November 7th, two days past Election Day.

(Please note: any views expressed in this interview are not necessarily representative of any or all of the views of Circle as a whole. We feel it is essential for Circles to be safe enough to share opinions openly and without judgement, to listen with compassion, and learn from one another. Thank you for reading with an open heart, wherever your opinions lie.)

This morning I called Esther again, the woman who gifted Circle her old spinning wheel, some mohair from her goats, and other fibers and yarns. I can’t stop thinking about her, and all the elders who are fearing that their democracy and the goodness of our society is on the brink.

I had decided (upon dialing) that I needed to transmute some of the significance of our brief exchange beyond just an entry in my journal, but into a blog that someone else might feel something from, maybe even a little bit less alone. I wanted more of Esther’s own answers, and not just what I would presume.

She said hello, inflected like a question after one ring.

“Hello, Esther. It’s Jenny...again...I would like to ask you a few questions, if you don’t mind? I was thinking about writing a blog. I... um...write... a blog for Circle sometimes,” I staggered, ironically trying to find the right words. How could I explain about how laying some of life down on such clean white pages renews me and lends me hope? How I am weaving goodness out of pain like all the weavers across time and place?

“Sure,” she said without delay. The house sounded quiet, but I wondered if she was in the middle of something and asked her.

“No, now is fine,” she answered in her no- nonsense way. And so I began…

Jenny: So how did you find Circle?

Esther: I just looked online for weaving places to donate the wheel and yarns that I was no longer going to use.

Jenny: Did you not have someone in your family who may have been interested in it?

Esther: No.

Jenny: Where did you learn to spin and weave?

Esther: For years I kept mohair goats, sheared them and then sold the hair but then I finally wanted to learn to spin and weave. So I took a class and then just followed directions I found and made simple things––shawls, scarves. Mine is a very simple rectangular loom. I learned on a more complicated one with pedals but I preferred my more simple variety which was like a toy to that woman! But I wasn’t weaving because I was interested in patterns. I was interested in the mohair and the materials itself. I eventually wove in silk and other kinds of yarn.”

Jenny: What did weaving and spinning mean to you and did it change the way you felt when you did it?

Esther: I always felt very contemplative. While I did it I paid very close attention to the fabric and the colors, I just enjoyed the process.

Jenny: Yes, that single minded focus is so meditative and healing. Craft makes everything else seem to fall away and we can feel more powerful and clear minded again. I have been reading a lot about the power of craft and creativity recently, about its positive effects on anxiety, PTSD, even eating disorders. Also how weavers were given important status in pre-Christian times...many significant graves were found all over Europe and even in Egypt with distaffs or power staffs- which were essentially elongated tools to hold fiber for spinning that were also used as healing wands.

Here’s an image of the tops of some women’s staffs found, from the book Witches and Pagans by Max Dashu:

And yesterday I learned from my friend Alison about the original meaning of the word “sin” according to a book she was reading about Mary Magdalene. ““Sin,” Alison explained, “originally had little to do with an inherently human urge to do “bad things and disobey God,” and everything to do with being out of alignment with yourself and your own divinity, a kind of betrayal of your connection to creativity and your own deepest truth.” That feels so deeply profound to me. I have just ordered that book to know more, but I wonder how much what we believe to be “truth” about so many things that have been passed down have had their original meanings and intentions altered whether intentionally or by way of the telephone game and time…”

Esther: Very interesting...

(What I didn’t say was about the “swan footed queen” I’d also read about in the book Witches and Pagans by Max Dashua, and the creation myth from Sweden where ancient distaffs had been found, “Whose spinning began at the proverbial beginning of time” or how “spinning and weaving were ceremonial acts with divinatory or protective power.” I also didn’t share quotes from Alexander Langlands’ book CRAEFT, like about how craft offers “not just a knowledge of making, but a knowledge of being [and] has a spiritual element to it that fits into a wider understanding of who we are and where we are going.” That it offers up the maker with a “wisdom that furnishes the practitioner with a kind of power.” Instead I went on to the next question, hoping she would channel her longings for a better world into another medium very soon, and keep finding and making beauty.)

Jenny: If you will not be spinning and weaving, is there another creative outlet on the horizon?

Esther: So far that’s been replaced by nothing and I am very much the poorer for it. I used to also do some painting but I haven’t done that for a long time, and I used to write fiction… I guess I’ve given up on a lot and I’m not in a good place.

Jenny: I’m so sorry to hear this. What would need to happen for you to take up one of those things again? I personally would be a madwoman without outlets... By the way, if you ever feel comfortable with the idea, I could come over one day and we could have a “writing day?”

Esther (laughing, answering quickly and plainly): No, I don’t think so.

Jenny: Ok, no pressure of course, but the invitation stands… I have just a few more questions. I don’t want to presume what specifically you were upset about regarding the election. Would you mind sharing?

Esther: Well, Trump could still win again, or not concede to a loss. That would actually mean that our country might actually be one of bullies and haters, of people who want to go back to a time when they are only connected to others who are merely like them. That also means that any government that has a hand in taking care of others is finished. Once, it was a novel idea that governments should provide for people. Sadly, it seems many countries are now being taken over again by the same kind of medieval kings and bullies who cared more about their own power than others. It’s such an old school yard mentality- to dominate over those who don’t fall in line, who think and live differently.

Well, we had this wonderful brief period, an experiment with human rights and decency to make sure everyone thrives. People in the whole world were generally improving materially and are educationally better off, but that also seems to make everyone want more and more, so we’re also destroying the planet that much faster. And it is as if we are reverting to a “who is the biggest bully again,” as if this is a good thing. We just may be a doomed species.

The right wing, left wing, maybe it doesn’t even matter; there are so many people rising to power now whose only real agenda is their own power and the repression of everyone else. It’s a rising trend globally. But if this happens in the US too, then we are actually encouraging this worldwide. Before, the US was the icon to oppressed people elsewhere and countries to throw off their oppressors. We embodied a place of freedom and hope but we are turning into a crude, power hungry dictatorship and it’s devastating. I’m old, I don’t have much time left, and I had hoped to see that we could come a bit further in our development. We seem to be going backwards instead.

Humans are really good at engineering but in fact, we have primitive skills when it comes to the importance of cooperation, quality of life, and true compassion as a widespread and accepted goal for all of our society. Or keeping our eyes on all that, while also respecting and considering the earth and next generations. Sure, people do care and love each other, but all this time on the planet and yet we’re really not any more sophisticated in terms of being good to each other? It’s heartbreaking. Sure, it is human nature to share, but it is also human nature to want a status above someone else. That seems to be what drives our society, as if being one up is as important as eating. Our drive for cooperation seems to be secondary, but eventually everyone realizes you can’t do it yourself, you really need other people. Hopefully we will as a planet before it’s too late.”

Jenny: I don’t know if I agree that bullying is an inherent human trait. Again, I feel that the rise of a patriarchal and then industrial society created and encouraged this imbalance, and the lack of a more cooperative existence. Sharing, handmade, and homegrown mean less purchasing...which is bad for an economy based on and fueled by consumerism, waste, and more of the same. The success of our materialistic culture has meant that in the process, too many of us have moved far from the earth’s rhythms and even those of our own bodies, we have disconnected from our own families, what our own hands can create, and a sense of Spirit, (however that is defined.) Even our birthing and dying has been repackaged into something commercially viable. And that is why it is so important we stay connected to Nature and creativity, because in the most simple and readily accessible way, they remind us of what matters most.

Well, Esther, I’m so grateful we got to speak and meet. Again, we are so thankful for the gifts you donated to Circle! I hope you do keep creating in some form or another…

Esther: Thank you. Who knows?

Jenny: “Who knows,” I said too, while secretly envisioning Esther by her sparkling pond like a kind of hopeful incantation, with an easel, sun on her smiling face, as she celebrates the continuous weaving of goodness, in spite of whoever may occupy The Oval Office.

-end-

Writing and interview by Jenny Wonderling

Weaving Goodness (Part 2)