To stray from the rise of gardening spirit for just one moment, I simply must share that today is my daughters first birthday. She was born in the evening, in front of the fire and her birth was indeed a fire birth if you will. She is turning out to be a little fireball herself and I simply couldn’t love her more! I love her so deeply, as all mothers do, but I am just astounded at how much she has taught me in this short year.
Photo By Gabriella Marks
Her first lesson to me was “you can not do this alone”. I love community and people but I can also be quite the loner, especially when it comes to hard tasks and challenges. She told me loud and clear, “Gather the troops mama, you will need them this time around!”
So I boldly did. I asked for something that required attention, care, focus and most of all time, which is solid gold to most mamas I know.
I asked them to weave together a net for Eva and I to catch us when we fell, ( which we in fact did about 5 weeks into her life).
I asked them to knit us a blanket to warm us with motherly love in the coldest, darkest days of the year (and what felt like the darkest days of my entire life at the time).
I asked for them to stitch us a rainbow bridge which we could cross over, into the many phases of our life together….
And so they did. Without any hesitation, they got to work, rummaging through their stash baskets, finding a simple form for all to fit into, holding gatherings to knit and laugh and do what needed to be done.
Photo by Gabriella Marks
Stitch by stitch, square by square we all prepared for the day of her birth, together in our thoughts of this little girl who would come and be a part of our woven fabric of womanhood.
Photo by Gabriella Marks
Each hue handed to me with a prayer and a kiss tucked inside.
Photo by Gabriella Marks
And then, ever so carefully and communally, the rainbow was woven together, stronger than any net ever made, brighter than all the colors in the universe, and warmer then any blanket on the coldest of winter nights.
Photo by Gabriella Marks
I had it to lay my baby on the day she arrived in my arms.
It caught us and cradled us, warmed us and brightened us, all because of the women who rose to create it. They kept coming too, with food and flowers and friendship and still do, even a year later, and I have no doubt they will be with us till the end.
On this day I weep in love not only for my daughter and her wisdom but for the women who rise every time, in every way, every single day to do what needs to be done, to care for, to feed, to comfort, to celebrate, even to scold. These are the women of the whole world and I am proud to raise up yet another woman on this spinning earth who I know will be taught by the very the finest, to do what needs to be done and to not be afraid to ask for help when it is needed. I am proud of my women today and proud to be a woman who loves so freely, so fiercely and so necessarily!
Photo by Gabriella Marks
I was also taught by my daughter, to give thanks for what you are grateful for and to sing that thanks to the world. So sisters, Thank you, from the very bottom of my heart, there is not much more to say than I love you.
Adapted by Katie Feldspausch from ‘The Tapestry Poem’ by Corrie ten Boom
My life is but a weaving,
Between my world and me.
I cannot change the color
For Life works steadily.
The dark threads are as needful
In the skillful weavers Hand
Aside bright threads of rainbow
The world’s stitched up in my plan.
Often times It weaves in mystery,
And Many days of cheer,
Wrapping it all around me,
My world is far from fear.
Now the room is silent
And the wool will lay to rest,
The life weaved in this blanket,
Will forever be so blessed.
- Read to me with the gifting of the blanket
- Here is the Pattern we followed( losely!!)
