Recurrent Thread

There’s an old Native American story I read yesterday about an ancient woman who lives in a cave that cannot be reached by road or path with only an old black dog as her only company. She sits at a loom, weaving a huge and beautiful garment. She works tirelessly, never leaving her work except to stir the great kettle of stew simmering in the back of the cave.

At some point, she gets up from the loom to tend to the stew and when she does, the black dog rises and goes over to the loom, taking the ends of the threads in his mouth, and so begins to unravel the garment to its starting point.

The old woman returns and sees what her dog companion has done; she sighs, and then sits down to begin her work all over again.

I just like this tale - it struck me yesterday because its sort of how my year has gone. I feel like I've had many return trips to the loom only to find my tapestry shredded or unwoven to a point where I too, sigh and feel like giving it up and then somehow I find a small reserve of strength from somewhere and then I sit down and start all over again.

That's just life, I guess - perhaps I need to learn a lesson like tie those knots on the threads a little tighter or don't leave them dangling off the loom where the dog can get at them, that sort of thing...I'm getting there, yes, I think so. Totally getting the hang of this "life" thing...totally...