His sword is not specially strong, or fast. As so many of us brother Crow is on his way, much to discover, to improve, to clean. And yet his sword draws that line, again and again. That thin sharp line that pierce a middle, the middle.
Brother Crow has got the center.
Many storms have crossed our path. We had entire groups leaving our family, we had dear teachers become monsters, we have brothers and sisters finding other ways, and other paths. There is not one of us that has not wondered about that becoming a better person that we claim as our goal. Is it really? Or are we all overgrown kids playing with sharp swords, reenacting movements invented so long ago that we can hardly understand their meaning?
Brother Crow smiles, again.
Not by first time, either. Brother Crow does not laugh the pain of our wrongs, nor does he use the elegant expression of his taller brother Raven. His laugh is nowhere near my own belly laughing at my own stupidity -or others’-, nor like the whole group laughing at one of our clowns. The laughing of brother Crow comes from somewhere else, and goes somewhere else. Half at himself, and half at a world that we barely understand, but is ours to live and to love. Some day I might get the center, and I’ll laugh like that too. Perhaps.
And yet I don’t really know what a center is. How is it that somebody becomes centred? We say grounded and stable, and perhaps it is the same. Does the body stability that we so much price comes from some other sort of stability, a stability of the mind? Or is it that learning to stabilise our body stabilises our thinking? Where is the center that I am talking about? More than once I have heard brother Crow talking, and have asked this or that, and we have turn around our conversation like birds of prey circling a target that is there, and it isn’t. A center.
One of our kata is called sagarifuji, the sword moving like the falling flowers of wisteria in the spring. The mid morning air is warm enough for crows to lift up and fly. Brother Crow practicing sagarifuji sees his opponent approaching and his sword is out to parry. The crows in the air suddenly change direction and dive bomb, one smooth curve downwards closing in the prey. And so the sword of our brother, which turns around and dives to the final cut.
Father Snow Monkey tell Brother Crow that he has got the center. Again.
Both smile.
Dear Inti,
Thank you for sharing your blog. I have a deep appreciation for stories that carry a thread of self-reflection. In your words, I sense a journey of seeking — a path that is both profound and beautiful.
Many walk such a path unknowingly, but few, like you, have found a conscious way forward, through the practice of iaido and, more broadly, budo.
The technique demands constant dedication, and true perfection will forever remain just beyond our reach — and it is precisely this that makes the journey so difficult, and at the same time, so deeply rewarding.
I myself have been walking this path for 45 years now, and still, there is so much left to discover and to grow into.
Warm reards
André Brockbernd