Learning to Feel Through Handspinning

I remember those moments last December distinctively. I had just bought about 100 oz of Navajo Churro fiber from Hovenweep Sheep and purchased a Schacht Spindle Company Navajo-style lap spindle. I was a little daunted, eyes like saucers, thinking about the task ahead of me. I did not know how to spin with a Navajo-style spindle, nor did I know if I could follow through on spinning 6 pounds of fiber. I threw myself into the deep end of the pool to see if I could swim.

Being raised by a single mom in a forgotten rust belt city, I am no stranger to situations where I am thrown into the deep end, often without any choice. I remember the anxiety I felt at the private liberal arts school I attended in college, knowing that I had to maintain a 3.0 GPA to maintain some $40,000 dollars in student aid. I remember the sadness and fear I faced when my Mom told me I was the man of the house at 16 when my parents got divorced. The question resounding through my life has always been: will I be up to the task? There is a sort of steely nerve one develops as you face down these situations over and over in life. A nerve I applied to this spinning journey.

Day-after-day, I showed up to spin with my spindle. In the beginning, I sat in front of videos of Clara Sherman and Rachel Brown, trying to emulate there motions. I received encouragement and tips from fiber community. My yarn broke over and over again in those early weeks. I stuck with it. 15 minutes here and an hour there, my hands learned the methodical motions necessary to perform the magic of making yarn with this timeless tool. Over time, I found the flow and applied myself to its repetitive rhythm. Soon, I was able to enter the spinning flow, as one finds themselves moving through the seasons. Each step of the process, like the seasons, with its own distinct texture and inertia, passing without effort or intention.

My story, as in all stories, is not all perseverance and resilience; I have learned just as much from failing as I have from succeeding when trying to stay afloat in the deep end. Plowing through difficulty with hard work and plodding steps, as I had in previous scenarios, leaves one vulnerable to moving forward without having ever dealt with the crushing emotions that accompany the deep ends of life. That’s where I found myself in my late 20s with my Mom having passed on from cancer. I couldn’t methodically move on with my life. I was stuck, drowning in the deep end. It was in this moment that I learned I had to sit with and allow the saddness, pain, and difficult of life happen. I couldn’t methodically face down these feelings. I had to become their friend.

With all great journeys, there is a tendency to want to hurry ahead to one’s destination. While spinning this yarn, there were so many times that I wanted to skip to the end where I had completed thousands of yards of perfect single-ply tapestry yarn. There is a deep allusion in this tendency to where I found myself after my mom passed on. In that place, I wanted to skip ahead to being well without rolling around in the muck of grief. How difficult it was also to be imperfect at spinning a daunting amount of fiber with a new tool. I felt myself judging every strand with the critical eye of a mean-spirited teacher, unsure if I would ever be servicable at this craft. Yet, I knew from my experience with my mom’s passing that there was no replacing this stage. I had to sit in this difficult space as I learned. 

In the end, I had spun over 2,000 yards of Navajo Churro yarn, but what I had accomplished couldn’t just be captured in a number. Yes, I met the physical challenge of spinning all 6 pounds of that fiber into even, medium weight single ply tapestry yarn. More importantly, I met the spiritual challenge that I didn’t even know accompanied this spinning journey. I learned how to engage in soul and hand craft while allowing myself the space to sit with difficulty and imperfection, frustration and self-judgement. Each day, I found myself slowly unlearning my previous approach to adversity. My steely nerve remained, but it had been deepened by an ability to experience the depth of human emotion that accompanies adversity. Like all spinners, I happened into become more whole through my craft.

The Magic of Weaving

The following piece appeared in Issue 1 of Roving Magazine on March 1, 2018.

There is magic in fiber art. It’s a magic that surrounds our practical pursuits to cloth, adorn, and furnish. I come across that muted force in my practice as I fill the space between warp strings. You may find it in the gentle interlock of your stitches or the sewing of a hem on a pair of pants. It’s that moment of shimmering awareness when your handiwork gives way to connection—with oneself and the world. I return to my weaving each day, because that connection I create in my practice is how I heal.

Before taking up weaving, I was a run-of-the-mill man that was disconnected from my feelings and avoided discomfort. Like many men, I was trained in the art of disconnection. Raised by a single mom in a rust belt city in the United States, I was asked to be the man of the house when my parents divorced.  In those years, I learned to navigate anxiety, fear, and pain by avoiding my experience of those emotions. Instead of feeling, I would think myself in circles and bind myself up in thought. Feeling was a failure; a failure I was ashamed and fearful of. 

In my late twenties, my mom was diagnosed with stage four colon cancer. The waves of fear and anxiety crashed down on my shores of my body and mind daily. My mom was the most important person in my life, and she was in danger. I tried all my old tools: disconnecting and avoiding the difficulty.  However, the illness never subsided. There was nothing I could do to protect my mom. She continued on with my sister and I by her side in January of 2014. For the year while she was sick and the two years after her passing, I receded into myself. I found it difficult to leave the house or do my job at times. I was so fearful of uncertainty, especially changes I could not control. I coped by plowing through all the difficulty and avoiding the pain. 

During my honeymoon in Santa Fe in 2016, I learned a way to overcome my disconnection. My wife and I went to the Espanola Valley Fiber Arts Center in Espanola, New Mexico for a walk-in-and-weave class. We spent the day weaving rag rugs on a walking loom. Anxiety was present, but there were moments where I lost myself in opening and closing the shed, throwing the shuttle, and setting the edge. It was my first taste of connecting with myself through fiber art. I was able to be present with the pain and experience the freedom of being one with my weaving. 

Weaving soon became a path to connect with my pain and heal. A few months after taking the rag rug class, I took a tapestry weaving class with Sarah Neubert (@s.neubert) . Sarah taught me that weaving was a healing, meditative act that could bring us back to ourselves. Those ideas really resonated with my experience in Espanola. I, too, had found a connection with myself in the repetitive over-under work of weaving.  With a tapestry loom in hand and new skills to use, I started a weaving practice after that class. Through my practice, I found that weaving unlocked the door to my feelings—a door I had kept locked for a long time. Weaving was an art form that gave me the ability to find that connection with myself and express the emotions related to my parent’s divorce and my mom’s death that I had avoided for some time. After many years of disconnection, I had found a path back to myself.

Those ideas really resonated with my experience in Espanola. I, too, had found a connection with myself in the repetitive over-under work of weaving.  With a tapestry loom in hand and new skills to use, I started a weaving practice after that class. Through my practice, I found that weaving unlocked the door to my feelings—a door I had kept locked for a long time. Weaving was an art form that gave me the ability to find that connection with myself and express the emotions related to my parent’s divorce and my mom’s death that I had avoided for some time. After many years of disconnection, I had found a path back to myself.

At the loom, I also started to re-connect with my mom. As I took the initial steps to learn weaving, my mom was always present with me. In Espanola, shuttle in hand, I reflected on her desire to learn Navajo weaving. Weaving that rag rug brought me such joy, because I knew that weaving was a way to honor her memory. As I started my weaving practice at home, my mom remained with me. I reviewed the patterns in her knitting and crochet work and started to integrate them into my tapestries. With each woven row, we were speaking the same woven language and walking the same path. I was completing her unfinished business and healing from the trauma of her loss.

As I continued to heal at the loom, I started to find friendship and community in the fiber community. Writing, poetry, and storytelling have always been powerful vehicles of self-expression for me. I set them aside during my caretaking and grieving period. However, in august of last year, I felt a desire to share my experiences again. I created an Instagram account and started sharing pictures, poems, and stories that emerged out of my practice. Very quickly, I found out I was not alone. I was part of an enormous online community dedicated to weaving. My mom and I were no longer walking this path alone. We were part of a long procession of weavers worldwide. 

In October, I met many members of the Instagram weaving community at the Weaving Kind Makerie Modern Weavers retreat in Boulder, CO (@theweavingkind, @themakerie. About 50 weavers and teachers from around the world gathered together to learn, to weave, and to be in community. There was magic in the air the entire weekend. We took workshops, ate together, listened to one another, walked, and dreamed. A community united by a social media platform was made concrete. Aside from the skills learned and stories shared, the biggest gift of that retreat was the feeling that I belonged. As someone who struggled with anxiety and trauma, it’s been hard to feel comfortable in places. At that retreat, I felt so deeply connected to my fellow weavers and the common path that we walked. I felt home.

During the retreat, I resolved to find and connect with my local fiber community. In Natalie Novak’s (@combedthunder) Southwest Weaving Class, she discussed the importance of the Damascus Fiber Arts School, which was close to her home in Portland, OR, to her weaving path. Sitting there listening to Natalie, it dawned on me that I have access to that same sort of community in Denver. Not long before the retreat, a former President of the Rocky Mountain Weaver’s Guild invited me to join the guild for a meeting when she saw me weaving at one of my wife’s clothing pop-ups. Natalie’s experience provided me the motivation to take that invitation to the guild. I decided I would join. 

It was a cold December day when I attended my first Rocky Mountain Weaver’s guild (@rockymountainweaversguild) meeting. I was pretty nervous, as I did not know any members of the guild. I have always feared entering spaces where I am the new person. Typically, I am the most anxious in those situations. As I walked into the basement of that church building in South Denver, my nerves were gradually calmed by the overwhelming kindness that I experienced. One-by-one members introduced themselves. I met guild members that participated in the Mountains & Plains fibershed (@fibershedmountainplains) in my region, and they told me of their work to develop a hemp and wool yarn using only materials and tools from our fibershed. Guild members informed me about the natural dye garden and took me on a tour of the guild library and resource room. Once the meeting began, I sat there dumbfounded. How could I be so lucky to be part of such a rich fiber community that is willing to welcome me with such kindness? The abundance of my community left me feeling hopeful and full. I had all I ever needed for an incredible fiber adventure right here in this room!

Reflecting on my weaving path, I feel so grateful to have found this peaceful practice. Gradually, at the loom, I have given myself permission to feel. From that simple act, I have experienced a dramatic opening to the world and discovered that I am deeply connected to myself; my mom; and local and international fiber communities. I found a home in my own body and in the world where I would have least expected it. That is the true magic of my practice, because I never expected to be able to heal. I stand on the precipice of my future fiber path with the feeling that has replaced the dread and fear I felt for so long: excitement.

Bio: James Davis is a weaver and handspinner living in Denver, CO. He approaches fiber art as a meditative, healing practice that he has uses to understand his darkness and light. He is currently working on spinning 80 ounces of Navajo Churro fiber on a Navajo Spindle and weaving a series of tapestries that capture his experience of anxiety, fear, and grief. You can follow along on his weaving path via Instagram @engagedweaving.