“You see when weaving a blanket, an Indian woman leaves a flaw in the weaving of that blanket to let the soul out.” …. Martha Graham
Don’t you love synchronicity? A few months ago a dear friend shared with me she had been studying a spiritual form of weaving. Weaving has been on my list of crafts to explore for a very long time and when I heard about Susan Barrett Merrill’s amazing work, Weaving a Life, I recognized the call. Of course, the thought crossed my mind….. How will I create time to learn something new right now?
Fortunately, I listened to my heart rather than my mind and I registered for Susan’s training to become a Circle Facilitator for Weaving a Life Circles. Susan offers guidance and instruction as I’m learning each week by phone. She lives on the opposite edge of the continent in Maine. Her gentle facilitation is both informative and a blessing.
Weaving has become a spiritual practice for me. Somehow the time to “weave” it into my day has emerged, usually in the evening after my work is done. My first project was an amulet shown here with it’s little cloth prayer bundle that is now tucked inside. 
The second project was a bowl. Yes, it’s possible to weave a bowl. When I removed the warps from the loom after the flat woven pattern for the bowl was complete, it took form with a few pulls of the warp threads. It was as if the bowl came alive in my hands. After it was shaped I went outside and cut a small ivy vine and sewed it around the rim of the bowl. It’s my receiving bowl and it’s full to the brim with gratitude for the gifts of craft and the wonderful community that is forming through Sacred Life-Arts.
Currently, I’m weaving a doll. She’s also coming to life and she has a great deal to teach me about my future self. As I mentioned, this form of weaving is profound as a spiritual and intentional practice. When I discovered that Susan teaches 7 
Keyforms to “represent seven stages of development of awareness of our inner landscape…” I was struck by the synchronicity with the 7 Facets of Illumination, the practices of Sacred Life-Arts.
Over the summer I’ll be weaving how to teach the 7 Keyforms of Weaving a Life as a tapestry blended with the 7 Facets of Illumination. Meanwhile, my shuttle goes back and forth over the threads reminding me of how one day binds to the next to create a lifetime… a miracle to infinitely ponder.
“We sleep, but the loom of life never stops, and the pattern which was weaving when the sun went down is weaving when it comes up in the morning.” —Harriet Beecher Stowe
