There is a very normal world of fibre arting and crafting, full of rules and ‘the proper’ ways to do things, that usually revolves around Spotlight, specialist shops, commercial yarns and patterns. Then there’s the Spinners and Weavers Guilds world, where it’s different because you’re spinning your own yarns, but there are still rules and proper ways to abide by.
And then there’s the worlds and worlds and WORLDS beyond all the rules and proper ways, that can be literally felt out and intuited, where marriages can happen between all sorts of diverse and ancient thoughtways and craftways, and absolutely anything can happen. When a weird idea whispers, you go chasing down that rabbit hole, on a whim of ‘what would that look like?’
I inhabited the normal world of Spotlight and patterns till 30, when my mother bought me a spinning wheel and told me to ‘spin clockwise, ply anti-clockwise, and learn when to stop’. Which I never did. Learn to stop that is. Given the basics, and not much else, I just worked it out for myself. Staying up till 2am, so nobody would see me so un-coordinated.
When I could spin well enough for my standards, I went along to a Spinners and Weavers Guild, expecting open arms and not getting it initially. So I humphed off on my own again, and just kept finding my own way. What initially felt like rejection, was actually a blessing, as once I started going my own way, and hacking into my own world of fibre, I started sensing all the myriad possibilities of frankensteining all the different crafts together. And also learnt great respect for instinct, and the scientific experiments I performed after a whiff of an idea took hold.
I felt out completely different ways to use tools that have been used for millenia, like crochet hooks. Learnt how beautifully knitting, crochet and weaving can go together. And realised how very many more worlds there are beyond our comprehension, held back by an overabundance of ‘rules’, and ‘the proper way to do things’.
And once that rip occured through which to escape into the wild world of free range crafting and arting, from the very narrow normal paradigm, I started wondering how many other wild worlds were out there waiting to be discovered!
I’ve found that there is an infinite amount of them, that are ready to be jumped into out of the ‘normal’ paradigms of parenting, relationships, birthing, community, music, sexuality, world history, spirituality, and just about everything else. Once you find your own way, it’s infectious.
Worlds outside the very boring western world, which uses schooling as its advertising agency, to make out like everything is mapped, quantified, known, demystified, debunked, already been done before, and thoroughly explained by science and the narrow western pathways.
Worlds where self organisation rules supreme, and your evolutionarily developed navigation system of thoughts and emotions, lead you to your personal fulfillment. Usually through terrains that our indigenous ancestors would have travelled. Led by the big questions of ‘Where did I come from?’, ‘Why am I here?’, and ‘Where am I going?’.
Along the way into all these new places, I’ve learnt a myriad of ways to de-construct my colonised mind. Noticed the biggest conspiracy under our noses, how the roman empire never died, but just became the roman catholic church, which still is a foundation stone of western civilsation. Researched Ethnopaediatrics, or the science behind Attachment Parenting and Bonding. Deeply contemplated Chaos Theory and Self Organisation. Applied the Law of the Equal and Opposite Reaction to everything. And hunted down others who had sought out their own ways of doing things in every field I could.
There are many who have journeyed these high altitude thoughts and personal learnings to finding their own paths. And we can follow their lead and inspiration, to discover our OWN worlds and ways, of doing every single thing in a conscious manner.
These are the ways that I’ve learnt to embrace my unique flow. Finding and Learning my Own Way, or FLOWing into dis-covering and feeling out the only world I’m ever going to be able to know and create completely…….
my own.