Tapestry Revealed?

Tuiren motioned me to sit on the bench.  I looked around the weaving shed – there were canvases and looms with tapestries both stitched and woven in various states of progress.  Also hanging on the many hooks which lined the walls were large hessian bags with initials on each one.   I looked at the tapestry which was directly in front of me, the one I had seen on entering.  Tuiren smiled and shook her head, “This is not yours”, she said.   She wandered over to the bags and selected one which had a J inscribed on it.   She also picked up a canvas which had some indication of stitching upon it but with loose threads hanging.   She brought both over to me and sat down beside me.  She laid out the canvas on the table before us, looked at me and said,

“Well, what do you think?”

I sighed deeply already getting the significance of what she was showing me.  I had come here expecting a completed piece of work but, of course, I am a work in progress so the tapestry would naturally reflect that.   I looked to her and smiled saying,

“I understand.  These stitches are the steps I have taken already…..the threads hanging are those steps I have yet to complete, the stories I have yet to finish, the words I have yet to speak.”

Tuiren handed me the hessian bag.  I looked inside to find spools and hanks of different coloured yarns and threads.

“You are to take the canvas and the threads with you and as you continue through your life, record the steps, the words, the pictures.  Are you disappointed?”

Surprisingly I was not and said so, “Actually no…after the experience of my first night here and how you explained that to me, I have a greater understanding of what the message of this particular journey is and it is basically this: I am in charge of my own destiny,  hence there is no completed tapestry, no final picture or story, how could there be, I am still living my life and in that I continue to journey.  I also am acutely aware that there are stories I want to tell to complete my own healing.  The reticence I have felt in doing so is lifting.  You are showing me, both with the adventure last night and this weaving shed that the connection/s I thought I had lost are still alive, they are where I left them when I stopped ‘stitching’ and all I have to do is to pick up those loose ends and continue where I left off.  I have everything I need.”

Tuiren packed the canvas into the thread bag and handed them both to me.  She then embraced me in a way that felt totally complete.

“Time for food”, she whispered as she let me go.  We walked back to the cabin, the smells of cooking wafting down reminded me how hungry I was.  I was feeling very calm and at peace with myself for the first time in a long while.  It felt good.  Katha dished up plates of herb rice with beautifully spiced vegetables whilst Danu poured the tea.

“There are many places for you to visit within Lemuria – do not be in a hurry to leave, tread the path that many before you have travelled, along the Soul Food Silk Road.  I would recommend you visit White Owl Island first, followed perhaps by Ithika -  you will find much to your liking I am certain.”

“Oh I will, thank you,”  I replied.  There was indeed so much within this domain that I wanted to explore and experience.

I remembered that at some point I was supposed to join with the other travellers to continue our journey up the Kerith.   I had no idea where anyone else was or what they were up to but it felt like it wasn’t anything to worry about.

Jill

http://wyrdspirit.wordpress.com