The Final Step

 

It has taken me months to finally do the final act of a 'real' author - get two copies of their book ready to pop into the mail to the National Archive.

It is one of the requirements of getting an ISBN number - that copies be lodged with the National Archive.

It has always been a source of grief to me, how many libraries have been destroyed over the years.  When I learned about the destruction of the library at Alexandria, I was heartsick.  As the years have gone by, I have learned about more libraries that have been destroyed throughout history.

Currently reading The House of Wisdom, finding out about more libraries, destroyed.  And I wonder, if that knowledge had been preserved instead of destroyed, what we might look like as a society, today.

But all I have to do is pick up the 'news' to discover that groups of people are, once again, not just banning books, but destroying them, firing librarians, closing libraries.

And for what?  Why?  (Rhetorical question.)

I have enough of an ego to think that there might be some people who are interested in learning what I know about weaving, maybe even a little bit about life.  And so I don't mind that the National Archive wants two copies of my book(s).  It gives me hope that maybe, just maybe, what I know - or at least, have learned to the date of publication - will live on.

Going through the donated books, I remember some of the authors - because I actually knew some of the authors of those books.  I met Peter Collingwood, Allen Fannin, Linda Heinrich, and so on.  I know many of the current authors of the weaving world.  Which is a very small 'world' all in all.

So when two boxes of books were donated to the guild, I took it as part of my 'responsibility' to the weaving world to try to place those books into the hands of people I knew would value the knowledge in them.  

Ultimately, I hope that my personal library will also go to others.

And that the chain of knowledge will continue.

We don't know what the future will hold.  In some ways, I'm glad.  Not knowing what will happen allows me the freedom of hope.   Hope that people will continue to play with string.  Hope that people will be knowledge keepers.  Hope that people will find solace as well as joy in the exploration of how threads can be manipulated into cloth.  Hope that we will survive as a species...

As always, my books can be found here for Magic, The Intentional Weaver and Stories from the Matrix, and here for two signed copies of Stories as well as A Thread Runs Through It

Signed copies of The Intentional Weaver are only available here

From time to time I hear rumours that the original Magic in the Water is for sale, usually a 'dead weavers' library being sold off.  Sometimes someone gets a copy for a very low price, but generally it seems that that book is valued.  And when I hear of a copy being snapped up for the same - or even higher - price than what I asked for back in 2002, it tells me that all the work, all the effort, all the money that it took to birth that book was worth it.  It makes me feel like I did 'good'.  And if I accomplish nothing else in this life, at least I did that.