This is Rev Hugh Wright from Ventnor……
….And this is my weaving project beginning. I love to start with a knife and some fleece and see what can be achieved from such basics. Skills like this are part of the normal life of so many people around the world and in doing them I realise how deskilled we are as the things that others are producing on this same loom in South America are exquisite. I am also reminded that the young Gandi gave up the trappings of his privileged lawyers lifestyle in South Africa to found the ‘Tolstoy Farm’ community. When he returned to India his commune required that people spin everyday and the reason for this was meditative and as a defiance of the trade in cotton that he claimed impoverished both the Indian growers and the workers in the British mills. He called for simplicity of life; for frugality and self sufficiency grounded in a deep spirituality of pacifism that he learnt from Tolstoy. I am returning to Leo Tolstoy in my reading and listening as I weave, and to his Christian Anarchism as an inspiration for this creative time…. do give him a try if you never have. I suggest ‘Anna Karenina’ (30 hours of book on Audible but not heavy or dull!) as a start followed by ‘Confession’ (which is his first thoughts on Christianity and Spirituality).
The Haven Eco-Church 