I spent part of Friday under a loom tying up treadles, and part of Saturday denting a reed with 1400 fussy soft cotton threads. This may not sound like news, but for me it was a breakthrough. I've had this loom since 2007, and this is the first time I've prepared it for weaving.
Each of my looms has a personality. The Glimakra 50 shaft drawloom is huge, but airy and light, with soft pine beams and miles of texsolv string. I love to weave fine linen on this loom, but it has been 2007 since it has been dressed for weaving. It waits for for a warp and some company. My Leclerc counterbalance is my production workhorse, and is dressed with lovely wool for Scottish Wedding Blankets. October was the last time a shuttle passed through the warp, and it waits patiently for me to spend some hours bringing it back to life. Its action is light and swift - weaving with it is like dancing.
Its cousin is my Leclerc Gobelin Tapestry loom, dressed and ready for an Advent Tapestry celebrating the transformation found in embracing the darkness. But I can't settle on the image of the embrace, so it, too, waits patiently for me to work through my artistic block and bring the many colored wools to the loom. Weaving on the Gobelin is like painting - it is a very different feel from the other looms.
But on Friday and Saturday I chose the Macomber, which has been waiting for me to finally bring it to life. I first saw a Macomber Loom in the 90's, at the studio of the weaver under whom I apprenticed. I fell in love with its strength instantly - heavy woods and wrought iron made it a battleship of looms - whereas the other looms were lighter, the Macomber was the fixture around which you settled whatever room it was in. My first loom was a Macomber, bought second hand from a weaver in Connecticut who had upgraded to an even bigger Macomber (once a Macomber owner, always a Macomber owner). The looms are hand made in a small shop in Maine - made to order for the weaver. You can wait a very long time for your Macomber loom. I left my first loom in Scotland - seeing that an up and coming weaver had the tool she needed to continue her craft. When I returned to the States in '07, I took delivery of a new Macomber - falling in love with its strength and beauty.
And there it sat, first in WNY, and then in Boise. But Friday I crawled under it, and began the process of tying it up for its first warp - cutting my fingers and bruising my hands in the process (a Macomber is not a dainty loom). I had forgotten how much strength it took to depress s treadle that was tied up with 8 heavy metal shafts - the quad machines at the gym have nothing on a Macomber. By Saturday afternoon the warp was tied up as were the treadles, and the first shuttle was being thrown in the shed. And I was weaving. On my strong, rugged and beautiful loom with all its iron, steel and maple I was creating light and airy cloth. And growing stronger with each pick.
Why did I start weaving on Friday? Friday my heart was in a knot. It had been another week of chaos at church (thank you, mice and bats), and my mind was distracted with the millions of unfinished details of parish life plus emails and phone calls...I stayed home, but my mind and heart were at work. Then there was the mass shooting in Aurora - the place where I had done my chaplaincy many years ago. A large part of my heart is still back there, and yet another tragedy (involving gun violence) sickened me to the core. My mind tries, in vain, to understand how rational people can justify the need for legal access to assault rifles - I wish the damn things were banned and consider it obscene that this sick human being was able to legally obtain these weapons. My heart and head were racing a million miles a second...
...so I went to my heavy and strong loom, and prepared it for weaving. The tools felt like extensions of my hands, and my legs were able to depress the treadles. Throwing the shuttle through the shed was second nature to me - my rhythm was slow, but deliberate. My breathing slowed down, as did my racing mind. And I did what I do best at the loom - I prayed. Sometime during my time with Macomber, I re-membered a very important lesson: It doesn't matter what I weave, but that I weave. Weaving connects me with the great Tejedor, and I slip into that nonordinary realtiy of grace.
The strength and rugged beauty of the Macomber strengthens me, the scratches on my hands signs of my struggle to stay focused while engaging in my craft. That I pray best when dancing at the loom is a a great mystery to me - it would be more convenient if I most easily entered grace at my work desk instead of at the loom. Can I allow myself more time weaving with the Tejedor? Will I let myself settle into the loom music and dance this blessed dance of grace?
Where do you go and what do you do to quiet your mind, open your heart, and settle into God's presence? What proportion of your time is spend steeping in grace?
Looking forward to my next dance at the loom -
Kim
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