There is an enduring and persistent story of two beings or forces that work in tandem, one creating and one destroying, that has been told and retold in many iterations on many different landscapes by many different peoples.

The concept is there in the idea of Yin and Yang, or embodied in one being such as the Hindu Goddess Kali (associated with the death while at the same time is the mother of all life), or the Celtic Goddess Morrigan (who is associated with both war and peace, destruction and fertility), or introduced through a story like the White Mountain Apache folktale of The Old Woman who Weaves together the World and the Trickster Crow who unravels it again.

Here is a version of this folktale inspired by Michael Meade’s retelling of it in his book Why the World Doesn't End, Tales of Renewal in Times of Loss:

The Old Woman is weaving together an intricate tapestry. . .sometimes it is made of porcupine quills, at other times it is the sweet-smelling fibers from dry grasses, and other times it is a blanket of soft sheep’s wool. The only time she interrupts her weaving work is when she goes to stir the contents of a large cauldron that simmers in the back of her cave which hangs over a fire that has been going since the beginning of time. Simmering in the cauldron are seeds, or perhaps sometimes it is flower petals, leaves, lichens, mushrooms, bark or berries she has gathered herself in her willow basket: plants that will create vibrant colors which she uses to dye the fibers she uses to create the fabric of the world.

So the Old Woman divides her efforts between weaving the world into being and stirring the elemental soup which sometimes gives off the rich earthy-smell of roots, and at other times a tart scent of berries as the hot steam meanders its way around the cave. Because she is very old and tired from her labors, she moves slowly when she senses the time is right to leave her weaving to stir the contents of her cauldron.

As she ambles her way towards her cauldron, two beady eyes watch her every move from a dark corner. Sometimes it is a Black Dog, other times, it is Trickster Crow. As her back is turned and she begins stirring the simmering liquid to prevent it from burning, the Crow mischievously begins to peck at the loose threads of her tapestry (or the Dog takes a thread in his sharp teeth) and begins to pull and pull…

One by one, the fibers unravel. First it is a slow unraveling, then with wings flapping, it unravels faster and faster. The Old Woman turns and slowly makes her way back towards the ruckus. As she approaches the spot where she had been sitting, she discovers her work has been completely unraveled with only a heap of string on the floor with a few stray black feathers.

However, the Old Woman is not surprised and sits down and begins to weave again. This time however, she decides she will weave together a different pattern, perhaps starting with the bright yellow fibers dyed with goldenrod, followed by the rich dark brown fibers dyed with hickory bark, and so a New World is created as the Old Woman sits in her cave, eons after eons.

The folkloric archetype of opposing forces that create the cosmos has captivated the human imagination since ancient times, yet in this day and age, contradiction and paradox have become buried under the dominant discourse characterized by division and polarity (opposites don’t work together, they work against each other). There has been a tragic loss of enchantment with the very real mystery of the universe which has been eclipsed in the shadows of competition disguised as progress, and disenchantment masked as objectivity.

Dr. Clarissa Pinkola Estes, Senior Jungian Analyst, and author of the bestseller Woman Who Run with the Wolves, talks about the Weaver and the Old Woman when she speaks about the “Medial Woman” also known as “The Dangerous Old Woman” whom she describes to be a woman of shadow and light, one who lives in the world of the conscious and one who also is attuned to the mystical unconscious, or otherwise known as the “One Who Sees”. The Old Woman lives in both worlds and mediates between them and for this reason she can hear, see, and feel the guidance this vital and soulful sense of bothness grants.

In fact, in the folktale the Weaver is totally aware of the Crow pecking at her tapestry, yet she does not mind beginning again. Tokopa Turner, in her book Belonging: Remembering Ourselves Home, reminds us that the word “heirloom” has roots in both heredity (heir Anglo-French) and weaving (loom from Old English), “suggesting that history is woven into the things we make”. Weaving certainly is about tying together the past and present: perhaps we more readily think of this in the tangible / physical sense such as using old patches of recycled fabric to patch together a new quilt; but weaving can also be conceptual such as when an old idea is reframed or refashioned to fit the present times, or it can mean weaving together or connecting ideas that may at first seem disconnected (such as different moments of time, or different ideologies, cultural ideas). Weaving in this latter sense, is the art of discovering and illuminating how things already belong together. This also suggests weaving is about remembering what has been forgotten.

The Old Woman sees value in the work she does, and knows her work is as vital as it is complex. Her patience and persistent recreation and refashioning of newer and yet newer worlds, suggests an openness towards transformation and growth. She is less attached to outcomes and the either-or black-and-white thinking that dominates the over-culture and more aware of the power she holds where she sits in that mystical place where one world ends, and a new one begins. Like appreciating the different phases of the moon, the Medial Woman recognizes the value of both the darkness and the light as well as all the intermediary phases:

This handcrafted linocut print intentionally includes wild native North American plants and flowers including: thistles, blackberries, wild reeds, poppies and bristly foxtail grasses and plenty of black feathers! I created this piece in honor of the deep wisdom of indigenous North American folklore which arises from this precious landscape on which I live and depend, while at the same time honoring a universal theme that shows up in so many of our immigrant stories. This artwork honors both in efforts to reveal our deep connections so that we may continue to live harmoniously together seven generations from now.

“Darkness, incubation and then quickening, and then birth, rising energy and then, the zenith. Then around into entropy a darkening coming upon one’s life, one’s endeavor, a dying away, coming down into dark, into rest, into death, and suddenly, a flash of light - whoosh! . . Consumption, incubation, quickening birth . . .again and again and again. . ” (Dr Estes PhD. SoundsTrue audio CD entitled The Dangerous Old Woman: Myths & Stories of the Wise Woman Archetype, Chapter 3)

In today’s world which is often represented in the media as being full of disenchantment and cynicism, it is easy to get pulled into either-or thinking about an apocalyptic world, characterized by a sense of impending doom from climate collapse. This shapes our understanding of our relationship to nature and the wild. Nature and humans are represented as flat characters in an oversimplified drama of victim and perpetrator. It has become increasingly difficult to find narratives that show the complexities, nuances in the relationship between humans and the wild: stories that show real internal conflicts, motivations, relatable flaws and motivations with regards to humans and their interactions with nature, not to mention similar layered and complex ways of speaking about the wild (an active an agent in the narrative).

Often in our contemporary technology-filled world we think of death as an accident, a mistake, or failure, as if not every single thing in the cosmos dies. Whereas this folktale reminds us that death is actually natural, it is a normal part of the cycle of life. The story of the Old Woman who Weaves the World offers wisdom relevant for us in today’s world because it reminds us of an older, more ancient mythos where both a sense of loss and a feeling of wholeness can coexist. Very similar to the ancient Japanese art of kintsukuroi, or repairing and filling the cracks in broken pottery with gold transforming a wound or flaw into something of value, it expands our sense of what beauty can encompass, and allows us to still see the meaning and worth in imperfection. The Old Woman, similarly, sees the potential in the unraveling, the vein of gold in the flaw. “When we come in contact with this kind of beauty, it serves as a medicine for the brokenness in ourselves, which then gives us the courage to live in greater intimacy with the world’s wounds” says Tokopa. The word “Belonging” comes from the Middle English word “be” (an intensifier) and “long” (based on the Old English gelang meaning ‘together with’). Perhaps the story is suggesting that brokenness and beauty have always belonged to each other, and it is this combination of opposites, the integration of all the inevitable pains, woundings and losses as well as the beauty of creation that enables us to bear the weight of the world. . . Profound wisdom revealed in an ancient folktale about an enchanted relationship between a wise old woman and a mischievous creature with black feathers.

The design of this artwork includes plants and flowers native to the Southwestern United States where this folktale originates including: bristly foxtail grasses, wild roses, wild reeds, desert dandelions, desert thistles, bristly current berries and vines. I intentionally played around with the positive and negative spaces that are so distinctive to printmaking to allow for the concept of Yin and Yang to shine through. The moon phases and white dandelion seeds appear somewhat like the concept of a white spot in the dark Yin, and the botanical area and dark flying crows inside the old woman’s white hair appear somewhat like the concept of a dark spot in the light Yang. I gave the old woman crow feather earrings and situated her so that it appears as though she is housed inside the “cave” of the crow to further develop the Yin Yang idea, and interweave it with the message of the folktale: that creation and destruction are part of each other, inseparable and may even be integral to each other’s thriving. This artwork is hand carved and hand printed on Hosho paper, a handmade heritage paper from Japan with the intention of giving the resulting image a rustic charm and age-old feel which would best capture a timeless heartwarming folktale and the enduring ancient concept of Yin and Yang.

I created this piece in honor of the deep wisdom of indigenous North American folklore which arises from this precious landscape on which I live and depend, while at the same time honoring a universal theme that shows up in so many of our immigrant stories. This artwork honors both in efforts to reveal our deep connections so that we may continue to live harmoniously together seven generations from now.