Field of Dreams

Field of Dreams is the most recent warp to come off of the loom here at 14 Mile Farm.  Its woven in a "crackle" weave by Ralf Griswold. The warp is 8/2 cotton from Maurice Brassard.  

This wrap was inspired by the fireweed that blooms in the Alaskan summer.  

Fireweed covers the landscape here in interior Alaska in the summers.  It is a very resilient plant, the first to return to area after a forest fire, hence the name.  Each flower on the stalk fluffs out like a dandelion in late summer and is blown on the wind to reseed the land for the next year.  

It grows on roadsides, in meadows and fields, and covers the hill in our front yard.

The warp moves through spring to summer greens, with magenta and fuschia followed by the grey blues of a late summer sky, and natty pinstriping to evoke the the fluff of the fireweed going to seed.

Here we see the cloth building up on the cloth beam.  It is one of my favorite and most satisfying sights as a weaver.  You can see the weft change from the magenta to the greens.

This piece is woven with a magenta Tencel, and will be staying here with us.  The combination of the grippiness of the crackle weave with the glide provided by the tencel makes for divine wrapping qualities.

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A cowl in grey Tencel.  Tencel in a crackle weave is one of my new favorite things.  I love the play between the shine of the tencel and the matte unmercerized cotton.  So soft!

This piece was woven with a hand-dyed variegated Tencel weft in shades of green and will be flying to a new home.

I love the way that the variegated greens are evocative of the oh-so-green summer landscape that fireweed blooms against.  This weft came together even better than I had hoped.

Bands of magenta tencel in the tails of the variegated piece to highlight the bright color of the flowering fireweed.

The variegated weft was a joy to weave, always changing.  I see more hand-dyed yarns in the future here at 14 Mile Farm! 

Tapping the Birch Trees

Every spring we tap the birch trees.  Sometime in April, the sun warms the vascular systems of our boreal forest and the sap begins to rise from the roots.  It is a sure sign that the season has turned.  

In springs past we have tried boiling the sap down for birch syrup.  Where maple syrup requires 20-40 gallons of sap for a gallon of syrup, at least 80 gallons of birch sap is required.  The sugar content is lower, and it scalds more easily.  Besides, I grew up in Maine and nothing will ever beat thick amber maple syrup on my pancakes and oatmeal! 

Many folks hereabouts will drink the sap to help prevent (or lessen the severity of) spring allergies once the pollen hits.  It works like a charm.  Fortunately, our family is free of springtime allergies.

So why do we haul gallon upon gallon of birch sap in from the woods?  Why do we fill growlers and pitchers and half our fridge with the stuff?  

Because it is delightful.  It is one of the best spring tonics I know.  Nettle infusions run a very close second.  The trees draw up minerals from deep in the glacial deposits that pass for soil in this land.  They draw up water and filter it.  When drunk, the sap feels revitalizing, rejuvenating.  It is like liquid sunshine and fresh breezes and the smell of melting snow and the joy of things growing.  In a bottle, a bucket, a glass.  And you can drink it.  I call that magic.  

For the duration of the sap run, we switch out our drinking water with sap.  This year, I'm particularly grateful for it.  I'm a breastfeeding mom, and my daughter is EBF (that's lactation lingo for exclusively breastfed).  It means that my hydration is not only for me (and hydration affects sleep and appetite and metabolism and immune function and #allthethings), but it is also for her.  My milk requires lots of water.  I try to drink 4 quarts a day of water in addition to whatever other beverages I imbibe.  That's a gallon of water a day.  And honestly?  I'm a little bored of water right now.  Enter sap, slightly sweet, wonderfully crisp, like the water ladled from the magic well in the fairy tales of my childhood.  Blissful hydration.

Its not just me and other woodswomen who touts the benefits of drinking the spring sap run either! Coconut water is all the craze currently in health conscious fitness circles, because of its superior hydration and the perfect blend of electrolytes and minerals.  Did you know that coconut water has actually been used in place of plasma (blood) transfusions in emergency situations?  Way cool.  
Anyhow, there are actually companies (in Finland and elsewhere) selling bottled birch sap as superior hydration for the health conscious fitness crowd.  Google it, you'll see!

Have you ever tapped trees?  Do you drink sap?  Love syrup?  Tel me about it in the comments.

More than all the world

This morning, cuddled up with my babe, gazing down into her cooing smiling face I told her "I love you more than all the world."  

In that moment of hearing the words come out of my mouth I realized it wasn't true.  The sentiment behind the words burns fiercely in my heart, make no mistake.  I love her just as much as I ever dreamed I was capable of loving.  And then some.  

But this morning I paused.  I looked into her wide eyes with the impossibly lush lashes she did not inherit from my genetics, and I told her that it wasn't true.  I told her that mama loves her just as she loves all the world.  I told her mama loves her to the moon and back, loves her the distance between every star and back.  But she is OF this world, and in that moment this morning, I realized with startling clarity that I cannot love her more than that which she is.  

This Earth that we live on is a part of us.  We are a part of her.  The interconnectedness of this web of matter and energy and will and volition is impossibly deep.  We speak the deepest of truths when we say "Mother Earth."  

“Lokah samastah sukhino bhavantu
-may all beings experience happiness and freedom, and may I contribute in some small part to that happiness and freedom-”

As mothers we are granted visceral access to that space within the human being that has the capacity for unconditional love.  It is like a spiritual fast track (advance to go, collect two hundred dollars).  Our eyes are primed to see this one small piece of the universe as utterly precious.  

As women, whether we choose to bear a child in our womb in this lifetime or not, we contain within us the ability to create new life.  To nurture that new life.  And to love it unconditionally.

It is our job - our duty, our dharma - to use that gift of perspective, that gift of capacity, that gifted wellspring of unconditional love to encompass all the world.  This is how we heal the world. 

If we as humans cannot heal from a place of fear - and we cannot; fear stimulates the sympathetic nervous response and its cascade of stress hormones, the physiologic antithesis of the healing process - how can we expect to heal the world from a place of fear?  How can we expect to heal the political and personal divides and ailments that fill the news with stories of carnage and heartbreak and horror from a place of fear?  How can we expect to heal the imbalances in our climate, halt and heal the destruction of ecosystems and species from a place of fear?  Of hopelessness and dread?  We cannot.  We can only hope to heal the world from a place of love.

As mothers, nay as humans, we bear the sacred capacity to love.  

Unconditional love.  Love that is without conditions.  What would that look like in our world?  On a large scale?  What - truly - would you see if you were to look at your neighbor, your elected officials, your in-laws, the cashier at the grocery store through the lens of unconditional love?  Let's get radical for a moment.  What would happen if we saw the refugees flooding Europe with unconditional love?  What would happen if we saw the jihadists and terrorists through eyes that love unconditionally?  What about the black men and boys that disproportionately fill our prison systems?  The welfare mother? The indigenous peoples the world over whose lands are being bulldozed and drilled in the name of progress?  

And what would happen if we - globally as humans, locally as people, intimately as women and men - acted from that place of unconditional love?  

This is the revolution I would like to see.  This is how we heal what is broken and hurting in the world.  It is as simple as seeing the ills in our world as tears on the cheeks of an infinitely precious child.  

We had this discussion this morning, my daughter and I.  Deep spiritual philosophy.  She laughed and reached to pull the glasses off my face.  Clear vision, indeed.  "I love you as I love the world."