Some time ago, I heard a creation story that told of beings who sat suspended in space, weaving a tapestry on a cosmic loom. The tapestry they wove was of life itself, and had no beginning or end. At the time I was intrigued by this idea and also found it strange. Why a tapestry, and why was that the thing that was chosen to represent Life? Perhaps my confusion about this came from my disconnection from the act of weaving itself. I’ve lived my life in an industrialized society in the era of “fast fashion” — where machine-woven fabric and cloth are SO bountiful that unmarketable surplus clothing is Because cloth is an abundant resource, I take for granted that there was a time when it was understood as foundational to daily life. Hand-woven textiles allowed our ancestors to protect and adorn themselves, to construct vessels, shelter, blankets, and to tell stories and make meaning of their lives. It was a tangible representation of their relationship to the plants and animals from which they derived their fibers and learned to spin raw duff into thread.
However, the tendrils of weaving’s magic cannot be contained, as they appear to be about as universal as existence itself, filamental fractals holding the world together in both visible and invisible ways. Myths and stories from all over Earth indicate that the act of weaving is integral to life — an act that And so now I understand why one who weaves would be regarded as participating in a sacred act —— creating the
In her book “Witches and Pagans: Women in European Folk Religion”, Max Dashu describes how weaving was revered as a sacred act in pre-Christianized cultures across Europe. Dashu notes that “Spinning and weaving were ceremonial acts with divinatory or protective power.” Weavers, predominantly women, were known to sing prayers and incantations into the cloth as they wove, encoding the weavings with symbolic messages. They made offerings to the “weaver goddesses” that were believed to determine the fate of the world and everyone in it. Ancient burial sites reveal that women who held positions of spiritual leadership were often buried with totems representing the Spindle and Distaff, tools used in spinning thread. These practices, along with others that affirmed the people’s connection to the land and cosmos, such as singing and performing rituals at springs and in forests, were eventually made punishable offenses by the Christian empire, who asserted that their singular masculine God could only be accessed within the four walls of their churches. The weaver goddesses and those who honored them were shunned as representatives of the “evil” “heathens” that threatened the Church’s power structure — perhaps another reason why weaving wasn’t something that was consciously in my awareness until recently — these threads were intentionally cut and unraveled.
~ In our internet — the “World Wide Web” ”IT’S ALL CONNECTED!!!”
~ In mycelial networks, linking and transmitting information and nutrients between root systems all over the world
~ In these images of “The Cosmic Web”, showing the filaments of matter that bridge galaxies throughout the universe
~ In the fleshy electrical networks within our own bodies , passing signals along veins, arteries, nerves, and interstitial highways
~ The Universal Mind, Collective Consciousness, Noosphere
~ String Theory, & Systems Theory
~ In the natural way communities branch out and connect to each other, and the way we are inherently connected to all other systems of life, through the air we breathe, the water we drink, the food we eat, the energy we sense, the way we know things without knowing why…
All of life, woven together in one epic tapestry without beginning or end. Each life, each moment, a thread adding more information to a great, unfathomably complex story.
The late and great Joanna Macy proposed “Three Stories of our Times” as part of the framework of The Work that Reconnects.
They are:
~ Business as Usual;
a story about industrial growth and competing for profit and power at all costs.
~ The Great Unraveling;
a story about the unraveling and breakdown of Earth’s living systems, of the theft of indigenous lands destructions of cultural life-ways, of famine, drought, and conflict.
~ The Great Turning;
a story of courage, of a global transition from an industrial growth society to a Life-sustaining society, where our solidarity with one another deepens as we rebuild and remember the interconnectedness of all living systems.
It seems like learning to weave could be a helpful way to transition from a Great Unraveling into a Great Turning, and so that’s what I’m doing these days.
In March of this year I took an Intro to Weaving class where we were taught how to weave a small tapestry on a 4-harness floor loom. I learned about and it felt like a transmission of secret knowledge that had been hiding in plain sight all along. Dressing the loom for weaving (which took a day and a half) felt like threading a precious instrument, where the flat pattern of the weave became tangible in the 3D loom and then was transformed back into the 2D in the form of the small tapestry I wove. There was a spatial math to this process that felt cosmic to me — a wisdom and understanding of space, time, and material that I was just barely starting to grasp. All of this is to say that I am working on a weaving of my own …. A weaving together of all of these ideas about weaving, through the strands of several different mediums, all aiming towards a tapestry of an art show that I’m calling One aspect of the installation will involve a giant web, which I am going to hand-crochet together using scraps of fabric that hopefully you, dear reader, will send me, using the instructions below! :) :) :)
Threading the Heddles,
and Beaming the Warp —
with LOVE and full moon tidings,
And please send me anything you come across related to webs, networks and weaving so I can add it to my research!
Rachel
P.S….. My friend Sam at The Headwaters offers a beautiful series of virtual rituals for connecting intentionally with the Earth as the seasons change. Her next workshop is coming up this Saturday — learn more here! P.P.S….. My friend Lee is offering a series of uplifting ~ Love Letters ~ that are a calming balm for the soul ! and “designed to nourish the soul and celebrate the beauty of being seen, felt, and remembered.”
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