Splitting Wood

Day one hundred and thirty-six, Georgia. What splitting wood teaches:

Take your time over it. Judge where you are aiming. Give yourself to the next stroke. Restless action misses.

Impatience needs three blows. Patience needs one.

Look at the wood. Let your eye run along the grain and get a feeling for how the tree grew. Form the intention that the steel will part it the first time it falls, and know that the axe will land where it should.

Hesitate and it sticks. Don't be tentative. Bring it down with strength and with certainty. This is the right moment for the right stroke for this particular log.

Then it works. And again.

Work slowly and you get there faster. Let one stroke follow another without effort. You are inside the doing and your thoughts have gone to stand at the back of the room, and what is left is peace.

When you work, you work. When you rest, you rest. When you sit by the fire this evening, you sit by the fire.