Moata McNamara, Twining
Circles on the screensaver of my phone
Outside on a wild wind circling seagulls soar
A circle of harakeke holds friendship on my wrist
While I circle in and out of now
The cord wants to circle, to curl up into eights and zeros. If too tightly twined it is difficult to straighten. A ‘circle of life’ analogy is too trite. And too limiting. Perhaps the plural might say it better. Circles cycles. At this age I find cycles revealing themselves almost daily. Or nightly with Marama. Turning and re-turning.
The action of twining keeps busy my restless hands: a meditative process that includes a regular spray from a bottle of water always beside me. Te wai. Water always softens the firm fibres. There is something in the twisting and crossing that goes beyond knitting or crochet. It is ancient. Some old cellular memory comes into play. And in to play. Joining the two strands and sometimes three to create something strong enough to hold attention, to hold a heart. I imagine that I am twining for Gaza. And now for Lebanon, and Syria and the West Bank. I twist and wrap to still the horrors of genocides. Twining is also another way to pray.
And then the curl. The wrapping of cord into the circles it desires to form. This part of the process always takes me into the happy-sadness of memories. The first, at a very young age, of holding my hands up for my nana to wind balls of wool from the skeins straddling my arms. She sat, straight backed, on her chair. My arms danced back and forth as she wound. Wound and gaping wound. Binding and breaking apart. Past tense and intense. (Note to self: must play with that word ‘wound’ sometime). I loved to watch colours grow in intensity as the ball expanded.
Nana’s wool was already twined. This process takes me back a step, taking raw fibre or paper raffia ribbon to create the strands. And oh! The luxury of golden dandelion stalks. Handpicked from the garden that I hesitate to weed. The joy of a long green stalk that has appeared overnight, with its full-blown head of seeds awaiting wind. My now sure hands follow the stalk to where it meets clay soil. A gentle twist and it lies with the rest of the daily harvest. I give thanks and scatter the seeds that come off easily. Hoping for more dandelions to quickly take root. I wonder if there are dandelions breaking through the Gaza rubble. I hope.
Sometimes I’ve picked a shorter stalk still heavy with its barely open yellow flower. A revelation to find that, on drying out, the flower, rather than just dying as is, will open yellow and change to a fairy seed head. Downy seeds will still appear. Waiting for wind, or someone, careful not to be caught, to scatter on any patch of dirt.
I had never really taken note of the circles until M pointed them out to me in a photo on my phone. Now they are everywhere. I had not thought of working with circles, although I have a tall, white-painted branch full of them in various sizes and shades. Dandelion circles next to raffia, next to banana leaf. Many plant nations fill this Xmas tree, which has been standing in the corner since the Xmas before last. It’s a great place to hold leaves and stalks to dry out. And wound cordage. So it’s really a drying-rack stand-in for a Xmas tree.
I’m not certain of the final fate of the twined circles. In some form they will most likely come together in an installation. All I know, for now, is that I am engaged in a process of making. And, for now, that is enough.
Moata McNamara (Ngāpuhi, Te Mahurehure) has been working with various forms of art and languages for over fifty years. Her work is held in private collections in Europe and Aotearoa. She holds a master’s in art and design and a PhD in Māori development, and has taught extensively in tertiary education