Weaver

  It is a delight and pleasure to be granted this opportunity to introduce readers to the practice of hand weaving. Thread has been the love of my hands since I was old enough to sit in a chair. Making cloth is both a practical art and a deeply meaningful meditation, especially for Tactilists.   I find life in weaving, and weaving in life. When I carry the thread across the warp a single time, it looks as if I've accomplished nothing. The difference is almost imperceptible. After several more passes, the pattern emerges. When I finish the fabric, I can't tell which was that one singular pass. This is what cloth is made of: patience and small actions. It's a truth I carry with me everywhere. Even when I'm not at my loom, I'm weaving. I am a thread passing through the life of everyone I meet. I am as deliberate and careful in my interactions as I am in my work, to make the whole cloth of my community strong and beautiful.   That is why I disagree with the Sacred Hands isolating themselves in Miridaswi. As a Tactilist, I believe the machine-oriented fabric of the Cluster Islands is flawed, yes. Now, I do sometimes remove a tangle or knot that might damage the cloth, but only if I can't fix it any other way. Taking even a single thread leaves a hole. Eventually the pattern will close up around it, but it will have changed, and nothing will completely mend the hole. Taking more than one thread only leaves a bigger hole. What they did was remove all their threads from the cloth because they were offended by the pattern. Removing so much beauty will never improve an ugly pattern. It only makes it uglier by leaving scars.   As a Tactilist, living in a culture that doesn't value what I do, I believe myself to be one of the brilliant threads that gives life to a cloth of dark and muted colors. As a weaver, I know that without dark colors as contrast, the brilliance is lost. I don't believe the world would be as rich an experience if we were all Tactilists.