It’s November 4th as I write this, the day after Election Day 2020, and wherever your politics lie, the future of the United States feels held in a precarious balance. Today, this beacon of democracy feels terribly divided. Meanwhile, my dear friends and co-Founders of Circle and I are focusing on simple, good things and processes like weaving, mending, writing, and natural plant dyeing to inspire creativity, connection, and peace, especially within. We are doing our best to make sure such tools and opportunities for healthy expression are also available to others, which is in fact why we co-founded Circle, our small oasis of authentic expression, compassionate and inclusive community, and reverence for the planet. We may not always see those things fought and cared for by our leaders or world at large, but more quietly, through yarn, fabrics, and other craft materials, or words and collage sprawled into journals, we are helping to make and “be the change [we] want to see in the world,” one small but mighty circle and creative act of goodness at a time.

One should never underestimate the power of soft, round, or female... I don’t, so a few hours ago I got in my car and drove to Saugerties, to meet a lovely woman named Esther. My mission there was to collect her old spinning wheel and some yarns and wool she was generously gifting our craft collective. “I’m just not using them anymore,” she told me on the phone, “It’s time to pass them on.” She then shared her address, and directed me to: “Keep staying left. The house is about a quarter mile off the road, all the way at the end.”

It was the first warm day in a while so I happily rolled down the windows, and enjoyed the warm breeze. I love car trips through unfamiliar country roads, especially when I can witness the curve of mountains cloaked in the sullenness of late fall, which is just what a drive to Saugerties offers.

I turned left before a couple mailboxes, then left a few more times along the winding, dusty road until I finally found her house. It was perched over an expansive, picturesque view: an extensive and glittering pond and wide swath of forest, the last of fall’s colors clinging to now gaunt trees under a yawning sky. I opened the car door and a huge, goofy black dog bounded over, jumping puppy-like onto me. Actually, it was more like bouncing. The dog with his shiny black eyes reached almost my full height, and he kept leaping innocently, drooling and howling, with obvious happy excitement at my presence. He totally ignored the hand signals and verbal commands I’d so carefully learned from a dog trainer long ago. Still, he added a comical element to an otherwise somber morning. I surrendered and walked laughing to the front door where I waited for Esther with my mask on.

I was still laughing when she said hello without much expression and reached for her mask, putting it on in the open doorway. I didn’t know this woman, and had only spoken briefly to her on the phone, but glancing at her eyes was enough to read stress and sadness. She soon said, “I’m just so upset about this election,” as if she heard me wondering about the Why, then shrugged in a kind of resignation. We walked through the kitchen, past a spacious, light-filled living room that looked out through gracious windows onto the large pond, then brushed through the dining room where the spinning wheel and plastic bags rested. “There’s a few things here,” she said gesturing, “but first follow me.”

Finally we settled in a small room where more plastic bags sat on the floor and the table, among other random things. “I used to have goats,” she said. “This is actually baby mohair—the hair from my kid goats.” She ran her fingers within the soft contents of another bag, what she would soon identify as merino. Then another bag, “angora,” she announced, touching the soft contents. “From my goats too. This angora was carded, not combed, though, which means, it doesn’t lie as smooth or make as smooth a yarn as it would have if combed… Oh, and this over here is alpaca.”

An example of a simple weaving, unsplash.com

I guessed Esther may have been in her mid 70’s, and as soon as she’d opened the door I was appreciative that she had not conceded to vanity and our ageist society that venerates youth and perfection, causing uncountable women to be perpetually “done up” even when alone in a quiet house.

“Are you an artist?” I asked. She quickly said no, knocking away my curiosity about whether she had made any of the plentiful art in her home.

Touching the fibers seemed to awaken her a bit, like her fingers remembered something comforting she was trying not to. I soon wondered about a quiet, rising sense that, by releasing her spinning wheel to us, she might come to regret it, this dear old friend she “just wasn’t using anymore,” that had offered her deep solace. I simply said, “Thank you,” though, and collected the bags, setting them with the others, next to the spinning wheel leaning up against a wall. She was deciding whether a last bag was meant for us or a friend, and while she did, I scanned the room to look distracted, hoping she might keep some for herself instead.

Art and hand carved masks peppered the walls of all the rooms. The house was lovely and seemed to be in relationship with nature all around, as if offering an invitation to remember about life’s beauty. What I felt in Esther was deeper sadness, though, as if it wasn't just the outside world that was burdening her. Yet I couldn’t help but feel grateful for this woman’s unmasked authenticity. In our culture, we often deny the importance of our rightful frustration, grief or rage, whose wise dark wells can bring about access to deeper healing, connection, and change. Should we (as women or anyone?) merely smile our way through what feels like democracy and decency on the edge?

In order for healthy individuals, relationships and countries to blossom, the dark (including insidious racism and shame), has to be revealed and brought out of the shadows. So the admission of frustration and even hatred, can ultimately help to serve us as a collective in terms of deeper, truer healing. We will need to first admit there are issues, though, and then be grateful for the opportunity to move past our wounds, both sides laying down arrogance and cultivating greater compassion instead. We will need to be receptive, communicate openly and be better listeners. And unfortunately, messy and ugly are going to be unavoidable, until we can all find our voices, respecting that no one deserves to have supremacy over another or feel less than anyone else.

For me, and for Circle, that’s where looms and yarns and journals come in, alchemizing whatever feels overwhelming, unspeakable, and isolating into circles of connection that can weave us together, giving our fury, grief, shame, or confusion refuge and release. No matter who is creating side by side, the focus stays on the making, and stories shared, rather than perceived differences. Not to mention the boon of calming effects on the nervous system that are offered up…

It is only in our more recent history that these processes have been dismissed as mere “women’s work,” thanks to a patriarchal wave that placed a higher value on men’s capital contributions and belittled those “unpaid” ones of the traditionally feminine realm. Our “modern” industrial world has encouraged the purchasing of canned, processed, mechanized goods and manufacturing, fast food...and dismissed the richness and even power of slow craft and handwork until more recently.

All that in the name of “efficiency” and “convenience”. What has been lost and devalued are, in my opinion, priceless—for it was (and is) the stories exchanged as people cooked and ate meals together slowly, the wisdom shared as gardens grew and the important processes of life and even death were experienced in the home, and as things were made by hand from wood and leather and stone, these “things” also held memory of making, and would not harm the earth from creation to long after they were/are no longer useful.

I had loaded up the car with most of the bags until only the wooden loom was slumped, waiting.

“Does she have a name?” I asked, smiling, trying to touch on the fact that Esther had been in relationship with this thing; that she had been more than a mere tool.

She smiled too. “Well, it’s a Jenny Lind style, so I guess her name is Jenny, like you.”

We stood there for a moment quietly, as I gingerly gathered all the loom’s parts in my arms.

I finally said what I had been wondering since I got there: “May I ask, why are you giving away your spinning wheel?” Esther looked surprised. “I ask because as makers, the women at Circle really recognize how much of one’s spirit and creativity comes through their tools. How essential it is to have ways to express ourselves, especially under the weights of this world, to have healthy outlets for all we witness, feel, and can’t control.” She looked at me more directly, perhaps for the first time. She seemed grateful that I understood the significance of her gift, what it meant about some of her still being in there, in the wood, in the motions others would soon follow upon her wheel, as thread is fed past the “maidens” to the “mother of all” as the wheel turns round and round.

Esther looked at her wrinkled hands as she spoke. “I’m giving it to you because I no longer have thumbs,” she said, though she wiggled both to me, along with her fingers just fine as she said it. “Well that’s what it feels like… arthritis... my fingers just don’t work like they used to.”

“Well, you can always visit her at Circle,” I offered. “And if you decide you actually want her back, I will make the drive. And don’t despair about the election...That seems just what the powers that be want now: that we are all fearful, that we feel alone. We have to be careful to stay healthy and grounded and connected- in spite of any madness out there. Maybe come outside a little later and sit by your beautiful pond?”

“Yes, I love this pond,” she said smiling. “Nature does always make me feel better,” and seemingly on cue, her dog Alex bounced over again, barking happily as if in agreement.

-end*-

*For Weaving Goodness Part 2, a follow up interview with Esther CLICK HERE

Written by Jenny Wonderling

(Please note: all names have been changed.)

“Those who contemplate the beauty of the earth find reserves of strength that will endure as long as life lasts. There is something infinitely healing in the repeated refrains of nature -- the assurance that dawn comes after night, and spring after winter.”

― Rachel Carson, Silent Spring

Weaving Goodness (Part 1)