Weaving the ground

 

We only exist because of others and in relationship with others, human or otherwise. For example, each time we put food in our mouths, we are connected to the place it grew, the birds who ate the bugs that might have eaten the leaf we now eat, the foxes who walk through the field, the rain and sun which landed right there. We’re connected to and dependent on the process of evolution that means a plant can turn sunshine into green flesh, that nourishes us. We are connected to the people who tended the land and plants and animals, to the people that drive the machinery on the land, and the people who made, maintain and also invented that machinery. Through them, we are connected to their families, the parents who birthed and cared for them, their friends and partners, the children they care for; to the shop keeper where they go to buy their food, and the shop keeper’s family; to the people who made and designed the cutlery we use, the plates and glasses, the shop assistants who sold it to you, to their families; to the birds that sang in the woods where the tree grew that made the chair you sit on, the table you eat at. They are all part of our story, and we, and our family, are part of theirs. We need, give to, belong to and with each other, even at great distance and with no direct personal contact. There is effortless exchange, connection and entanglement by simply being alive. How often do we remember these things? We could celebrate it, honour it, let it hold us, support us, shape us. A day contains endless opportunities to nourish ourselves with these rememberings.

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Remembering is easy to forget to do. Not because we’re flawed and should try harder, but because life’s busyness and stresses draw us away from these moments of presence in ourselves and in connection to the world. We are born into a family, society, culture and place at a particular time with its joys and stresses, politics and norms. Some of these norms are not welcoming to all aspects of ourselves or all people, or worse, actively excluding. Despite ongoing evolution, cultures tend to maintain a status quo, privileging some and undermining - forgetting - others, human and not, who sooner or later create another phase of evolution, if they are able. The status quo may be so engrained and subtle enough for it to be possible to deny that any such thing is going on, or to say that it's just how things are.​

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These familial, societal and cultural events and structures shape us. We weave these threads into everything we do and every interaction we have, for better or for worse. Our resilience and wounding is in and through relationship, it's communal, collective and normal. Our nourishment, growth and healing too therefore, needs to be in and through relationship, communal, collective and normal - we are all in this together.

 

I play with this by inviting you to use a peg loom to weave into a communal rug. Each thread is a piece of old fabric and represents parts of our family of origin, the significant people and events of their lives and yours, any family you have created, blood or otherwise, the important places and non-human relationships in your life and how you came to be in this geographical place connecting with me now. We weave in whatever other themes are relevant. As we deliberately include what's been excluded, acknowledge and welcome the complexity of who we are and what we bring to our relationships and community, we make something as simple as a rug and as beautiful as the forest floor, a tangible expression of our deep interconnectedness. 

 

I have fabric you can use, and some people like to use meaningful bits of fabric to weave in from clothes they wore at a particular time in their life. Donations of fabric are welcome, get in touch to confirm they will be suitable.