As frequent visitors of this site know, I've been weaving up a storm for the winter holiday sales I, ironically, said I wouldn't be doing this year. My rationale for not doing the shows was selfish - I had just finished writing the draft of my first, self-published, book. I envisioned a fall filled with revisions, edits and then moving on to book #2, a memoir of my time in hockey. But as the Fall progressed I realized that without the shows, I'd have no income to send to the Northern Studies Centre or to other causes that support Arctic/Polar research. And I have a commitment to that, I reminded myself. And so back to the loom I went. To keep me motivated, I reviewed the data and sites related to the Polar Bear season 2019. I've just finished reading the reports of the ice for Churchill this year. It's slower than other Falls....much slower.
With the cold snap that came in the early Fall, hopes were high but then the ice growth stalled...so some bears are on the ice but others are stuck on shore, still starving until the temp gets low enough that they can get to the sea ice and their seals. Though it's a gorgeous picture, the shot (below) is from a few days ago and it shows how open the water is just east of Churchill.
The tangled webs of our actions, and the counter-actions of climate and ecosystems has become too complex. Like so many things we've designed, our complex systems come with potential errors that are hard to identify and even harder to unravel. Friends of mine think the warping of a loom, with all the thread requiring precise alignment before you can start weaving, is too complex a process to be enjoyable. I disagree. I think that it's precisely the work that has to go in, up front, that makes anything I weave an amazing act of creation. And, in these troubled times, each creative act is a bold positive statement of life and positive energy and hope. At least that is what I think of as I make this holiday season. It's my simple way to battle the complex..to go back to the joy of a life lived well and care of the earth that has given so much to us already.
And so you'll find me in the studio..trying to capture the beauty of this:
Into something human and, woefully, inadequate:
But something that keeps me hopeful - hopeful of raising money for research and protection; hopeful that we can continue to create in times of challenge; hopeful that the complex webs we've woven will sparkle and delight and not ensnare us.
Namaste.
