing their musical instruments, and a dollar for repairing vases. They were given two cents per day for abstaining from candy and a dime bonus for each consecutive day of abstinence. Each toiled in a separate patch of the vegetable garden, earning a penny for every ten weeds they pulled up. John Jr. got fifteen cents an hour for chopping wood and ten cents per day for superintending paths. Rockefeller took pride in training his children as miniature household workers. Years later, riding on a train with his thirteen-year-old daughter, he told a traveling companion, “This little girl is earning money already. You never could imagine how she does it. I have learned what my gas bills should average when the gas is managed with care, and I have told her that she can have for pin money all that she will save every month on this amount, so she goes around every night and keeps the gas turned down where it is not needed.

Here, we chop wood to keep warm. If you think that’s amateurish, all I can say to you is this: You are more vulnerable than you think.

Adam Braun’s book, The Promise of a Pencil.

The animals are confident in their sensory awareness and their ability to respond to all provocations accordingly. This awareness allows them to avoid danger, and avoiding danger conserves energy. It is in their best interests to have as early a warning of trouble as possible, not only, obviously, to escape death and live to breed another day, but also to avoid the trauma of the fight-or-flight response, which triggers several biological reactions, all of them energy-intensive. Heart rate increases, adrenaline surges, stored energy is consumed, the body’s overall resistance suffers, and susceptibility to starvation and disease increases. And then either the fight or the flight is hard work. (I’ve chopped a lot of wood in my day. It’s hard work, but nothing compared with the drain of taking a final exam or meeting a production deadline. The mental energy these tasks require, and the anxiety they produce—the adrenaline and other hormonal surges—are even more debilitating for the body than sheer physical exercise.)

Damian, who do you admire?’ I said, ‘St Roch, sir.’ The others stopped talking. ‘Who does he play for?’ ‘No one, sir. He’s a saint.’ The others went back to football. ‘He caught the plague and hid in the woods so he wouldn’t infect anyone, and a dog came and fed him every day. Then he started to do miraculous cures and people came to see him – hundreds of people – in his hut in the woods. He was so worried about saying the wrong thing to someone that he didn’t say a word for the last ten years of his life.’ ‘ We could do with a few like him in this class. Thank you, Damian.’ ‘ He’s the patron saint of plague, cholera and skin complaints. While alive, he performed many wonders.’ ‘Well, you learn something new.’ He was looking for someone else now, but I was enjoying being excellent. Catherine of Alexandria (4th century) came to mind. ‘They wanted her to marry a king, but she said she was married to Christ. So, they tried to crush her on a big wooden wheel, but it shattered into a thousand splinters – huge sharp splinters – which flew into the crowd, killing and blinding many bystanders.’ ‘ That’s a bit harsh. Collateral damage, eh? Well, thank you, Damian.’ By now everyone had stopped debating players versus managers. They were all listening to me. ‘After that they chopped her head off. Which did kill her, but instead of blood, milk came spurting out of her neck. That was one of her wonders.’ ‘Thank you, Damian.’ ‘She’s the patron saint of nurses, fireworks, wheel-makers and the town of Dunstable (Bedfordshire). The Catherine wheel is named after her. She’s a virgin martyr. There are other great virgin martyrs. For instance, St Sexburga of Ely (670– 700).’ Everyone started laughing. Everyone always laughs at that name. They probably laughed at it in 670– 700 too. ‘Sexburga was Queen of Kent. She had four sisters, who all became saints. They were called—’ Before I could say Ethelburga and Withburga, Mr Quinn said, ‘Damian, I did say thank you.’ He actually said thank you three times. If that doesn’t make me excellent, I don’t know what does. I was also an artistic inspiration, as nearly all the boys painted pictures of the collateral damage at the execution of St Catherine. There were a lot of fatal flying splinters and milk spurting out of necks. Jake painted Wayne Rooney, but he was the only one.

You might feel like you can’t afford to take time out from your busy schedule to make yourself better. After all, you might think, everyone is counting on me. This feeling, while natural, is counterproductive. Netflix CEO Reed Hastings warned our Stanford class, “[When I was running Pure Software,] I felt like investing in me was selfish. I thought, ‘I should be working.’ I was invited to join YPO [Young President’s Organization], but I thought, ‘I can’t take a day off.’ I was too busy chopping wood to sharpen the axe. I should have spent more time with other entrepreneurs. I should have done yoga or meditation. I didn’t understand that by making myself better, I was helping the company, even if I was away from work.” Plus, when you model the behavior of taking the time to improve yourself, you help encourage the rest of the company to develop a culture of learning.

I miss cooking. I miss chopping fresh food, the smell vegetables give up when you first slice into them. I miss the smell of the unwashed skins of fruit, the sight of fresh produce piled high in grocery stores. I miss grocery stores, the shelves of bright colors and the glossy tile floors and the strangers wandering the aisles. I miss people. I miss the experience of meeting new people and getting to know them, learning about a life different from my own, hearing about things people experienced that I haven't. I miss the sound of children playing, which always sounds the same no matter their language. I miss the sound of people talking and laughing in another room. I miss rooms. I miss doors and door frames and the creak of wood floorboards when people walk around in old buildings. I miss sitting on my couch, sitting on a chair, sitting on a bar stool. I miss the feeling of resting after opposing gravity all day. I miss the rustle of papers, the flap of book pages turning. I miss drinking from a glass. I miss setting things down on a table and having them stay there. I miss the sudden chill of wind on my back, the warmth of sun on my face. I miss showers. I miss running water in all its forms: washing my face, washing my hands. I miss sleeping in a bed - the feel of sheets, the heft of a comforter, the welcoming curve of a pillow. I miss the colors of clouds at different times of day and the variety of sunrises and sunsets on Earth.

The dumpsters gave him a platform that measured around six by seven. Behind him was the brick wall of the building, and the other sides—well, those were all zombie. He drove the machete into a neck, then an ear. All that trench digging and wood chopping had made his arms feel tireless; he could do this for hours. So he would. He would fight

The area around the point at which the oak trunk divides in two provides an incredibly strong V shape, which was frequently used by shipbuilders to make ribs. One of the timber wonders of the world is the ceiling of Westminster Hall, in London, made six hundred years ago. Many of its arches follow the natural lines of the oaks from which they were cut.

In fact, when the scaffold is there, all erected and prepared, it has something about it which produces hallucination. One may feel a certain indifference to the death penalty, one may refrain from pronouncing upon it, from saying yes or no, so long as one has not seen a guillotine with one’s own eyes: but if one encounters one of them, the shock is violent; one is forced to decide, and to take part for or against. Some admire it, like de Maistre; others execrate it, like Beccaria. The guillotine is the concretion of the law; it is called vindicte; it is not neutral, and it does not permit you to remain neutral. He who sees it shivers with the most mysterious of shivers. All social problems erect their interrogation point around this chopping-knife. The scaffold is a vision. The scaffold is not a piece of carpentry; the scaffold is not a machine; the scaffold is not an inert bit of mechanism constructed of wood, iron and cords. It seems as though it were a being, possessed of I know not what sombre initiative; one would say that this piece of carpenter’s work saw, that this machine heard, that this mechanism understood, that this wood, this iron, and these Free eBooks at Planet eBook.com 31 cords were possessed of will. In the frightful meditation into which its presence casts the soul the scaffold appears in terrible guise, and as though taking part in what is going on. The scaffold is the accomplice of the executioner; it devours, it eats flesh, it drinks blood; the scaffold is a sort of monster fabricated by the judge and the carpenter, a spectre which seems to live with a horrible vitality composed of all the death which it has inflicted.

Don't you think it's possible your attachment to Merripen was a result of proximity as much as anything else?" Leo had asked gently. "Let's look at the situation honestly, Win. You have nothing in common with him. You're a lovely, sensitive, literate woman, and he's... Merripen. He likes to chop wood for entertainment. And apparently it falls to me to point out the indelicate truth that some couples are well-suited in the bedroom but not anywhere else." Win had been shocked out of her tears by his bluntness. "Leo Hathaway, are you suggesting-" "Lord Ramsay now, thank you," he had teased. "Lord Ramsay, are you suggesting that my feelings for Merripen are carnal in nature?" "They're certainly not intellectual," Leo had said, and grinned as she punched him in the shoulder.

The word hytte can too-simply be translated as "hut," but it holds a more vaulted status in Norway than the English word implies. A quarter of the population own such hytte. They are usually buried in the forest or up above the treeline, and offer Norwegians a place of escape from their lives down in the valleys. Sometimes the huts are located so close to the main residence that it doesn't seem to make sense that someone would abandon the comforts of home for a woodstove-heated, out-housed cabin. But that is exactly the point. This change of gears toward a simpler life, where tasks like boiling water on the woodstove or chopping wood with an ax, that might take only minutes with the help of more advanced technology, may fill the day in your wilderness retreat. These places are sacred to their owners, because they make a balance of the old world and the new.