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The old Samurai sword still speaks, quietly

An old Japanese Samurai sword presently sitting up on the mantle may be just an old hunk of metal in a damaged wooden scabbard, and to the vast majority of people, a sword is a sword is a sword, so it means nothing other than it is a one-dimensional artifact of another time and place.

What’s the big deal about one or another artifact or old sword, right?

What sets old Japanese swords apart from every other sword ever made by humankind is literally everything about them, every aspect and detail of a sword, from tip to pommel.

Without going into detail here, suffice it to say that if, for example, a huge Viking sword was successfully made to mindlessly, crazily smash, bash, break, cut, gouge, gore, and rip a human body in a fit of power madness, a relatively slender Japanese sword will certainly do all that, if it must, but it can also serve as a surgical scalpel slicing fatally deep with minimal sense of anything awry, at first.

Artistic forms of death inspire artists and fascinate onlookers still, so is it any wonder that old Japanese swords symbolically speak still to men around the world, including me. A hushed, quiet, almost slithering whisper is its language. You cannot really hear it, but to look upon such a weapon, with full understanding, is to recognize its potential danger, even if it appears inert, steady, a mere object in need of a strong arm and shoulder to wield it.

Such is the role of any powerful symbol, and the more subtle they are, the more powerful they are.

As a new window begins to open in some political theater, Kabuki?, this sword sits front and center before me, speaking its quiet, ancient language, inspiring on to battle those who revere quality above apparent size.  The theater may be absurd at time, it may have incredibly comical villains and real heartbreak, but nevertheless, the sword remains. Whatever it must do, it will do, so long as the will remains to direct it.

And buddy, there is a deep well of will.