[SB] Sabbath Blessing

[Molly Wolf]

Warping the Loom

It's a detailed, meticulous process that ought to be maddeningly fidgety 
but instead is soothing, because it requires total attention. You can't 
fret about things when you're putting a warp on a loom because you need to 
concentrate so completely on what you're doing -- or at least I do, because 
it's the first time I've done this. I have a veteran weaver at my shoulder, 
walking me through the process (thank you, Sheila!), which is an intricate 
one, as formal as an old quadrille.

This is not a wheel I'd like to try to reinvent. When you have (say) 120 
8-foot pieces of string that have to go from the front of the loom, through 
120 slots in a frame on a beater bar that will tamp the crossthreads close 
together, through 120 small loops on pieces of wire that will raise and 
lower the threads as you weave, then to the back of the loom, without the 
threads crossing each other at any point, there is a very large potential 
for disaster  And that's just enough warp for a set of placemats.  I am 
only using 60 threads because this is my very first time weaving and all I 
want to do was to fool around some. Warping 60 threads takes me two hours. 
Sheila reassures me that it will get faster.

Sheila and I are at work in the weavers' and spinners' guild room, a large 
room full of looms -- everything from the little 15" table loom I've rented 
to the huge loom used for blankets that takes two weavers working 
side-by-side to operate.  The walls hold pegged frames for measuring and 
organizing the lengthwise threads into warps.  I learn as I go: the frame 
on the beater bar is a reed; the slots are called dents; the wires that 
raise and lower threads are heddles. When I bring the threads through those 
slots, I am sleying the reed. As always with ancient vocations, there are 
special names for things and processes, and the language makes me smile.

I learn as well the reasons for the steps in the dance. There's wisdom in 
the process, one that's been worked out down the generations. Each step has 
its reasons and its purpose; there are no shortcuts. I don't think I'd want 
shortcuts anyway. This dance has its pleasures.

It slows me up, this work; I can't say I'm thinking about much of anything 
because I am now concentrating too hard on getting the threads through the 
heddles in the right order (one, two, three, four, tie, one, two, three, 
four, tie...). But I find myself in a peaceful space, one in which there is 
no room for anxiety for the future or sorrow for the past. It's work that 
keeps me entirely in the moment, which (as C.S. Lewis rightly says) is the 
point at which _chronos_, our time, most closely approaches _kairos_, God's 
time. I need things like this, things that bring my mind and soul to a 
complete halt, because in that moment I am closer to God even than when I 
pray.

But later, after I've tied the warp into place and fixed some minor errors 
(you only find those after you start weaving, of course), I can think as I 
throw the shuttle back and forth, raising and lowering the threads in 
different ways to play with the texture.  If warping a loom is concentrated 
mindlessness, actual weaving opens up new realms of mindfulness. I imagine 
Jesus' mother Mary standing at her loom -- not a complex wood-and-metal 
frame like this, but a simple matter of a beam with weighted threads 
dangling from it -- and tossing her shuttle back and forth, contemplating 
what had been given to her and what had been asked of her. My weaving book 
shows how you can, indeed, weave a tube, a garment without seams; did she 
or some other woman weave that for him?

I see Sarai spinning as she journeys to and fro, Canaan to Egypt to the 
Negeb to Mamre.  I see Leah concentrating on an intricate border. I see 
Martha warping for a new piece of fabric, Mary cutting free the finished 
cloth, Joanna and Mary of Magdala washing the piece and tossing it over a 
bush to dry, waiting to see how the weave turned out, because you never 
really know until it's washed. I can be with weavers in space and time, 
people (mostly women) whose expertise I'd never given much thought to. But 
I can give thought to it now.

Turn off the iPod; pull out of traffic; forget about the appointment you're 
going to be late for. E-mail can wait. Whatever it is you think needs to be 
accomplished next minute can -- if you've got space to read this -- most 
likely go on hold, just for a little while. Stand still; don't think. Bend 
a little at the knees and be conscious of the strength in your legs. Just 
be. Close your eyes, breathe slowly. Listen to whatever your body is trying 
to tell you.

Come be with me in a still, dusty, quiet room full of looms and peace, and 
know that you're part of community in space and time, and that "all will be 
well, and all will be well, and all manner of things shall be well".

******************

I'm about to hit some sacred cows, and they moo so badly. -- Phyllis 
Tickle, aka The Divine Miz T.