a little bit about me
I was introduced to willow a few years back by my dear friend Cha Cha, whose reverence for the craft, land and liberation is contagious. When they showed me how to weave my first basket out of willow growing near our home on the banks of the Cuyama river, I was absolutely enchanted. The initial childlike clumsiness in my hands turned to an intuitive knowing of the rhythm and pattern of the weave.
It felt like a remembrance, a kind of bone marrow knowing, that I and all humans belong to the earth and can live here in a way that feeds life.
“The future has an ancient heart”
I find liberation in practicing one of the oldest crafts that has been in relationship with all humans. A craft that no machine can replicate. A craft that can connect us to the land and kin we find all around us. From straw in a field to rushes in the river to willow growing by the stream's edges, there is an invitation to be in relationship, to tend to these places and create beauty.
I am newly courting willow. A being who I feel is weaving me into deeper belonging to the land and to the weave of the wild. To me, weaving is a living prayer. A time to attune my attention to the kin around me. To conspire together on how we can bring more beauty and life into this world; a time to remember how we can belong to the land once again as guardians.
