OwlFlight is a very special warp. It is Avery's warp. Our piece of it will be our very first handwoven. And when her wearing days are over? I'll chop it and sew it up into a blanket quilt for her. Should her tastes run girly, full of pink and sparkles, it will be an oasis of blues and whites and brown splashed across her bed. I admit to finding this prospect slightly amusing. When she spreads her wings and launches into the world, be it college or a calling, I will bundle it up to travel with her. A bit of mama love, always and forever.
Here is the story of how it came about. It gets a little woo-woo, just so's you know.
Last October I found myself in Seattle, attending a prenatal yoga teacher training alongside my mother. I'm a yoga teacher as well as a weaver, and my mom is a midwife. Last summer Husband and I had decided it was time to invite another soul to join us on this life path. I've always always known I wanted children. And finally I was ready to choose motherhood. Part of my preparation for the journey that is pregnancy and birth and motherhood was this prenatal yoga training. It was wonderful. I highly highly recommend it, if you are into that sort of thing!
The weekend following the training, I attended a workshop on the Energetics of Fertility taught by a goddess of a woman named Taylor Phinny. (Seriously, she's amazing and wonderful. Check her out, especially if you are in the Encinitas, California area!)
It was a wonderful weekend: meditations to connect with the womb space, with the principle of Divine Feminine energy. We spoke in depth about energetic self-care for fertility, about practical ways to honor the monthly cycle of fertility and cultivate the feminine self. She gave me an energy healing session that I count among the most powerful healings I've ever received, clearing an energy block inherited through the line of my grandmothers.
I saw my womb as Cerridwen's cauldron, awaiting souls to rebirth into this world of ours.
And then, in our final meditation together, she took me even deeper. Guided me to a forest clearing where I met with my children. Watched them from the trees as they played with other shining young ones, then welcomed them with open arms and teary eyes. We sat together, walked among the trees, and then we traveled North. They found their papa's sleeping self and said hello. Bear hugs all around.
Coming back to myself, to my body in the yoga room at the workshop, Taylor offered me chalks and paper. And I drew. Sketched out the essences of my children. Soul portraits.
In those few minutes in deep astral/psychic meditation space, I knew these shining souls intimately. Deeply. Irrevocably entwined. I felt them around me the following months, waiting for just the right mixture of genetics to choose to be conceived. For a while I was equal parts terrified and excited, because I was nearly sure that two would jump in at once. Twins seem like a lot of work. I'm pretty happy they decided to take turns!
Early in the pregnancy it was clear to me that the child I had drawn as an Owl in flight was going to be born.
Spirit drawing. Soul portrait. Yeah, I'm more than a little woo-woo!
When I began contemplating what to weave to welcome the inhabitant of my womb into the world, I knew that it had to be this. Blues and browns and greys. OwlFlight.
If you keep your eye on 14 Mile Farm in the coming years, I can tell you now that you will see wrap warps based on the soul portraits of each of my children!
Warp Details: 10/2 mercerized cotton in herringbone twill.
Wrap pieces as well as cowls will be available by draw.
One wrap will be sent out as a traveling tester.
If you are interested in hosting the tester and/or to be first to find out about pieces for sale, join the 14 Mile chatter group on Facebook.