PRESS RELEASE
Weaving Threads of Healing
Weaving the world together can be more than a metaphor!
“Some say our world is hanging by a thread. I say—a thread is all we need. I embrace the hope that our shining thread of humanity will someday weave our nations into a single tapestry of compassionate diversity.” - Terry Helwig founder of ‘The Thread Project: One World, One Cloth’
On March 21, Sioux Lookout residents and visitors will have the opportunity to participate in an inspirational international initiative called The Thread Project: One World, One Cloth. The Anti Racism Committee and local Thread Ambassadors, Laurel Wood and Garnet Angeconeb invite everyone in the community to bring a thread to add to an actual world tapestry that is being woven from fibres collected from around the world. The project has been integrated into Race Relations Week 2005, which has taken on the theme Weaving Threads of Healing.
“I believe that in our hearts we all have room to always strive for better understanding and improving relations - within ourselves, our families, our communities and nations, and within our world,” says Angeconeb. “We all must learn from our past mistakes and build upon our hopes and aspirations for a better tomorrow. That's healing and reconciliation.”
People are encouraged to bring their thread offering to a gathering, Monday, March 21 at 7 pm at St. Andrew’s United Church. Participants may wish to select a thread that carries personal meaning. Ribbons from baby booties, shoe laces, fishing line, thin strips of clothing, home-spun thread, even kite tails have been tied on. If you wish to share a personal “story” about your thread, you will have the opportunity to do so.
As the founder of The Thread Project: One World, One Cloth, Terry Helwig is overseeing the gathering and weaving of single threads sent by thousands of people worldwide. Over 50 countries are represented thus far. Fishing line, guitar strings, yarn, shoe laces, thin strips of cloth, ribbon, and dozens of other fibres -- including a piece of bicycle tire -- have been woven into World Cloths called Hope Materializing, Threaded Harmony, Ariadne's Prayer and Weaving Reconciliation. Different weavers in El Salvador, Guatemala, Greece, India and the United States have woven 25 of the projected 49 panels. The 26th panel, the first for Canada, will be woven right here in Sioux Lookout.
“I am very pleased to have this opportunity to gather together members of our community to participate in collecting threads and weaving a panel of Weaving Reconciliation”, Wood says. “When I offered to weave a panel for the project, I requested Weaving Reconciliation because I thought the theme of this World Cloth was very appropriate to our community with its population of approximately half Euro-Canadian and half First Nations people.
Aboriginal people in Canada are actively seeking healing and reconciliation from the consequences of years of residential schooling and the abuses (physical, sexual, cultural, spiritual and emotional) that occurred in these institutions. They continue to struggle with the ongoing intergenerational effects of systemic racism.
I hope that the gathering during Race Relations Week will symbolically unite our hopes for healing and reconciliation through the gathering and tying of threads. When our threads are gathered, they will be tied to those collected in other parts of the world and people will be encouraged to contribute to the weaving of the panel. I believe the cloth we create will contain diversity, love, pain, hope and prayers and connect us to caring people throughout the world.”
Helwig says, "The cloths are meant to inspire hope in a fractured world. Their purpose is to celebrate our diversity, promote tolerance and encourage compassionate community. Sometimes we wonder what difference one person can make. When you see these cloths, made one fibre at a time, you begin to see that every thread, be it kindness or cotton, can and does make a difference."
Seven cloths will be woven, in different colours, to represent each continent. Each cloth is made of seven panels. Helwig says the number seven is a symbolic number of wholeness and completion. She anticipates the weaving will be completed by 2007, at which time she will consider a permanent home for the cloths. She adds, "I think these cloths would look nice in the United Nations, don't you?" Each of the seven cloths, resembling large wall tapestries, measures approximately 12 x 7 feet. Helwig's ultimate vision is to exhibit all seven multi-colour cloths in an 84-foot circle called Behold and Be Held. Outside the circle, viewers could behold the diversity of the cloth; inside the circle, viewers could experience being held by the threads of humanity.
"What touches me, " Helwig says, "Is that these cloths have become a woven repository of goodwill. People send threads because they care, because they want to live in harmony, because they have hope for a better world. What makes these cloths so special is that they are woven, not with just people's threads, but with their love, hopes, prayers, good intentions and, sometimes, even their pain."
What better way to symbolically mend our world than with a thread? The modest thread, a powerful archetype of creation, resonates deeply within the human psyche. In myth, Grandmother Spider weaves the four directions; in physics, the string theory suggests that the subatomic structure of our universe resembles loops of vibrating strings, and, in human experience, each of us enters the world threaded to our mother.
If someone doesn’t have a thread with personal meaning they can contribute any string or yarn or chose something from the threads provided at the gathering. Groups or organizations may wish to make a group thread. Anyone who can’t attend the gathering you can still contribute a thread by calling one of the numbers below. If anyone has questions about contributing a thread they can call one of our local Thread Ambassadors, Garnet Angeconeb (737-3169) or Laurel Wood (737-2174).
More information about the project can be found on the web site of The Thread Project: One World, One Cloth, at www.threadproject.com.
Contact Laurel Wood
lawood@nwconx.net
737-2174
