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Skirt Magazine! -- Charleston, SC
The Thread Project, by Terry Helwig
I am stunned by my complete, almost compelling, willingness to become a midwife to the coarse, blue thread, twirling between my fingertips. At first glance, a thread seems insignificant; better that it be swept into a dustpan and tossed away. Yet, the symbolism of the modest thread is one of the most powerful archetypes for the genesis of new life. It is insignificantly significant!
As unlikely as it seems, my single thread winds toward a project that may change my life. (I even am audacious enough to believe it might change the lives of others.) I am calling it The Thread Project: One World, One Cloth. It’s as easy as tying a thread to someone else’s. Women, men and children, from around the world, are invited to tie one strand of thread onto growing lengths, which someday will be woven into a global fabric--a world cloth. This world cloth is not about a symbol, created by a few. It is about a fabric, created by thousands. Celebrating the boldness of our cultural diversity and the unity of our human hearts, I envision these cloths hanging in nations throughout the world, reminding people that we are, ultimately, a global family of one. (December 2001)
How can one thread lead to such a vision? It occurs to me that the most famous tapestries--The Lady and the Unicorn series, the Bayeaux, and those of Elizabeth LeFort--began with one single thread. For visions to manifest, our slender threads of intention must be followed like Ariadne’s thread, guiding Theseus to his freedom. Our slender threads of hope, vision and promise do not belong in a dustpan. Rather they belong in the pantheon of possibility.
Thread imagery abounds in antiquity. Countless myths and goddesses encompass thread and weaving. American Indian Spider Woman wove the cardinal directions; Germanic Frigga spun the clouds; Japanese Amaterasu spun and wove the sunbeams; and Egyptian Neith wove the world from her heavenly shuttle. The Greek Fates (Clotho, Lachesis, and Atropos) spun, measured and cut the threads of human destiny, and Penelope wove by day and unwove by night, waiting for Odysseus’ return.
It’s as if, at some level, people in antiquity knew intuitively what science is proving. Vital threads span across both the subatomic and galactic worlds. The string theory of physics, simply put, suggests that the fundamental, subatomic structure of our universe resembles loops of vibrating strings; DNA, the genetic blueprint of all living matter, is commonly referred to as the thread of life; and, in the vast universe, it appears that galaxies cluster to form threadlike filaments and sheets. I picture Neith, propelling her heavenly shuttle, spinning the galaxies into filaments and weaving them into sheets. It appears life emanates from threads. Indeed, each of us slipped into this world, threaded to our mother.
Maybe this explains my fascination with looms, draped in the dark mystery of threads. Some part of me resonates with the archetypal energy of the thread as the sustainer of life. Women’s arts of thread--spinning, weaving, and sewing--have symbolized the fabric of life for centuries. Early history supports that these arts were so exclusively female that several weaving words became synonymous with women. The word distaff (which held unspun flax and fleece) came to mean woman; and distaff side designated the matrilineal side of the family.
In England, Anglo Saxon women bore the name peace weaver, even when away from their looms. Daughters often married sons and brothers of foreign tribes. It was believed that, through birth, a woman wove peace by mixing her blood with the blood of another tribe. Hence, the name peace weaver. While I deplore the patriarchal overlay, I am deeply touched by the beauty of the word woman being synonymous with weaver.
Many weaving words capture my imagination. Weft, warp, heddle, guide string and whorl--they delight me with their poetry. Whorl. It rolls off the tongue, spiraling and spinning into the air. Made from stone or baked clay, whorls enabled spindles to spin like a top, magically pulling a strand of thread from a clump of animal hair or plant fiber.
Warp & Weft. They form the beautiful partnership of weaving. Warp threads run the length of the loom. Weft threads spread crosswise to form the web.
Guide string. It appeals to the mystic in me. Described as a stout cord, it guides and measures the winding of the warp threads. It occurs to me that I am following my own guide string. Recently, rummaging through cabinets, I found my old 35 mm camera. I want to take pictures of women and their arts of thread. I want to chronicle The Thread Project. How my one thread turned into two, two into three, and three into “all the myriad things,” as Lao Tzu said.
My one thread became two when my college-age daughter, Mandy, knotted her green thread to my blue. I chose blue for the ocean, the beginning of life. Mandy chose green for the earth, which she so deeply treasures and upon which she often sleeps. My husband chose white for the clouds. Our family of three threads reflect the jeweled colors of earth; they comprise the heart. As I invite my sisters and friends, acquaintances, people I meet, people I don’t even know to add their threads to ours, each colorful knot adds length, metamorphosing our three threads into a small, fuzzy ball of multi-colored ribbon, string, hemp, flax and embroidery floss.
Stories are weaving their way into the fibers. A New Yorker added a ribbon from September 11; a group of women, symbolizing their interconnectedness, braided their strands together and tied them as one; and one mother fastened ribbons from her baby shoes, along with those of her daughter’s. She wrote, “We offer our ribbons, believing in the power of ‘first steps,’ in the beauty of human beings making our wobbly way toward peace, in the notion that small beginnings bring undreamed leaps.”
I anticipate the day when the first world cloth will be woven from the stories and threads of individuals of all colors and faiths from around the world. I hope to invite women peace weavers to weave the multi-colored, multi-textured fabric, symbolizing both our diversity and our unity. The warp of cotton, wool and flax woven with the weft of hope, peace and goodwill.
My growing strand of thread is teaching me a holographic truth--something the Greek Clotho always knew--each thread of life is remarkably significant! It is no small act to tie our threads together, first one and then another. In our own way, in our own life, we all can become peace weavers, following the guide string of the human heart.
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