Now there was a man in town, a dangerous man some said
with quite a reputation. He was handsome
and strong and adventurous, and he turned the head of every young girl he met. But he was a scoundrel and everyone knew it—a
liar, a cheat, a thief. She did not
care, though. She decided to set her cap
on getting him, and nothing was going to stop her. She told herself that her love would change
him, and she ignored the fact that he already had a wife. Wives come and go, she often reminded
herself.
And as she thought along these lines, she found herself
outside for a walk one day, meandering along an old and rarely used dirt road
just outside of town. There in a field
she saw an old dilapidated building. It
looked like some sort of workhouse or barn, and since she had time on her hands
in her dreamy state, she decided she would investigate. No sooner did she think it, when she found
herself at the door of the old barn.
It was useless to knock because she knew no one was
there, so she pushed the door open and just walked in. It was only an abandoned old barn as she had
supposed. There were a few old tires
lying around, some old hay, musty old animal stalls, a few buckets, and some
rusty old tools. Certainly nothing
special. She was about to leave when she
noticed a stairway at the back, and it seemed to her that a light was shining
down from an upstairs room. She went
straight to it. After all, she had
already entered private property, what harm could there be in going upstairs?
So up she went, and there in the center of the room was a
tremendous old loom with a large tapestry not yet finished caught up tightly in
the warp threads with the weft threads still waiting to be woven in. It was so beautiful, and the scene it
portrayed was so striking, so tantalizing.
She just had to go closer to know more.
She did so and sat before it staring at the image on the tapestry, and
there, to her surprise, was a scene with her in it. It was a domestic scene of her holding a
child’s hand in the backyard of a small house with a young man just coming out
of the door, his face hidden by a hat.
Oh, how she would have loved to see that face, but no
matter how she turned herself and repositioned her eyes and squinted, it was no
good. She could not see the face. It was veiled. That was odd, since no one else’s face on the
tapestry was hidden. She recognized
friends on different parts of the cloth, family members, old teachers. It was actually quite odd, she thought, this
woven picture of parts of her life interspersed among a larger scene, her part
being quite small in comparison.
She was lost in thought and nearly jumped out of the seat
when she a voice. “Oh, the fabrics we
weave,” it said. But when she turned
around, she saw nothing, and yet she knew she would see nothing even before she
turned around.
“Yes, our lives are woven,” the loom said, “and you
already know your fate, I think.”
“No,” she said, and without planning what she would say
next, she blurted out, “I have come to weave myself.”
“But you are not The Weaver,” it said.
“Well, I am ‘a’ weaver, and I certainly know how to
weave—quite well, in fact!”
“But you are not The Weaver.”
“Look, I do not know how this got here, but I am going to
sit here and weave. And I am going to
make my own scene on my own
tapestry!”
With that, she set about find the weft threads she would
need to make her tapestry. She was a
very good weaver, and in a short time she had changed the scene she saw. She removed the young man hidden behind the
hat and instead wove in a scene of the handsome man from town, the one she was
obsessed with, the scoundrel. He was
smiling and greeting her at the gate and offering her his arm. There was a woman in the distance, his wife,
but she was walking away with her head down.
It was the perfect scene—just the man she wanted.
She smiled when she finished her handiwork and sat back a
bit to admire it. Again, the loom spoke.
“You are not The Weaver,” it said, “But you have woven a
pretty cloth. I wonder if it will fit in
with everything . . .”
It was true that the warp threads just seemed to go on
and on, and there was so much more on the rest of the cloth. It was a very
complicated tapestry put together by someone who was tremendously more skilled
than she. Nevertheless, she had been
able to add to it a bit.
“You can tell whoever wove this tapestry—this ‘Weaver’
you speak of—that I can weave my own fate and I do not need any help!” And with that, she got up and left. She could swear she heard the loom softly
laughing as she walked out of the building.
She muttered to herself all the way home about what a strange place the
old barn was. How odd she had never seen
it before.
Things seemed to happen pretty quickly from that point onward. It seemed the dashing and handsome man in
town found a new interest in her, following her wherever she went. Oh, he was charming, he was strong, he was
handsome and brave. He was everything
she wanted, and she smiled to herself with secret satisfaction as she
remembered the old loom. It was all
working out perfectly!
And quickly, very quickly, frightening fast in fact, he had
divorced his wife and proposed marriage to her.
All of her friends warned her against him, but she would hear none of
it. The two were married before the ink
had barely dried on his divorce papers.
Within a week, they left her lovely old town to go to a large city where
he had grown up. Adventure! Finally!
Well, time went by quickly as it always does. Her new husband was dashingly handsome and
caught the eye of every woman in the city, just as he had in her old town, and
you can be sure he was winking at them all.
He made a good salary but spent all of it on baubles, and she had to
work very hard to support their home.
Day in and day out, she worked and worked. Day in and day out, he played and
played. His affairs were spoken of all
around the city. The gifts he bought
other women were lavish, to say the least.
Some people smirked at her when she went to do her
shopping. Most just smiled feebly and
looked down. Everyone knew. She felt she would die of embarrassment and
shame at what her life had become. And
she was so very tired from constant work and constant worry.
How did this happen? she often wondered. She thought it was all going to be so
perfect, but instead it turned out to be a complete nightmare. One night, many years in the future while
lying in bed alone, she remembered the old loom. But that was just a fantasy, was it not? A dream?
She remembered it clearly, though.
The details came rushing back as she thought and thought about it. Before she fell asleep, she knew what she would
do.
The next day she left her husband, never to return, and
she went back to her old town. She
walked down the old dirt road, worried that perhaps the old building would not
be there anymore, but there it stood in the field. She ran straight toward it, flung open the
door, and ran upstairs.
“So you are back!” the loom said.
“Why did you not tell me?” she demanded.
“Tell you what?
That you are not The Weaver?”
She swallowed hard.
Then she went and sat at the loom and looked at the
picture on the tapestry. There was her
nightmarish life before her with her handsome husband in the middle and dozens
of women peeking out at him from behind rocks or curtains or doors or tables,
each with an adoring look on her face.
Again, she swallowed hard. This
was her dark life. She had woven it with
dark weft threads borne of dark intentions.
The young man in the doorway she had seen all those years ago, his face
hidden behind a hat, was gone forever.
“Most people do not come back,” the loom said, but she
did not respond because she had decided she would try to take the fabric apart
and reweave it.
But as if reading her thoughts, the loom said, “It cannot
be undone. You can try if you wish, but
you will not pull out even one thread.”
The woman sighed. Somehow, she
knew it was true.
“What can I do?” she asked.
“You cannot change what has passed,” it said, “But I have
a request.”
“What do you want?”
“I want to know all about it. I want to know everything you felt. I want to hear the whole story,” it said.
“But you already know the story.”
“That is true,” it said, “But I see the picture
only. I want the feeling.”
“Alright then. I
will tell you, but if I do so, you must answer a question that I have,” she
said.
“I am not in the business of answering questions.”
“Then I will not tell you anything.”
Eventually, realizing she meant it, the loom agreed and
promised to answer her question honestly.
And so she told the loom everything.
She held nothing back, including her tears. She told of her embarrassment and shame. She spoke of the lonely days and nights, the
endless lies, the constant work. She
even told the loom about the guilt she had for having woven the ex-wife out of
the picture all those years ago.
And as she spoke, the loom purred and giggled and sighed
and reveled in her sorrow. Then her
speech was over.
“Now it is your turn,” she said.
“What??”
“Now you must answer my question.”
“Oh, I had quite forgotten,” it said, “What is it?”
“What are you and what am I in this whole ordeal?” she
asked.
There was silence in the room. She asked the question again, and still the
loom was silent.
“Quid pro quo, loom!
I told you, now you must tell me!”
The loom sighed.
“Very well,” it said, rather peeved at being cleverly cornered.
“I am a mechanism,” it began, “And that is all I am. I am a machine that The Weaver uses to weave
the tapestry of the universe. I am like
a screen that a movie is projected upon.
I reflect. I can produce nothing
of my own accord. It is The Weaver who
does the work.”
“And me?” she asked.
“What am I? How do I fit in all
of this?”
“You are a channel from which the Unconditioned Awareness
flows. You are conditioned
consciousness. You are an outlet as is
every being. But I do not expect you
will understand this,” the loom said haughtily.
And with that, the questioning was over.
She sat silently and thought for a long time, and then
she smiled. It was a weak but happy
smile because she did
understand. She knew exactly what was
going on now. She knew her part intimately
in the elaborate play of her life, and she had played it perfectly. She got up and left without saying another
word.
“You will be back!” the loom yelled after her, but she
knew that was not true. The loom knew
it, too.
She went home to her old house, which was still
there. Her mother had passed it on to
her when she died, but it had stood vacant for years. Now she would live in it. She sat down and thought about her life,
about life in general. Somehow, she felt
better after her confession to the loom and after the information she had pried
out of it.
She would be okay now, she knew that for sure. She smiled at how life works. She would make plans again and work hard and
formulate dreams. Each dream, each
desire would be a weft thread she would focus on and fantasize about and offer
up to the Great Alchemist at night before she slept.
She did not allow herself to think about how her dreams would
become reality, the method that would be employed to bring them about, because
she was not The Weaver. It was not for
her to make tremendously complicated decisions about how all the threads would
fit together on the tapestry of the universe.
Her job was just to provide as pretty and happy and kind a thread as she
could with each true desire she had. And
to believe—to know that her weft threads were the manifestation of The Weaver
through his channel, his vessel, and her dreams would all come true according
to His already completed plan and not hers.
It was all so simple; a child could do it. In fact, I am told that children often
do.
