Cycles

 

Spring comes to us later than places further south, but come it does.  We have had a number of sunny days the past while, a welcome break from a winter and pre-spring that seemed to be mostly grey, dreary and pretty depressing.

But the sun promises the flourish of returning life.  Sap is running, buds are forming, wee bits of green are showing their promise to return.

Yes, there are still 'bad' things happening in this world.  Far too many of them, it seems like.  But for now, for this time, we are okay.  We are battening down the hatches again with the rise of covid into a 6th wave, isolating as much as possible.  We will continue to wear a mask when we need to go out.  I'm hoping to begin walking again, try to regain some of the fitness I've lost over the past year.  Now that I have a 'wardrobe' of masks, I will walk wearing one - which will help filter out the allergens in the air - dust, pollen, wildfire smoke - if we have another bad summer of wildfires.

Human beings are very adaptable, although you wouldn't think so given the objections to new circumstances the past few years.  So we will continue as we have been doing - isolate, mask, get the next booster as soon as we can.

In the meantime, I have my weaving.  I'm just polishing an article for the School of Sweet Georgia.  ln some ways I feel like a broken record because I say the same things over and over again.  But not everyone has heard what I say, so I keep saying it.

My goal is to help people.  If they understand the principles, they can make appropriate choices.  

Honestly I didn't think I would still be teaching, at least not to the extent that I am.  Being able to teach from home, no dark o'clock flights, long travel days, all the stress and uncertainty of whether or not I would make it in time.  Now I just have to remember time zone changes and be at my computer at the appropriate time.

So yes, I bought a new laptop on Friday.  I even managed to get it set up so I can do Zoom and loaded Fiberworks on it.  It will be a back up should the current laptop running the loom break down but will make doing Zoom a lot easier. 

And next month, I'll be doing it again - sharing what I think I know with others.  But I never ever assume that I know it *all*.  I still learn.  There are still whole areas of weaving I know little about.  And that's ok.  Weaving is a craft that has been practiced for thousands and thousands of years.  Knowledge arrives, and sometimes?  It is forgotten, to be discovered again in another time, another place.

We learn.  We grow.  We learn more.  

So on this sunny day I think about the cycles - seasons, lessons.  How we learn something, then circle back in order to deepen our understanding.  How the only correct short answer in weaving is 'it depends'.  And so it is with life.  We learn, make more mistakes, learn more, maybe change our minds, based on the increased level of knowledge about the subtleties involved in weaving, in living.

And onwards we go, always onwards.