THE SWORDSMITH
- Ascended Legacies Admin
- Dec 15, 2022
- 5 min read
How many times have you found yourself overwhelmed by the happenings of your life? It's hard isn't it. You feel like if it's not one thing going wrong, it's something else. As if nothing is ever working in your favor. You're not alone. Many people share those same feelings and if not processed correctly, these feelings can lead to depression and anxiety.
The good news here is that the feeling of being overwhelmed can be identified and therefore can be processed. All we have to do is work to bring that process to a point of completion. Here's where the term Swordsmith comes in. First let's look at the definition for the term Swordsmith:
A worker who shapes iron by heating it and then hammering it on an iron block.
Now let's look at the steps that are taken to shape Iron:
Forging the blade
1. Choosing
To create the best swords, a Swordsmith would of course need to choose the best Iron.
For the sake of this post lets imagine from this point on that YOU are the Iron that the Swordsmith has deemed the best. YOU ARE THE CHOSE ONE.
2. Forging
Forging is when the smith hits the hot metal with a hammer over and over again, working it into shape.
How many times have you endured the blows of life? Sometimes to the point that you have to ask why they keep coming? The answer is you are being forged. You are the chosen piece of Iron that's being shaped into a powerful sword, and part of that process is countless blows that are not meant to destroy you, but meant to propel your next becoming.
3. Annealing
As the swordsmith is forging the blade, they will usually return it to the heat several times, and let it cool again without working on it. This helps to reduce irregularities in the blade. Once it has been shaped, the sword is annealed by heating it to a precise temperature and allowing it to cool very slowly. This is done either by allowing the forge fire to cool, or by burying the sword in hot sand.
This would explain the short breaks between the fires in your life. Fire's that seem to surround you and make you feel like destruction is immanent. I know the feeling, but has total destruction happened yet? No. Things around you, and possibly within you have been destroyed, but you get to rest. This is because the swordsmith is at rest. That is until you've learned what you've needed to, and then it's back into the heat. Once the next lesson is learned, the cool off or (resting period) begins again. Sometimes, that feels like you're being buried alive, and other times like it's taking too long for the heat to subside. No matter the situation, embrace the process, and let the irregularities be addressed.
4. Grinding
The aim of grinding is to remove the material that cannot easily be removed by the forging process.
These are the most intimate moments of the process. Moments where your character has been attacked, or you've made decisions that have worked against your own best interest. It may be moments of betrayal or abuse. These are the moments that grind away at the heart, mind and soul. These are the times that you feel like you DON'T want to live anymore, but you can make it. It's all part of the process, and you have to embrace it. Remember, you're becoming something new. Something more powerful than your current form.
5. Hardening
The shaped sword is reheated until it glows a dull orange colour. At this heat, the metal becomes non-magnetic. The sword is then quenched in water. This helps to line up the crystalline structure of the iron and steel in the sword and makes it harder. But quenching can also make the sword brittle. To overcome this, smiths must heat the blade again, for the next stage in making the sword.
Drowning... how often do you encounter a situation where you just feel like your drowning, or you can't breathe? If not focused on the process being completed, a person can be overcome with grief in relation to circumstances that they feel are out of their control. However, if focused on the process, the feeling of drowning due to a certain situation can be manageable and ultimately embraced. Now, even the heat that once triggered anxiety can feel peaceful. Like the burn that weightlifters feel in their muscles. They learn to love it, because they know ultimately it means growth is in fact happening.
6. Tempering
To overcome the brittleness produced in the hardening, the sword has to be reheated to a lower temperature than before. In the days before temperature gauges, this was done by colour; the smith heats the sword until the edge is a straw colour, and the centre – with its thicker metal – a deep purple. The blade is then slowly cooled. This slow cooling reintroduces some flexibility into the sword, making sure it does not break in battle.
AAAAHHHH... Now its all coming together. It's within this process of tempering that a person learns to accept life's various occurrences, and the emotions that are produced as a result. Now when a person feels like they're in the fire, they don't panic. Instead, they embrace the burn with full knowledge that the cooling process will begin eventually. Or, when they find themselves in situations that produce a sensation of drowning, they can calm themselves and rest in their awareness of the fact that the event is temporary. Its within this space that IRON has indeed sharpened IRON.
7. Completion
Although the sword is now forged, it looks dirty and crusted, so it has to be cleaned. Abrasives, such as sand on leather, are used to file and clean the sword, until it is ready for sharpening on a whetstone. After a final sharpen, pattern-welded swords are etched to highlight the pattern on the blade. The most impressive swords have hilts made of precious metals, with jewels inset, while the pommel and guard are adjusted to keep the weapon balanced. The sword is now ready for use.
YES! Cleaned, Sharpened, Adorned and Balanced! Such is the future for the one that can find beauty in the pain of their being forged into something mighty. Yes... you will be thrown into the fire. Yes... You will be beat on repeatedly. Yes... you will be tossed into troubled waters. Yes... you will be buried by circumstances. YES! YES! YES! Life will be hard!!! But after the fire, the beatings, the troubled waters and all of it happening over and over.... your purpose for being on this planet will be complete. You simply have to trust the one that's forging you. And who is it? LOVE.
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