Adrienne Thompson - Weaving as Contemplative Practice
BY ADRIENNE THOMPSON
This article first appeared in the July issue of Refresh - A Way Through The Valley: Contemplative gifts for the future of the church.
As I settle into this practice it becomes something like prayer.
Sometimes amid all the bizarre flotsam and jetsam of Facebook something rare and beautiful washes up on my feed and changes my life.
It happened last month when I came across a free five-day course in weaving from the Hetet School of Māori Art. I’d seen an exhibition by Veranoa Hetet – stunningly beautiful kete and korowai created by a master artist, the daughter and grand-daughter of famous weavers(1). I had a relatively free week ahead, the course would take only an hour a day and I thought it would be fun.
It was! It was delight. It took more than an hour a day. It also led me to sign up for a full year course of study. I am learning to weave.
Labelled as a child ‘not good at art’ and ‘uncoordinated’ I didn’t discover until my 20s there was pleasure for me in handcrafts. I still wear those labels sometimes, but I learned over many years the joy of playing with colour and texture and the deep satisfaction of making something by hand.
In my 40s, I began to practise prayer with crayons or pastels. Incurable ‘head-person’ that I am and a deep lover of words – using my hands and senses helped me begin to encounter God with my whole self: body, brain, and heart. No spiritual director will be surprised at any of that!
And I wasn’t surprised when weaving immediately became a contemplative practice. What does surprise me though is the many dimensions unfolding for me in this mahi toi – this making work.
Harakeke, New Zealand flax, grows all over Aotearoa. It’s abundant in our locality, I have bushes in our garden. Harvesting requires me to attune to the environment. One doesn’t cut flax when it’s raining or windy or after dark. Watch, pay attention. And when the weather is right, don’t rush out with a Stanley knife and start hacking. Be mindful.
A Māori friend tapped me on the shoulder as we stood in line for dinner. ‘This weaving you’re doing. Do you karakia?’ ‘Yes,’ I assured him. ‘What do you say?’ ‘I mihi to the sky, to Ranginui, for the sun and rain on the harakeke. I mihi to the earth, to Papatuānuku, for sustaining the plant’s life. I acknowledge Te Atua, the Creator. I say thank you to the harakeke bush for sparing its leaves for me.’ Wayne nodded, ka pai, that’ll do.
How good it is to stand outside, feel the sun, breathe the air, look at the greenness before me and offer thanks. I cut the flax leaves, being careful to leave the central three in each fan: the rito (the baby) and the two awhi rito (the parents who embrace the baby). I try to pick only enough for this day’s project. I take a moment to honour the purpose for which I will weave today. I often remember the women and men who have harvested harakeke over the centuries
My teacher tells us to use this opportunity to serve the bush, pulling out dead leaves and clearing away human litter from around the plants.
I take my bundle of leaves home and sit on our deck to trim and size them. Each leaf
will give me two or four or sometimes six ‘whenu’ – weaving strips. There’s a calming rhythm to it, the feel of smooth leaves and the faint oiliness they leave on my hands, the brightness of the green, the fresh smell.
And now the whenu are prepared, wait. Two or three hours they will lie in a warm place, drying out a little until they curl at the edges. Then another task, take each whenu and soften it with the blunt back of a knife. I have an old silver butter knife.
To prepare just 20 whenu in this way might take 20 minutes or longer. Again, I find a rhythm and a pleasure in this simple physical task. It gives me great satisfaction that nothing is rubbish, all these scraps and stems go straight back to replenish the earth.
Now, finally, I can begin to weave. And it’s hard. The leaves are slippery, and my fingers are clumsy. Over and over again I replay the instructional video and slow it down, watching and listening and trying to copy what I see.
Last night I attempted a new shape of simple basket. I sat absorbed in it for over two hours. I used prosaic clothes pegs to secure the escaping whenu. I muttered to myself: ‘Make the ara, up down up down up. Lay the whenu, down up down up down....’
I enjoyed the rhythm, but it wasn’t working. I pulled it undone and started again from the beginning. I felt frustration rising and the flax calmed me out of it. Mistakes don’t matter, they really don’t. This is not about perfection; it’s about learning and making.
Long ago, the six-year-old was ashamed of her drawing because it wasn’t very good. This kono I’m making isn’t very good, but I’m making it for no other purpose than joy.
As I settle into this practice it becomes something like prayer. A quiet content emerges. I finish my basket, noticing how sore are my shoulders, how stiff is my neck and how replete my spirit.
I need to weave my life each day. The separate strands are constantly escaping me, needing to be woven in again, needing to be anchored by the simple ordinary habits that hold me together. Making tea, writing my journal, hanging out washing, sitting to pray, listening for birds. (And I could write another whole another article about the contemplative practice of making ratatouille.)
Day after day, something is done, and undone, and done again, sometimes with patience, often with hope, usually because it must be done. Grace is found in the doing.
Reflecting with my spiritual director I discover this weaving work has woven its way into my image of my spiritual direction practice.
As Henri Nouwen so beautifully says: ‘Hospitality – or spiritual direction – is not to change anything, but to offer a space in which change can take place.’
My kono – this woven basket – is a space, enclosed but open.
This is what I offer to people who sit with me. It’s organic, simple and functional, not flashy, not highly coloured. It’s created with care but it is far from perfect. This hour, like my basket, is a space where a directee can put stuff and look at it, and see it held, safely and lightly, until they are ready to take it and move on – or leave it behind.
So, weaving connects me to te Tai Ao, the environment, to the long past of Aotearoa, to te Ao Māori and its tikanga, to myself and my body and heart, and to my work of spiritual direction.
And one more. In te Reo Māori ‘raranga’ is one of the words for weaving. A Rangatira is a chiefly leader: one interpretaion of this word is ‘the one who weaves people’3. When I pray the Lord’s prayer (another of my daily pegs!) I say ‘kia tae mai tōu rangatiratanga’. Not ‘ your kingdom come,’ which can carry negative connotations for me, but ‘May your weaving be on earth as it is in heaven’.
When I end the prayer I say, ‘Nōu hoki te rangatiratanga.’ Yours is the weaving. God is the Weaver: may I join in the weaving.
Adrienne Thompson lives with her husband and flatmates by the Waipāhīhī stream in Karori, so spiritual direction and supervision sessions are punctuated by music from kākā, riroriro, and tūī. She’s involved in the SGMSD Formation Programme as supervisor, marker and workshop leader. Each week time is given to the delightful duties of being daughter and a grandmother. Family, community, and living faithfully in Aotearoa are her longstanding preoccupations.
1 Veranoa Hetet, Te Atiawa, Ngāti Tūwharetoa, Ngāti Maniapoto. https://hetetschoolofmaoriart.com/about
Ngā mihi nui ki a koe, e te Kaiwhatu rangatira! My grateful thanks to her.
2 Henri Nouwen , Reaching Out Collins 1976, p 69
3 This is an evocative interpretation for me, my grateful appreciation to the unknown person who offered it. Not all Māori scholars and speakers would agree on this explanation. In sharing this understanding of ‘nōu te rangatiratanga’ I’m speaking for myself and not claiming the authority of Māori theology.
This article first appeared in the July issue of Refresh - A Way Through The Valley: Contemplative gifts for the future of the church.
Refresh is SGM’s journal of contemplative spirituality in Aotearoa, New Zealand. You can view the current issue of Refresh or browse the archives in the Refresh section of this website.
