Weaving the bone woman shawl with my ancestors....

"Weaving is a profound metaphor for understanding the of the universe and our place in it. Through the physical process of weaving  we gain a better understanding of the world, and how we as humans are woven through it."
​Susan Barrett Marrill
My longing to to create using textiles goes back to my childhood, but lacking any kind of patient and loving mentor to guide me, my trials with knitting and crochet were all in vain.
To be fair, I could and probably still can make a very looong scarf, but the world of patterns and pearls and days of hats and sweater making were not in the cards for me.
For a long time I blamed it on being left handed, but  know way too many "lefties" that knit up a storm for that to hold any water...

However the loom for me held some sort of a deep ancestral memory, and I had been using the metaphor of a tapestry we could look at in order to see our ancestral connections and the holes/gaps within, in my workshops and my healing work for years. 
So by the time I sat down with my unboxed pieces of loom parts and started to lovingly spread beeswax onto them, and then to assemble them I was determined like I have never been before to learn the ancient art of weaving.
There was pure joy and bliss mixed with excitement, and then complete and utter terror that I might now be able to figure this out, but figure it out I did, and jubilation followed!

"We are bound to our bodies with the fragile threads of earth. Our skeleton is a loom on which every system is strung and woven with our blood." SBM

My first little woven piece was dedicated to my ancestral altar and it was filled with all sorts of tears by the time it was finished followed by great emotion. At this point I decided to make one more piece and then to sell my first little loom so I could move several sizes up to one that could create a larger sacred shawl with. One that would become dedicated to my ancestral work.
However, it was not as easy as all that......
​The journey took me deep into unknown territory, and in many ways forced me to review my entire life as I wove my story into a shawl that would carry the bones of ancestral meaning for me...
But I may be getting ahead of myself here...

I once read that the warp of a loom, {which are the threads that are strung vertically to create the foundation for any piece of fabric to work} represent our values and morals,  our belief system, and these are bedrock on which or lives are built. They are hidden from view, one has to get close to be able to see them. These are usually only shared with family and friends that we love and trust.

Creating a strong warp is the most important part of the weaving, because without it the rest of the creation will not work.

The Weft however is what we see, it is the patterns of our lives and the beauty we create from it, it is what the outside world also sees, and so as important as the weft is, without a strong warp or foundation, it all falls apart!
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Keep this in mind if you choose to read further about the journey...

As I started the process I realized that I wanted my ancestrally woven shawl to be soft so it could hold me though some upcoming shadow work, but wool {which I seem to be allergic to} is the common choice for these kinds of weavings so it took ages for me to make a final choice, taking into considering texture, strength and feel.

And finally I came home elated with soft organic textured cotton yarn in deep grey and black colours feeling grounded and with several hours before dinner I felt ready to begin.
Because I knew that the warp of this shawl needed to be strong and solid, I took my time setting up, measuring and understanding the pattern and what I needed to do to warp my loom, and then it began..
Time faded away and I felt that spacious time out of time feeling as I warped the loom, and soon I was feeling the yarn in my hands, the softness and texture, like a new child I was full of excitement and things were going well.

To warp a loom for a pattern of this size it should only take on hour, but this one took me three.
What I did not realize is that cotton breaks much easier, and no matter how strong my yarn was, cotton is cotton. I also quickly realized  that I should have had the shop girls make me balls from my skeins because I did not have the proper equipment to do the job, and halfway through I needed to tie another ball on, but it tangled and broke and my foundation was beginning to look like a bunch of broken threads with tied knots holding them with a bunch of pooled and tangled yarn spread all around.

It was not long after this that I realized that the first half of my shawl was deeply representing my own early childhood life....

The foundation was broken, but I gritted my teeth and carried on, because nothing was going to stop me making this shawl {plus I paid a LOT for this yarn!} 

I was forced to trust the process, to trust that even though there were breaks and knots it would all work out, and soon enough the tears came, and added their own healing to the foundation of the first half of my shawl.
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My tears felt like the ancestral pain not only of my own broken foundation but the broken foundations of all my ancestors going back, the ones I had been working on healing for the past three years, the ones I have come to love and understand, it was all there is the broken-ness of my first warp....

And then it was finally ready, and I began to weave....

The first half was a slow process, but slowly I wove and healed all of the broken spots, slowly I remembered my life, seeing it through the eyes of the tapestry I was weaving, and the metaphors were deep and rang true in a painful, powerful and healing way...
Eventually, I could see what the foundation was actually stronger then I thought and that it was holding strong, and more importantly, the imperfections it caused were actually beautiful, and soon I was smiling and laughing out loud through my tears....

I felt that I was honouring all of the ancestors that went before me by sticking with it, and I started to feel their steady hands behind me, guiding me in what needed doing to make it strong and beautiful!

The second half, much like my later life was easier, I was more resourceful and had learned what not to do, I also had more tools so the job was faster and flowed all around..
I felt confident in what I was doing and soon I was playing around with different  textures and wools and I could see the beauty of what I was creating, it was weaving medicine.
I began to think of my beloved husband and our two children and they were woven into my shawl, and soon enough I remembered all of my work with red and not by chance, that very week I was gifted an entire spool of beautiful deep red yard for weaving with, so it went in too...
And finally it was done! 
​Two halves of my life, my ancestry, my family my life...
Pulling the last piece off the loom was cathartic and I wish I had thought to capture it on film, but I was caught in the moment, and as soon as I had it in my hands I was holding it close to my heart and getting ready to sew both halves together...

Once a weaving is finished, it is said that one must wet it to bind the fibres more tightly together, some say to hand wash it with gentle soap, while others say just wetting it is enough.. but my ancestors had other plans, and instantly I heard "Take it to the river" and I knew exactly where the shawl needed to go and just exactly what to do.....

But first the bones...

As a bone collector and bone thrower I have been working with bones for well over a decade, and the spirit name given to my by my ancestors reflects that. So I knew intuitively that this shawl would not be complete without carrying some of my most sacred bones.
These were threaded with care and love and strung onto each side of the shawl, and as I worked steadily I understood this to be my Bone Woman shawl, guided by the bone mother in one of her many forms.
Some may know her as the Calleach, and others may see her as Eriskegal the shadow sister/side of Inanna, some see her as Baba Yaga...
For me the bones were directed by my ancestors and guides, and of course the bone mother...

The last and final step was to take her to the river....
I have decided not to share much from that time, but it is my hope that these images speak the words for the process of standing in the cold river, feeling the current pulling me and submerging my shawl as a form of deep initiation {for us both}...

My Ancestral Bone Woman shawl now smells like moss and river water, the tears that once stained her cloth are now washed and cleansed by the current and she has been dried by the sun.
She makes small clicking sounds as I walk, her bones clattering off of one another in the most wonderful way.....
I wear this shawl proudly for it holds the reminder of my life lived, of the ancestors who have gone before me and for what is yet to come...

For now though, there are more tapestries asking to come through, but a good long break seems to be what is needed, for the moment at least...

All of the images that I appear in were taken by Jenny Ann Holden of Infinite Body Photography. Her work is driven by her own connection to the land and her passion to capture the beauty of what it means to be human. ​