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Do I thus belong to the heavens?
Why would the heavens
Imprison me with their incessant azure stare,
Enticing me further, and my heart, further above
Into oblivion
Luring me ceaselessly
Toward heights far transcending the human?
When equilibrium has been pondered with precision
And flight gauged with lucidity
That nothing flawed should remain,
Why thus should the desire for ascension
Seem itself to so resemble madness?
I am satisfied with nothing
Earthly newness wearies in an instant
I am lured higher and higher, more precariously
Closer to the sun’s radiance
Why does this blaze of reason scorch me
Why does this blaze of reason annihilate me?
Villages below and the winding of streams
Grow bearable as the distance grows
If thus only from afar
Why did they implore, approve, seduce me
That I could love human things?
Could the aspiration ever have been love?
Had it been, could I ever have reason
To belong to the heavens?
I have not once envied the freedom of a bird
Nor once longed for the solace of nature
Inspired by the bewildering tightness in my breast
For ascent and ingress alone
To immerse my body within the azure of the sky
Opposed to all organic delight
Far from all the bliss of superiority
But higher and higher
Dazed, perhaps, by the dizziness and incandescence of waxen wings?
Or do I then
Belong at last to the earth?
Why if not should the earth
Urge my fall so swiftly?
Granting no time for thought or emotion
Why did the soft and weary earth thus
Welcome me with the force of a steel plate?
Did the soft earth thus transform into steel
Only to expose my own softness?
That nature might reveal to me
That plummeting is far more natural than flight
Far more natural than that bewildering passion?
Is the blue of the sky then a fantasy
Was it conceived by the earth to which I belonged
And did the heavens secretly abet the plan
To rain punishment down upon me
For the ephemeral molten ecstasy
Attained for an instant by waxen wings?
To punish me for the crime
Of not believing in myself
Or for believing in myself too much
Too zealous to know where I belonged
Or for the hubris of presuming that I already knew everything
For wishing to fly off
To the unknown
Or the known
Both of them a single, blue fragment of an idea?

These weapons are fairly unique to the Aztec and I think they are fascinating. How to make a “sword” without steel?
Take a club and embed it with black glass obsidian. Each shard is a razor sharp rock, and every strike will splinter its surface into new razors.

These came in one handed (3′-4′ long) and two handed styles (reportedly as tall as a man) and could supposedly cut off a horse’s head. You could not fatally thrust with them but still all the chops and slices you can still make.

In case you don’t know, Jaquar and Eagle knights are cool.

Also, the altatl is an awesome Aztec spear throwing device, that basically gives you another forearm’s mechanical advantage to throw a spear 100 yards.

I think this is an interesting product, used to modify katana-modeled shinai into something more like a longsword.
They are made by Ardenwood Forge.

That being said, at Mu Ryu, we’ve made basket hilts for shinai out of the hard plastic used for “pickle barrels”. The barrels are cut with a dremel tool or shears. They offer excellent hand protection, with low weight, while the plastic can be trimmed to adjust balance. And they costs virtually nothing to make.