Meditative Woodworking

The air around me is redolent of the sweet smell of cherry wood. All is quiet at an hour when the sun has yet to ascend past the horizon. The only sound I hear is the soft scraping of the hand plane as I run it along my workpiece, following the grain of the wood. The woodgrain is my guide. The occasional small mistake is my teacher. I am in my own world for while as I seek to shape my piece into what I think it should be. I am a creator. My creations do not know my name, but neither do they criticize or bring any complaints against me.

I clamp another piece of of the umber-colored wood in a vise. I take up my Japanese pull saw and carefully set it in place. Making sure that I keep my saw blade perpendicular to the wood, I draw the saw back. The blade is an extension of me; my hand and arm move in a straight line.

No worries assault my mind as I make my cut. The work is a kind of meditation, and I repeat it’s mantra until beauty arises from the raw lumber with which I work. In the recreating solitude of these kinds of mornings, I find that this sort of work is really no work at all. It is more like play, and it makes my soul sing.

I know that I am not alone in that, on most days, I am overworked, stressed, and fatigued in both body and mind. When I consider the list of things that must get done, I often feel like I am drowning in a sea of obligatory duties. It is hard to breathe sometimes when the gargantuan weight of responsibilities press down upon me. When my cell phone buzzes for what seems like the hundredth time with someone on the other end who needs something else from me, I would love nothing more than to drop it into a deep, dark hole and walk away.

This world is full of noise, and everything seems so complicated. Does life really have to be so difficult? Have we made daily living into something that it is not supposed to be? My body feels the strain of trying to accomplish more than I can handle. At the end of most days, the muscles in my neck and upper back are stretched tight like strings on a violin. But I am often out of tune, and my mind often forgets important things as they are crowded out by nugatory nuggets of nonsense.

I am tired. So very tired. I am not alone in this. The true plague of our time is a contagion of complexity that creates such an entanglement of obligations that we become caught in our own webs of life, making it difficult to break free.

We need times of refreshment. We yearn for a chance to enjoy some restorative recreation. We need times of rest.

For me, my woodworking shop becomes the crucible within which I can be re-forged. It is a sanctuary where I can allow all of the stress and concerns to melt away for a time. It is a milieu in which the dross dredged up by daily life can be scraped off and cast aside.

As I cut and shape ordinary, mundane pieces of wood, I have a chance to reform something with my hands; thereby, I become reformed within. Woodworking enables me to disconnect for a while--not from reality, but from the sorts of things that bog me down. When I meticulously and carefully carve out a mortise, and its corresponding tenon fits perfectly, I gain a sense of deep satisfaction that goes beyond mere pieces of wood. Satisfaction arises in the knowing that this is how it is supposed to be.

When music is harmonious; when things fit together just right; when that which is disintegrated recovers its integrity; when parts come together to form a whole; when a piece of wood is true--encountering these kinds of things leads us down a path toward a true sort of leisure that refreshes our souls and enriches our minds. It is different for everyone, but for me, I am most at peace when I am alone in my shop in the quiet early-morning hours, creating something that I can call my own.

I will take my leave now. I have a chair to finish building. May you also find something like this that is all your own. We all have a restorative redoubt to which we can turn when life becomes too much. You just have to find it.