A Blueprint for These Times

 

I originally posted this piece that represents the work of TreeSisters.  It is made up of thousands of tiny seed beads which are sewn onto felt to create the design.  Then the felt was sewn onto velvet that was mounted on wood and framed with a willow hoop.

TreeSisters works to empower women in feminine Nature-based leadership and its members donate money for the planting of millions of trees in the tropics.  The deforested area in the centre circle of the piece above, is being renewed with young trees, planted by the reforestation partners.  The older trees in the design draw water from the aquifers through their roots, trunks, branches and leaves and then into the air as rain that nourishes the young trees.  The forest floor below the surface is an interconnected world of roots, fungal communication networks, the bones of the ancestors and the seeds planted by TreeSisters.

This piece was part of the International Women’s Day art show in the Orillia Museum of History and Art this past winter.  It then became locked in the museum during the shut down part of this pandemic.  The piece was released to me again a few weeks ago and it now hangs in the clinic where I work.

As I look at this piece in between seeing clients, it has occurred to me that the narrative associated with it could change to fit these times in which we now find ourselves.  The centre circle could be the space that has been created by the pause of the shut down.  Busy lives suddenly became quieter.  Many people had more time in which to reflect on their lives.  Months later, many people are back to work and for others, there are some new activities but everyone seems to agree that we will not go back to what we used to think was “normal.”

And so, the centre space could be the space where we decide what we want to grow now.  Some things will have fallen away without us missing them too much and other things may feel like lifelines.  There may be new things that we never considered before that now want to emerge.

The big trees could represent all of Nature.  During the stay at home stage, I walked everyday on different trails and forests, but always beside the trees.  They sustained me with their presence and taught me new things.  My relationship with other-than-human life grew stronger as I stayed away from most humans.  I discovered new plants and learned about caring for myself from the forests.  There are new parts of me that are growing from my time spent in the woods.

During this time, I connected with my ancestors through a cousin who shared his membership in an on-line ancestry website.  I got a better sense of the soil that I had grown out of and the ancestral wounds that went along with them. On some days, the drops falling on the new growth are tears as I work to heal the traumas of my lineage.  I let the old trauma stories fall onto the forest floor where they return to Earth and are composted so that they can nurture new growth from below.

And so this piece is now a map for these times that I didn’t even know I would need when I first put it together.  In exploring the relationship between water, trees, soil, fungi and new growth, a blueprint has emerged that continues to inform me.  It could be a blueprint for our new growth, for our new story.