Opening Pathways Between Worlds Through Fiber

This piece first appeared in a print collection of writings collect by Loam Magazine from various authors surrounding the topic of “Living Through Liminality." Unfortunately, this print edition is sold out. As always, check out Loam’s website for their print and digital offerings.

I have held the hand of my mom, whispering “you can let go now, I am here,” in the moment she continued on to the eternal realm. I have caught my first born as she thrust herself into this world and watched as an ominous shroud of darkness hung as she struggled to breathe in the first moments of life. I have stood in sun-drenched fields of tall grass feeling the spiraling of souls enter and departing this world. I am a threshold walker, a death worker, who tends to the crossing between this world and the eternal.  

I never expected this to be my path. Broken after my mom’s passing some years ago, I followed the breadcrumbs she left behind to find my way into weaving. Through resurrecting a woven language of symbols from her fiber art, I began to heal from the obsessive compulsive disorder that I experienced in the aftermath of her death. The magic of weaving brought me into belonging with my ancestors and connected me to my life’s work when I learned that I could make fiber vessels to aid those seeking to cross the threshold to the eternal realm.

Magic came alive in my life while completing my first death work weaving.  My friends had invited me to hold space for them after the passing of three young loved ones. They asked me to weave them a piece with lifelines, one for each of the departed. While weaving, I began to practice druidry and opened sacred groves with my ancestors, the earth, and my guides to bless the piece.  Over time, I stepped into the acknowledgment and power that I was practicing magic, opening up a pathway, where none existed before, for the souls of my friends’ three loved ones to continue on.

In those sacred groves, my ancestors taught me true belonging.  “Gardner, Davis, Stockmaster, Collins, Minney, Stumpf, ” I would call, invoking my blood ancestors. “Druid and Weaver” I would call, invoking my tradition ancestors.  “Ute, Arapaho, Dakota, and Cheyenne,” I would call, acknowledging the original inhabitants of the land I am on. Sitting in that sacred grove with my ancestors over months of death work weaving, I felt a sense of belonging that I had never experienced in my life. My ancestors were right: the veil between this world and theirs is thin. I am never alone. They have always been guiding me toward this great purpose they have set out for me.

Through practicing fiber magic, I have found a way to navigate the liminality of death and of life; to not be crushed by that passage but awakened by the possibility of new portals. I’ve been gifted a calling to tend to the threshold between our world and the eternal.  A simple loom of hardwood and 6 ply hemp twine opened this doorway for me, but every craft has this potential. You may find this magic calling you from a water color set, the buds of a flower, or a pottery wheel. Answer their call; we need more threshold walkers in this unprecedented time.