When one sits with grief…
I wanted to share a bit on a tapestry I wove through the course of an entire year. A year of sitting with grief; not just my own — a collective grief, as we all witnessed the horrors unfold around the world. This is not a politically motivated post, although I am sure it could be spun that way… this comes from the experience of being a human, and knowing the personal loss of a sibling, and how that feels. Being a mother myself, and witnessing a mother lose her child, and how gut wrenching, breaking it is.
I suppose this feeling, this need to weave my experience and closeness with Death, started with the loss of my Sister. It magnified when I heard of the brutal killing of the innocent children and teachers in Uvalde. It transformed into something much more expansive when I watched, from the comfort of my own home, the horrors that were inflicted upon the people of Palestine. As I watched babies being pulled from the rubble, their dead bodies flaccid, much like the flaccidity of my Sister’s fingers, as I held her hand for the last time.
Over and over I wondered, how can these mothers endure this pain? How can they even go on. Because, you see, even a grown man who dies in war, is a beloved son to a mother. And as mothers, we are left to pick up the pieces of a very broken world.
I am not typically a person who has no words to speak on a subject, more often than not I have little trouble speaking my mind. However, I found myself quite at a loss for words when witnessing so much Death. I donate to various causes, I try to do my bit of activism, but the loom was asking me for more, and so I sat down and began to weave, as a way to process this grief.
I would witness a small boy in Palestine wailing over his father’s corpse, and I would sit at the loom to weave. I would remember the sounds my own mother made, when it was time to take my Sister’s body away, and I would sit at the loom to weave. I hugged and grieved with the Mothers who lost their children to gun violence, and I would sit at the loom to weave; my own tears falling into the fibers. As I would weave, these words kept coming to me, “For The Mothers”.
Historically, women’s voices have been silenced, so we would weave or embroider what we had to say into cloth. The great Medieval weavers, largely women, would weave symbolism into their tapestries, things they wouldn’t dare utter aloud. Mary Queen of Scots, embroidered hidden messages whilst in prison, messages she was not able to write or speak. So I felt it was right to create my own bit of symbolism in this tapestry. Tears of blood for Death and Grief, Eyes because we witness, a Vine as Grief grows and is apart of life, Hearts for our soul.
As soon as I pulled this piece off the loom it asked for siblings. I envision this is the first of three pieces that are wanting to be born. I’ve started the process of readying the loom for another tapestry, and I will wait for what the Loom Gods request to be woven into existence.
I want to remind you, dear reader, that no matter what side of the political or religious spectrum you reside, a single life matters. Regardless if they are completely different from you, or if you were brought up to hate their “kind”. If we choose to love, as mothers love, unconditional love, the world will heal.
With Love,
-Zanny