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The Weaver


I’m not going to be the hero you read about in books. I’m not that type of hero. I am a weaver. I weave seemingly random moments into a tapestry of words that come together to form a message that connects the outwardly disparate, distinct threads of my life. I merge bold obnoxious hues of green, red, and orange, with soft pastels of pink, yellow, purple, and blue. That is my craft, my gift. I connect things, subtly, invisibly, patiently, into an intelligible whole.

The other day I went to community mediation with a friend. The teacher spoke of the Zen Buddhist tradition of koans, and I came to understand them as being a bit like Jesus’ parables, paradoxical anecdotes used to demonstrate the inadequacy of logical reasoning to arouse enlightenment. I left the meditation with the sense that my gift, like my life, was remarkably similar to this notion of koans. It doesn’t make sense. It’s an answerless riddle, whose truth, invisible to the eye, is discernable only to the heart.

The weaving, I often don’t see it happening. No, I feel it happening. I sense myself gathering threads, random moments of significance that capture my attention.  It is an unscripted, non-linear process. I don’t know how the moments will come together. It doesn’t fit a pre-determined path; its not goal-oriented. It unfolds moment-to-moment, word-to-word, from some non-distinct origin.

It’s an abstract, confusing, and frustratingly slow process. People often ask me why I’m still playing field hockey, well, its simple really, the tapestry isn’t complete. I’m still weaving.


You know how you can see a thing, and understand a thing one way your entire life, you think you know it, but all of sudden, in an unsuspecting moment, everything shifts, and you see the very same thing you’ve been looking at your whole life in a totally new way. Well, that’s what is happening for me, everything’s shifting, a new sense of awareness buds within my soul, and these random moments of significance I've been cataloging for years are beginning to settle themselves into the weaver’s tale.

And when the tapestry is complete, I can't wait to share it.

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