I have a few thoughts to share before my Cricket 15″ loom arrives and this blog entry is as much for myself as it is for my readers.
You know I love knitting, right? I’ve been doing it since 2003 and I have no intention of stopping. It’s my therapy, entertainment, escape, and sometimes — my pure joy. However, I also believe that there is something about working with my hands, with good tools and fiber, that fulfills something I can only identify as genetic memory. I thought I was alone in feeling this until I saw this video. Ancient literature confirms we are meant to — even destined — to work with our hands, with materials found in nature. Knitting has been my way of slowing down and balancing out emotions and impulses. It’s impossible to be impulsive if we’re doing something that engages our hands and minds. It’s difficult to cause trouble or even fall into it while we’re engaged in handwork.
But before there can be knitting, there has to be fiber; and fiber creation is also ancient.
Here are videos featuring a Tibetan spinner and Navajo Weaver Clara Sherman.
I think weaving and spinning keep the practitioner rooted in the present — they are both incredibly mindful pursuits. Knitting and crochet can certainly be that way as well, but in following a pattern for a garment (for example) the knitter has to be aware of what happened before and what is going to happen next. Weavers and spinners prepare warp and fiber but are rooted in the present as they actively make fabric or yarn. This process of “making” is both meditation and practice, as well as production.
These aren’t new concepts at all — I’m just realizing why weaving is so appealing to me right now, when I need it the most. I don’t know if my loom can get here fast enough.