22 April 2007

the beginning...a very good place to start

Today, Earth Day, I choose to begin my blog.

Watching the sun dance between the leaves of the wisteria this afternoon, listening to the mourning doves call their mates, smelling the freshness of the air following the rain, reminded me how fabulous our planet is, how delicate she is.

In starting this blog, I hope to add to the web of energy and life that binds us. This blog is, as the address says, a "woolgathering of yarn". Woolgathering: (noun) preoccupation, musing, reverie, wandering. Yarn: (noun) 1. tale, story, anecdote, narrative, reminiscence. 2. a long continuous length of interlocked fibers, for use in the production of (for me) knitting and weaving.

I do, as my family will attest, have a tendency to weave and wander in my stories, many times making them longer and more detailed than necessary (now at this point, those who know me well will be stopping to nod heads, roll eyes, and chuckle, maybe even scroll down the page to see how far this is going). I see an interconnectedness with all stories and life; I see the details as important.

With twists and loops, knitting creates a story using nature (wool, alpaca, mohair, silk, and qiviut **drool** --these are a few of my favorite things). The knitter lovingly touches, smells, and rubs against a cheek or between fingers, many hanks and skeins of yarn, looking for the right match of tactile sensation and color for a project. It's the foundation of the reverie of the project, the detail the needles will carry through for the coming hours, days, weeks (we won't mention those poor UFOs put on the dusty shelf in the far corner of the closet for months, abandoned, the storyline stopped, incomplete). All stewards of story have limits. The projects tell a story of love, of commitment, of strength, of travel.

The exceptional teacher takes the learning of reading and writing, of mathematics, of history, of science, and brings each to life for the child through experiential learning (experience and observation), not through drills. Learning through story, knowledge through building.

The title? Libellula -- "little book". It is the scientific name of the genus known as the dragonfly, conceived because the wings at rest remain partly open, resembling the leaves of a book-let. Blogs are a window, opened briefly, onto a piece of a person's inner-self.

I'll end my ramblings with a thought for the day, this Earth Day.

"In the end,
we will conserve only what we love,
we will love only what we understand,
we will understand only what we are taught."
--Baba Dioum

1 comment:

Knittymama said...

What a lovely opening post!! Welcome to the blogosphere! :-)