Unspun. Raw. Fibre in its natural state with all the nepps and burrs and tangles from the adventures of its ovine owner.
Unspun. A blog. Thoughts and opinions in their natural state with all the raw edges and harsh emotion of a woman who lives with her heart.
Imbolc is a time for spinning. It is also a time for reflection and introspection. Traditionally, women would gather on Candlemas Eve and tell tales of childbirth around a Bridie doll in the ashes of the hearth. In the morning when they woke they would examine the ashes and the footprints of mice and augur their fate for the coming year. The fertility of the land, of their bellies. Imbolc, or Omeilc, meaning literally "in the belly" and the festival of ewe's milk.
Who is to say they didn't spin at these gatherings? A woman's hands were rarely empty. Brigid, the Celtic goddess associated with this festival is a goddess of spinning, of poetry and storytelling.
In my own celebration of this time of year I look to these crafts within me. I look at my productivity (I now have a basket filled with skeins of my handspun yarn) and I look within myself too. Brigid tells us to "untangle the threads of our Fate, be a weaver of tales tall and true". It is no accident that the Fates were weavers, who cut and measured the threads of a life. Or that the Celtic imagining of these women was visceral - a loom warped with human entrails, and a skull for a shuttle. Weaving the threads of life from the detritus of death.
The last 18 months have been a continuing journey for me, to experience and understand the spiritual side of spinning. My teenage years were raw and unspun. My emotions vivid, harsh, and animal. Inga still captures the essence of my youth, speaking of a time of riot grrrls and handprinted zines. But my life has moved on. I have mellowed, at last, (at least partly), today my loom would be warped with silk, and my shuttle made from bone. Is it the spinning that is changing me?
I am gradually weaving the bright threads of my life.
