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is Making,  like Dreaming, done singularly?  Or is there a Communal energy that calls things forth?   That way of thinking that i have,  that Cloth,  some Cloth,  not all,  makes itself.    Meaning …..what?….well….meaning that  this Cloth, for instance was/is a part of an energy far larger than what my own imagination might have imagined.  Actually,  was unimagined entirely.  I had no forethought at any step of the way except as i've said,  to sew those two neutral squares onto the plain piece with the drawing of the face.  The drawing which was done months ago and somehow remained atop all else on the Table.  Just there.  A presence.  But given no meaning by me.    

But then,  Cynthia sent this…it's in her comment,  but i need it here and i am sorry that i don't know how to change the spacing properly  for a poem,  so this will probably end up splayed out…but….

Hollow Bones

We locked up our wisdom into our bones                                                                                                                                And swallowed the keys                                                                                                                                                             They sank in our rivers of blood                                                                                                                                                 And we forgot the maps.

Because we had to forget the mysteries                                                                                                                                    To keep them safe                                                                                                                                                                         We wove our hair into brooms                                                                                                                                                      And swept over our paths                                                                                                                                                         And then burned the earth with our rage                                                                                                                                  We didn't teach our children                                                                                                                                                    It was the only way to protect them,                                                                                                                                           we thought

But in them we planted seeds,  seeds and keys                                                                                                                        And told them stories and riddles and songs                                                                                                                     With no roots,  just tangled threads                                                                                                                                         That would take years to unwind

Just enough time

For the rains to fall again                                                                                                                                                                 and put out the fires                                                                                                                                                                    For the dams to break                                                                                                                                                                         For the rivers to flood                                                                                                                                                              For the paths                                                                                                                                                                                          to be walked again                                                                                                                                                                        For the soil to breathe

And as the old bones crumble                                                                                                                                                        Deep beneath the rubble                                                                                                                                                            We find we've always had the keys

Our stories and our maps                                                                                                                                                              Our paths are revealed to some                                                                                                                                                    And the seeds grow again                                                                                                                                                           The threads are unspun                                                                                                                                                                    And woven again

Amara Bronwyn

 

I look at the tangle of thread that came to be the dream in this Cloth.    Unimagined ahead,  but Put as response.

And almost simultaneously,  Julie of Threadingthedog.blogspot posted….and gave an image to help make her point which i  swept with a hair broom into my heart…   " why would a Syrian mother clutch a toddler in one hand and an aged father in the other and begin a walk through the Balkans in winter?"  I asked her where she saw this image,  could she tell me so i could go find it and she said

"in my head"

 

 

                                                                                                           

                                                                                                                                            

                                                                                                                    

 

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7 responses to “Making”

  1. Jan Avatar
    Jan

    communal energy. . .communal dream. . .

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  2. Jan Avatar
    Jan

    have spent some time lately listening to sane voices coming out of the middle east. . .Zainab Salbi and a book entitled If You Knew Me You Would Care. . .women’s stories from war zones. . .also Maajid Nawaz. . .a young man who was fully entrenched in islamic extremism but now has his head on straight. . .how he came to challenge those ideas. . .waiting to receive his book Radical: My Journey Out of Islamic Extremism. It’s all part of the communal energy. . .and it makes its way into our cloths.
    Anyone who comments on what goes on here, without participating here doesn’t get it.

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  3. yvette Avatar

    Thanks Grace, thanks Jan.
    There are more images than you can bare to see.
    If they knew
    If the knew
    How not wanted they are
    How borders closing with prickly thread
    How nationalisme racisme flourish
    The world is shifting

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  4. Mo Crow Avatar

    Judy Martin posted these wonderful words about material by Giuseppe Penone over on her Process page
    “I don’t use the material to do all the work.
    I don’t change the material, I follow its lead.
    I want to work with touch.
    I think about the idea of skin.
    …not a product of thought.
    … a product of the body.
    Breath is close to that idea.”
    Giuseppe Penone
    http://judys-pinwall.blogspot.ca/2015/11/studio-wall.html

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  5. jude Avatar

    I don’t feel things are imagined until they are imagined, so it makes sense that some parts of this were unimagined by you. and then they were there so you reacted and began looking. and now imagining how that might work for you. for the cloth. the story. Cloth is not conscious, not for me although metaphorically we might entertain that. but it is there, and coming in contact with it might make it “come alive” with your touch. That is the kind of spirit/ magic I am talking about. A kind of sympathetic evolution. Although sometimes folks read more into it. i tried to be clear here.

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  6. saskia Avatar

    a cloth full of movement

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  7. Michelle in NYC Avatar

    LOVE love loving this poem from Cynthia. Loving this dream cloth too.

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