Remember How To Weave

All things once modern become obsolete
practices of tilling soil or curling hair
give way to newer ways of doing
things, or forgotten all together.

Some reemerge as an art form
using the ancient methods
of the grandmothers
when roles were clearly divided.
Men herded sheep and sheared wool

women washed the fleece and carded it then
spun the thread making it suitable for weaving.
Some bundles were placed in large pots

filled with rabbit bush, sunflowers, walnuts
or cactus bugs, boiled to create color or
dipped in orange chips and golden rod
carefully wrung out and dried in the sun.

Every woman who was wise
spun with her hands; and she brought
that which she wove of sky-blue and purple,
of scarlet and of fine white cloth.
All women whose hearts stirred them up
in wisdom spun fleece. (Exodus 35:25-26)

Yes, the grandmothers were weavers, their designs
handed down from generation to generation.
Tradition was the prayerful connection
to those who lived before.

The spindles were believed to be constructed
in the fourth world; the tip of the spindle
is the center of the zenith, the bottom
pointing to the nadir, with the disk
representing the earth.

An ancient art form given to humans
by the gods in the stars.