Going to visit Llamas and Llambs. Kathy has a book to look at by Sarah Natani and has met a woman who has been to the Navajo reservation 5 years to weave. There is much to learn in one’s hands. Getting the facts on one’s head is easier.
The book that Kathy has includes photos and weavings by many of Sarah Natani’s students.  The photos and letters from students were gathered by Lora Pirtle Rinke and published a book called Sarah Natani.
Trev, my oldest son, has said it is a go for him to build the portable loom that we will use to learn on. I found a simple one to purchase on Halcyonyarn.com if all else fails.
Nick, also my son, has applied for a URL for my blog. It will be aprilponders.com. Fitting. My father always used the term “ponder”. He always had plan 1, 2, and 3 or A, B, and plan C. Usually plan A worked.
So why did I return to Ashland for 4 years (2006-2010). I will start with what I accomplished so I remember to take something away from here.
1. (Family) Got to grow up with grandchild, Bennett who is now 5 going on 5.5.
2. (Family) Spent time and watched the incredible growth of daughter Anna who will graduate from SOU in June of 2010. Helped me grow a lot as well.
2.5 Trev and Jennifer’s wedding. Trev, my oldest son, married Jennifer Martinz. They are now in 2010, expecting a baby, Lily. We will hear much more about her when I get back to Portland. Here are Trev and Jennifer:
3. (Spinning) Took spinning classes at Websters in Ashland and Llamas and Llambs in Jacksonville.
4. (Weaving) Was given a 4 shaft floor loom and bought an 8 shaft table loom. Put together the 4 shaft floor loom out of a box with Anna’s husband’s help (Sean). There were a few left over bolts. Mostly worked. The table loom is very nice.
I am reminded by my other writing that in the basement of this house, the image of Spider Woman was born. Thanks to Kevin Lewis who reminded me that on the other side of fear, lies our greatest power. Like in Batman Begins. His fear of bats, lead to Batman. Creepy in a way.
5. (Weaving) Wove small pieces on both looms plus purchased a knitters loom (rigid heddle) and wove Christmas presents one year rather remarkably. The knitter’s loom takes regular yarn and ribbon so all kinds of textures are possible with a simple weave. Took a basic class at Websters and a more advanced one there as well. Haven’t used the more advanced info (yet).
6. (Spinning) Bought a drop spindle but haven’t really used it. Now I have a Navajo spindle that is 36 inches long to begin to learn to make yarn for Navajo weaving. Reichard said that it takes several (from 4-9 years to make good yarn this way).
7. (Knitting) I washed, carded, spun, and knit a hat for Anna out of Romney wool that is local to the owner of Webster’s yarn store in Ashland. My mother thought I was attracting moths but I didn’t attract a single one.
7.5 Attended my first Blacksheep Wool Gathering in Eugene. Thanks to Sally Wiley. We met there or I never would have gotten there by myself. Good intentions. The sock below is my first striping sock. I bought yarn and directions at the gathering. Reminds me to go this year.
8. (Fiber) Visited an alpaca farm by the beach and bought fiber that had been sheared into bags. The owner said that the off white fiber was out that black was in but she had few of the black alpacas. Some of the fiber was HUACAYA and some Suri. The owner suggested there would be a fiber based economy in the future. I suppose that is possible.
9. (Knitting) I processed and carded some of the dark suri with the dark romney and started knitting another hat. Haven’t completed it. Though I know where it is.
10. (Knitting) I had another round with the knitting machine and knitted and felted a hat. Talked to Zelpha about upgrading but didn’t end up doing that. Would like to make a baby sweater before I leave Ashland but probably won’t on the knitting machine. Zelpha knits for Shakespeare. She is a true artist.
11. (Navajo) Now I am coming full circle to work on Navajo weaving which has become a separate category in my blog. Love the community.
12. (Sewing) I did weave and sew a blanket this month for Lily who will be born at the end of May. I used a hand held pin loom to weave the squares. Photos to follow.
Lily’s quilt and Lily’s Mom.
12.5 Weaving and sewing a blanket for Jackson:
12.75 New weaving adventure with wider rigid heddle loom. 32 inch width allows for a complete baby blanket and or shawl.
13. (Sewing) As a seque, I made mbira bags for MBIRA.org to sell at 2008 Zimfest. They sold out. I have fiber to make more. Hopefully Marilyn Mohr and I can work on some this year (2010).
14. (Travel) I brought back fabric for bags from Zimbabwe 2009. In February 2009, I traveled (by plane and by myself) to Zimbabwe to study with mbira musicians and to visit Dzivaguru (event was organized at Bushbaby Lodge). I have a separate category in this blog for the trip which was phenomenal.
15. (Mbira) Leading up to this trip, I went to an 8 day intensive in Berkeley to learn from Patience and Jenny who traveled for the first time from Zimbabwe. I met Rosalie during this camp. Patience and Rosalie remain two of my favorite people.
16. (Mbira) Studied with Musekiwa in Eugene and Ashland and at Camp Pagungwa from Cosmas Magaya and Ambuya Dyoko. Both in 2008.
16.5 (Mbira) and Camp PaNyanza 2009 with Patience in Florence.
Camp-PaNyanza-2009
17. (Mbira) Performed two mbira benefit concerts, one for Ancient Ways in Ashland with Steve and Joseph, and one for Kutsinhira in Astoria with Joseph and Rosalie (Steve was recovering from open heart surgery.)
18. (Mbira) Playing mbira weekly with Steve so my mbira playing has been greatly improved while living in Ashland. (two trips to Berkeley for private lessons with Erica, one learning Marenje and the other Vasina Katura. both on gandanga).
19. (Harp) Flirting with harp. Purchased nice dusty strings harp (see below). Took lessons and dan helped me add some sharpening levers. Licia, an mbira friend in Portland helped me connect with a harp sales person in Portland. When I return, I hope to continue harp lessons in some form. Hasn’t jelled for me yet.
20. (Dogs) Bart passed away which was very sad as I was learning from him to live a dog’s life. Shumba and Emi are 8 months old now. A boy and a girl. Shumba loves mbira, Emi loves to snuggle. Both small miniature poodles. Well house broken. Very intelligent. Sleep on the bed with minor opinions and nosings.
21. (Family) Connected with the family tree. Have assembled all my dad’s files and my mom’s notebooks on family history. Dan had the file and sent me Family Tree Maker. Now I need to start entering where my dad left off. Not sure how much to fan out the families of husbands and wives of children and siblings. Will do what I can and add photos and info.
22. (Reading) Reading everything I can. I read a lot of junk, thrillers, but also Navajo weaving and history, Shona history, accumulated the books from the reading list of Pacifica thinking I would start on my PhD. Still plan to but when, where? Read some of Richard Rohr.. though I am not a Catholic, he speaks to me.
23. (Reiki) Visited Idaho twice. Once for a family constellation (my 5th) and once for a Master’s gathering with Paul and Susan. Gave up my membership in the Alliance waiting to see what evolves here. Interesting journey.
24. (Travel) Visited Anne-Marie in New Mexico for a week of reiki and lessons with Joy. She really helped me to get the kutsinhira in the right place on Marenje and Chipembere. Visited Anne-Marie at a Eugene camp with Patience in 2009 at Florence. We talked about the water spirit. Seems to be a link and maybe our ancestors in Alsace Lorraine.
25. (BBS TV) Watched every BBS mystery series on DVD from DJ’s video. Just found a new series on Netflix, Waking the Dead but it hasn’t all been converted to US format and probably won’t be.
26. (Family) Watched as my folks continued a downhill spiral into different forms of dementia. Dad fell in 2009 and broke his hip. Hasn’t really been the same since and we had to have a 24 hour care person here to bring him home over a year ago. This was the most difficult part of the stay here. Hard to really grasp the difficulties that they have faced and how tired I became towards the time for me to go back to Portland. We have moved them to Salem where Tim is overseeing their care. Bless you Tim. So this is only the beginning. Lots has happened since I have been here. I just wanted to remember all of it. I will add some pictures when I can. Came for Bennett and Anna and I learned a life time of lessons while here.
Woke up thinking about Navajo Weaving. On the breakfast table I had laid out the book, The Navajo Weaving Tradition: 1650 to the Present. I started leafing through the book looking for blue dyes. Indigo seemed to be the most prevalent blue– set with fermented urine as not a mordant (or fixative) but a “strong alkaline solution as a carrier”, p. 134. Used until the late 19th century.
The study now begins for me of what blue is now used and what blue will emerge in my studies with Sarah Natani. Using natural fiber and natural dye seems very important in creating a carpet from the earth. I want an earth carpet. Something that integrates the elemental earth, all aspects.
The Navajo have the beauty way, the way to harmony. This step seems important in weaving to hold this feeling of harmony as I approach this study.
Earthues in Seattle uses natural dyes. Combined with my study with Sarah Natani, I want to travel to Seattle to study with Michele Wipplinger who teaches wonderful classes on natural dye. My long time friend and carpet lover, Joyce, has shown me the samples that she brought back from a class, really lovely. We share the love of a good natural fiber either hand tied or woven into a carpet.
I digress. This morning I received an e-mail from Patience who is a wonderful friend and mbira teacher from Zimbabwe. I was reminded of the water spirit that I had met in my travels to Zimbabwe to the mountains village of Dzivaguru where the spirit mediums live. I wondered what this carpet weaving on the Navajo reservation could mean. Why was I being called to weave in a tradition that had so little water, no wide expanses of blue. This was my reason for looking for blues in the Navajo carpet and for any small sense of elemental water.
The Shona have no “spider woman” lore. Though the spiders are huge in Zimbabwe. I need a spider woman in my life, a grandmother spider woman, creator and holder of a power that is grounded and harmonious. This fearful image also brings life. In a Jungian sense, is allows the shadow a place in one’s home.
I want to weave a carpet with the image of spider woman. This might take some time. Looks simple but first there is much practice of stripes and zig zags. Vertical lines, horizontal lines, diagonal lines, all must be practiced.
Somehow there seems to be time to think of practicing. I who have been up against time, seeing that it no longer feels unlimited and looking for ways to take my patterns into the world of spirit where they might remain at least in traces of memories after death.
What survives? I watch my parents lose touch with all the things they thought to be important except family, a bit, and glimpses of greater love. Who are they now? What is the function of these later years that flirt with death even with a cosmology that embraces death, what part of that cosmology has failed my parents, and has been failing me now.
My search is for that peace, to allow beauty. To sit with people who allow beauty in simplicity, survivors of a harsh white world.
How can a bit of wool and a simple loom be the gateway to another world, the world where spider woman awakes. More on that thought to follow.
After many encounters with spiders in my temporary housing in Ashland, Oregon, a brother, Kevin, suggested that I look at my fear as a source of power. My interest in weaving and love of the Southwest combined in my search for the seat of Spider Woman’s power.
Over the last 4 years, the interest in Navajo weaving has come up again and again. Two years ago I tried to enroll in Sarah Natani’s weaving course at Table Mesa, New Mexico. The course was filled. Meanwhile, I met Kathy at Llamas and Llambs in Jacksonville, Oregon.
Kathy recommended two books, Spider Woman: A Story of Navajo Weavers and Chanters by Gladys A. Reichard and Navajo Weaving Way: The Path from Fleece to Rug by Noel Bennett and Tiana Bighorse. I purchased Navajo Weaving Way as it was readily available. Also the video set, Navajo Weaving: Sharing the Technique and Tradition by Angie Walker Maloney (assisted by Susanne Clark) which I found at Webster’s Yarn in Ashland, Oregon.
A friend gave me a loom and when I went to pick it up where it was stored, I was fortunate to met, Audrey Moore who helped found the Damascus Pioneer School which is now Damascus Fiber Arts School. Her weaving which included the spider woman image, inspired me.
When considering my move back to Portland, I thought surely I would go straight to the Damascus Fiber Arts center to register for a class. Surely this will happen, meanwhile, while visiting Llamas and Llambs, Kathy mentioned that she had had a visitor who had information about a class being organized in Carlton, Oregon featuring Sarah Natani. Kathy had some serendipitous events going on herself as her original Navajo Weaving teacher had just come through the store.
Kathy sent me the email of information for the Carlton class organized by Lora Pirtle Rinke. Lora answered immediately through facebook that there was indeed room in the class in Carlton.
Meanwhile, I contacted Kathy Burnham who was organizing the class with Sarah Natani on the reservation and she said, “yes there is room”.
So in the course of two days, I had signed up for two classes. Lora had posted that it would be possible to get hand carved forks and battens from Al Snipes. He responded to my e-mail that he didn’t do retail but would make a batten as part of a batch he was sending out and mail it to me. He followed up with a phone call.
At this moment, I was charmed by the community surrounding Navajo Weaving. This kind of care in providing a weaving tool seemed way out of the ordinary. I have since received my batten that has a smooth, pleasing touch. Beautifully crafted.
Over lunch, I read Spider Woman a bit a day, having now finished the book, I marvel at the intelligence and unique quality of the writing of Gladys A. Reichard. I had previously read her book, Navajo Religion. This book provided my first glimpse into the complexities of the Navajo way of life, a complexity and commitment to cosmology that Ms. Reichard suggested lead to the survival and flourishing of the Navajo as a people. Impressive. Intriguing.
Cosmology was a challenge question presented to a small group of practicing masters of the Usui System of Natural healing. The question was, do you have to know your cosmology? Is it important. Yes, it seems that it is.
Without digressing, that question has lead me to this moment. Where lies Spider Woman in my cosmology and what is it that I need to know here?
Bennett, Noel and Tiana Bighorse. Navajo Weaving Way: The Path from Fleece to Rug. Interweave Press: Loveland, 1997. (Three books combined formerly: Working with the Wool: How to Weave a Navajo Rug, Designing with the Wool, and The Weaver’s Pathway all by Noel Bennett with additions and revisions).
Dedera, Don. Navajo Rugs: How to find, Evaluate, Buy and Care for Them. Rev. Ed. Northland Publishing: Flagstaff, 1975.
Jongeward, David. Weaver of Worlds: From Navajo Apprenticeship to Sacred Geometry and Dreams, a Woman’s Journey in Tapestry. Â Destiny Books: Â Rochester, 1990.
Kaufman, Alice and Christopher Selser. The Navajo Weaving Tradition: 1650 to the Present. Counsel Oaks Books: Tulsa/San Francisco, 1985.
Kent, Kate Peck. The Story of Navaho Weaving. McGrew Printing: Phoenix, 1961.
McQuiston, Don and Debra. The Woven Spirit of the Southwest. Â Chronicle Books: San Francisco, 1995.`
Maloney, Angie Walker. Navajo Weaving: Sharing the Technique & Tradition. Yarn Barn: Â Lawrence KS, 1998. (2 videos).
Reichard, Gladys A. Spider Woman: A Story of Navajo Weavers and Chanters. University of New Mexico Press: Albuquerque, 1934.
Reichard, Gladys A. Weaving a Navajo Blanket. Dover: New York, 1974. (originally Navajo Shepherd and Weaver. J.J. Augustine: New York, 1936.)
Spurgeon, Caroline M. Weaving the Navajo Way: How to Create Rugs, Miniatures, and More! Caroline M. Spurgeon: 2008.
At the end of an amazing trip to Dzivaguru. The young drummers and dancers are below. Those of us who traveled to study mbira together in the middle above with Erica, Patience, and Denver. (Click on photo to make it smaller or larger). Blog is in progress..I will be rewriting and updating as I get reentered into daily life.
I have put in some events without writing much about them..notes really. I am in the process of going back and filling in days, events, and bits of reflection. Now that I am home, I see that I tended to write when I was a little stressed which makes some entries seem not as much of a celebration as I might have been experiencing.
I told Patience that I was nervous during our visit to Dzivaguru. She said, you are always nervous. This could be true. I don’t know if I will ever be able to convey the experience of the Dzivaguru village. Playing mbira for a village of spirit mediums with little chicks running through the hut and the enchantment of older women dancers with radiant smiles and sadza eaten from wooden plates with our hands in a kitchen with an open pit fire are only part of an experience that will be with me forever. Our 3 day prayer when doing back to Bushbaby using the blessed tobacco was a very rich ending to the 14 days of mbira playing. I will try to write more about this but the experience was bigger than I understand.
Besides Patience and Jenny Muchumi, I have now met a woman mbira player, Nyarai. I had the pleasure of playing mbira with her for 30 minutes or so before she was called to help with tea.
Today I am remembering the trip to Fradreck’s village. We arrived after 9 sometime. We had sadza,beans, and canned tuna for dinner and arrived at bedtime at 11:00.
I slept on a mat in the kitchen storage area. I thought surely I would never sleep but I slept until 5:30 then got up to visit the outdoor potty. Difficult in the long skirt.
We went to the area where they held biras. Fradreck’s grandfather was a mhondoro spirit medium. He was executed by the freedom fighters. I had always thought that he was executed by the Rhodesian Government for wanting peace. He was executed because the mhondoro spirit wanted white and black people to walk side by side with equal power not one side over the other.
We stood by the spot where Fradreck watched his grandfather forge nails into mbira keys. Part of his history as an mbira maker.
Lovely kitchen with nice metal rack over the fire for cooking.
We had tea and started back in Fradreck’s car for Harare. They stopped a couple of times at road side stands for produce. We also stopped for Fradreck to point out the mubvamaropa tree that is used for making the mbira.
Mubvamarope tree.
Erica is starting a reseeding project. The trees won’t mature for 50 years. This is for our grandchildren. Fradreck is part of the project.
Waiting for Fradreck to pick me up. It is Monday, March 2nd. Thunder is starting again. Third day of thunder and lightning. Storms quite violent. Though not a strong wind or hail.
Confirmed flight out on Wednesday. Made me nervous. Good people here. I paid my final bill here. Very reasonable. Twenty five a night which is a special deal.
Fradreck and Mai Pasi have picked me up. There is a bad rain storm. Something is broken. The are trying to fix it under the umbrella in the rain. Mai Pasi said do not come out. So I am sitting in the car while they are fixing the fender which seems to be tied on.
Cathy calls this Africa time. When someone comes later than you expect.
The day before I leave I would like everything to be safe. And to get back safely.
