It seems odd to say it, and a contradiction in terms, but the spiritual life is a battle of a kind, a struggle of sorts. You have to work it all the time, or it fades and melts away. Like most worthwhile things, you get out of it just what you put into it, no more or less.

Today, our spiritual life advances, I believe, it is Loom Day at Bedlam Farm. Let me explain:

Maria leads an almost Quaker-like life of simplicity, she never wants things, buys things, throws things away that can possibly be used in any other way. In our years together, I don’t believe I can recall her ever asking for anything. If she can’t afford it or buy it herself, she usually lets it go or puts it off.

I am different in some ways, I love to buy her presents, but they are always small things and inexpensive things, buying her expensive jewelry or other things would not be a gift to her. And the things she loves the most are the simplest things – beautiful rocks, used clothes, imaginative but inexpensive necklaces.

A month ago, she surprised me by saying she had decided to get a weaving loom, a table loom. She loved weaving, and had gotten away from it. She said she would love to weave at night, when we were sitting by the fire, or talking, she thought a table loom would connect her to her past, as a woman and an artist.

She said she would start looking for used table looms online, perhaps start saving up. This stuck in my mind, since she rarely wants everything, and also because I could see it was important to her, it was something she had been thinking about and felt deeply about. I could tell from the way she talked about it.

That night, I went online and started reading about table looms and the history of weaving, which is rich and beautiful.  I saw that most of the table looms were very expensive, well over $1,000. I saw there were all kinds. I read about the hand looms – often no more than a bundle of sticks and a few lengths of cordage – known in almost all cultures by weavers for thousands of years.

I read about weaving itself, a method of fabric production in which two distinct sets of yarns or threats are interlaced at right angles to form a fabric or cloth. I thought it would be a long time before Maria could afford to buy a table loom, she works hard and doesn’t charge much for her work, there is usually not too much left over for looms.

I got hooked on reading the history of looms and weaving, they go back a long way in the history of creative women. They are spiritual, they do have a rich connection to people who create things, they seemed deeply spiritual to me. I could see why Maria wanted one, I could picture her sitting on the dining room table near the wood stove in the winter weaving things for herself, for the house. A private thing, a powerful ritual. The perfect thing for her.

I did not believe she would buy one for herself, she would always decided something else was more important, it was too much money to spend, she didn’t really need it.

I decided to buy one for her as a gift. This a creative tool, we always support one another’s creativity. Whenever I explore a new lens, Maria is the first one to say, “go get it, it’s  a creative tool.” So, I could see, was the loom. And  a spiritual tool as well. She is always discovering who she is, where she came from, what she is capable of.

Almost immediately, I found a table loom online I thought would be good for her. It was the cheapest one. And the simplest one. It cost $244 and is called the Ashford Weave Rigid Heddle Loom. It had 38 five-star reviews on Amazon and glowing reviews on the other sites I searched. I had no idea what a heddle was but I bought an extra one for longer weaves.

When it arrived, I thought I had made a mistake, it came in a small and narrow box. I panicked, and asked Maria to look at it, she had no idea what it was, and when I saw her face, I knew I had done the right thing and bought the right thing. She just beamed. She said she loved it, she even forgot to scold me for buying it for her.

it was perfect, she said, just what she wanted and needed and hoped for. I am not used to buying the cheapest thing, it always make me wary. But Maria always buys the cheapest thing and has shown me I am wrong in this.

So today, we have declared it a loom day at Bedlam Farm. We are devoting the day to assembling the loom, and building a quiet and spiritual and loving day around it. I love having a loom day, and I will share a photograph of her new loom when it is done.