Threads That Weave Her

If God was mortal, he would be a woman. I wonder who decided that God was a man. Not to say that men don’t have the imagination for creation. Just that poised as they are, looking out for danger and sustenance for millennia, sometimes they forget to stop and smell the flowers. But women, they have their eyes and hearts spread out and tuned in all at the same time.

Have the babies been fed, is the home and hearth clean? Is there enough grain for the winter, what will we plant for the summer? Oh my neighbor is sick and my child needs help with her work, when do I do both? Look spring has arrived and I can make garlands for the wedding day after. Oh what shall I sew and wear and there’s the silver to be polished and the evening lamps lit…

…all these endless small and large questions, like the warp and weft of a timeless weave, forming patterns that nurture and nourish a woman’s world. And when has that world ever been just the home? If a woman’s hands churned milk, a pail found its way to the neighbor’s mouth. If a woman’s mind imagined a pattern of vines twirling, the designs managed to dance onto a bride’s hennaed hands or were embroidered delicately onto her veil. And if she saw the need for new paths for the animals or medicinal plants or herbs in the garden, her desire for care found its way to safe keep many others.

One could say that creativity and care go together. One could also say that for women caring has not always been a choice. It is has often been that tall mountain they need to climb in order to be blessed with acceptance. Picking their way up steep slopes, stumbling or falling, hurt or breathless, if that climb was completed, it was done so while singing a hymn to the skies. When a weaver weaves thread of gold, what makes the cloth shimmer is not just the glint of metal; it is also the sheen of sweat.

Happy Women’s Day

Penned By: Reema Ahmad