Welcome to Musings - The Loom Room Blog

I was watching an ants’ nest that had been disturbed in my garden during our most recent renovation activity.  The ants were scurrying around seemingly at random, running here and there without apparent purpose, until I realised that there was indeed a very methodical method in their running.  To me, the ants are identical, but I guess to ants, humans are identical.  I couldn’t recognise individuals but I could recognise patterns of movement that emerged as I took the time to watch what happened.

There were obvious patterns and tasks that were allocated to specific individuals.  You’ve probably read about the information that bees pass on to each other about locations of food sources through their dances.  Well, information of some sort was being passed around the ants with resultant changes to their behaviour when an obstacle was put in their way. 

That got me to thinking about how that relates to human behaviour.  We like to think we are all individual with our own choices, and independent behavour patterns, but we are also swarm animals.  Whenever we are together in big groups, you can see that behaviour emerging.  Just watch behaviour patterns at airports when there are flight delays or cancellations.  Watch the crowd at a sports match.  On occasion, and for the sheer fun of it, I’ve stood in a busy area and looked up a the top of a building, or the sky, and waited to see how many people look up too.  It’s quite funny!  Once one person looks up, another will do so and on and on until most people glance up just to see what everyone else is looking at.

The same kind of reaction can be generated by businesses looking to sell things.  If you can get people to think that everyone else is buying the product, then the swarm behaviour kicks in.  Just think of the January sales!! 

Swarms also have impacts greater than the efforts of the individuals involved.  If you can’t solve a problem on your own, and you ask a group of people for help, other people’s different approaches to the problem can help all of you solve the problem.  That’s called collective intelligence and nature uses it frequently.  So do the armed forces and rescue services. 

I love that we just have to look at what is happening in nature to see what happens in human experience.  We like to think that we are superior beings but we march to the same tune as everything else!!  We can express ourselves perhaps in more diverse ways, but really we are all related to everything else and that is a fact we should never forget.

Conversations about intelligence seem to have popped up all over the place this week….

How many different sorts of intelligence are there?  So far this week, here are what’s come up in conversation….

There’s the obvious academic intelligence which seems to be all about remembering lots of facts and figures to be regurgitated at required times such as exams (which are thankfully coming to an end now). 

There’s IQ.

There’s common sense, and practical intelligence - things learnt by watching and absorbing practical things over the years.

There’s what I call ‘native’ intelligence - the kind of intelligence that puts separate bits of information together to make up a complete picture. 

There’s lateral thinking - which is separate from native intelligence but closely related - where seemingly random and unrelated things can be the trigger to solving another problem entirely.

There’s emotional intelligence - where people are aware of how others are feeling and respond accordingly.

There’s social intelligence - knowing how to interact with people in many different situations whether one-on-one or in groups. 

I also rate curiosity as a form of intelligence.  If you are curious about life, how things/nature/science works, if you are curious about how people think, if you want to keep learning about many different topics, extending your life experience through reading, listening to others, experiencing different situations, then to me, that is an intellectual form of intelligence. 

Why this discussion on intelligence?  My son, who has just turned 21, decided he wants to go into the army.  He took various tests, including one that measured ‘intelligence’.  From what he described, this test was designed to search out speedy reactions to many different situations - comprehension, lateral thinking, native intelligence, and others.  What it was not designed to do was measure academic intelligence - lucky for him because he is not that way inclined!  However, in other forms of intelligence he rates pretty highly.  In fact, so much so that he scored high marks and has been selected for a number of possible jobs that require his brains rather than his brawn.  A huge relief for his mother!!! 

The whole process led to a number of discussions with several people about intelligence and I find it fascinating!  What other forms of intelligence have I not included in my summary?  We place so much store by academic intelligence, and yet, once we are out of the education system, that is virtually the least used intelligence.  It is a rare school that teaches students about the other forms of intelligence that will be so useful to them in the outside world.  Why is that?  And what is the benefit of such a skewed approach to intelligence? 

My son, on exam results alone, although no dunce, is not a high flyer.  Yet put him in a situation that calls for a cool head and an ability to weigh things up quickly and accurately and he is a star!  And with a razor-sharp wit!  The army will give him the opportunity to develop those skills that he possesses, learn new ones and keep him interested and engaged.  Although as a mum it’s been a shock to the system, I know that he will have a purpose and be part of something much bigger than he is.  His intelligence is finally being given the recognition it deserves.

How are the above 3 topics linked?  Well, the last two are easy to put together, but it would seem a bit of a stretch to join them to achievement!

Firstly, the achievement.  It’s been a dream of my son’s - a bucket dream (”what I’d like to do before I kick the …….”!) - to jump from a plane, freefall and land safely.  I certainly concur with the last bit of that sentence!!  Anyway, it was his 21st birthday on Friday, and he’s not a lad who has asked for much for Christmas or birthdays, ever, so his Dad and I decided that we would like to splurge out and give him an experience that he would never forget for this landmark birthday.  His choice was to do accelerated freefall from 15,000 feet.

Gulp!

Anyhow, (and slightly envious), I signed him up for a course.  What neither of us had realised was that there was an intensive day’s training in the classroom before he would be allowed up to jump.  Obviously safety is the paramount focus, and students are drilled in techniques designed to keep them alert, focussed and safe whilst in the air, having to report in to their instructors all the way until chute deployment. 

Accelerated freefall is when you jump solo (ie not strapped to anyone), but you do have two professional instructors holding on to your suit to ensure that you are safe.  The suits have stuffed padded tubes attached to the side of the arms, body and legs, which the instructors can hold on to.  As you get more experienced, they hold on less, until eventually, after several assisted jumps, they don’t hold on at all. 

Chris was initially disappointed that he wouldn’t be likely to jump on his birthday, but he got over it quickly and decided to enjoy the day which was amazing.  9 hours of training in body position, drills, parachute checks, alertness checks etc, was quite challenging mentally.  Then the forecast came up that wiped out Saturday and Sunday because of rain and high winds.  That was a disappointment.  

They sent up a scout plane to check on conditions at the end of the day, and with only light cloud cover at 7,000 feet, (they deploy the canopy at 6,000 feet), and wind velocity within safe parameters, and because he had done well with the course, Chris was offered a jump on Friday evening which he took with alacrity!  So he experienced his first free fall jump on his 21st birthday!  And what an experience.  He was thrilled and elated! 

Who knows whether he will decide to extend his course and become a qualified freefaller, or whether he treasures this one jump as an experience of a lifetime - he was really pleased with his parachute and landing skills, but not impressed with his freefall technique! - but this one jump has been a tremendous achievement in his life!  And I am so proud of both his achievement and his attitude to disappointment!

Back to procrastination and laziness - ok, so whilst they may not have a direct correlation with Chris’ achievement, in one way they do.  I have always thought of procrastination and laziness as inaction or the inability to decide on action.  However, I have now been shown another way to look at them.  Everything we do is an action - even if we decide to sit on our butts watching TV all day!  Procrastination and laziness are ineffective action.  For me, that is enough of a mind shift to eradicate them in my life.  If they are an action, then I choose to do them.  If I don’t choose to do them, then I eradicate them.  So the connection with achievement is the opposite side of the same coin - achievement is a positive action, whilst procrastination and laziness are negative actions.  I can still choose to sit and watch TV (although life is much more interesting than that!!), but now I know that I have chosen to do that!

Hunches and instinct are quite often dismissed by people as not important.  If you are an emotional sort of person, and you believe in hunches and instincts, do you find, as I often do, that more left-brain types look down their noses at you, believing you to be in thrall to your emotions and over-reactionary?  If you are more considered, do you become uncomfortable by feeling things that don’t fall into measurable compartments?  Like most people, I am a mixture of both, and on occasion have decided to ignore that feeling that something isn’t quite as it should be, usually to my detriment! 

One of the books I’m reading at the moment is ‘Blink‘ by Malcolm Gladwell (he of the famous Tipping Point).  The basic premise of the book is about how we make quality snap decisions about things and learning when and how to trust these feelings.  Most of us have this ability although it can sometimes be wrong, but it can more often than not be right.  The reason I’m writing about it in this blog is that it follows on really nicely from a previous post about spotting patterns. 

You may recall that I was wondering about how mathematicians, scientists, doctors and musicians also can make good weavers, and that my observation is that those kinds of minds are good at spotting patterns.  Well, in the first main chapter of Blink, Malcolm Gladwell talks about the “critical part of rapid cognition known as ‘thin-slicing’.”  He goes on to explain that “thin-slicing refers to the ability of our unconscious to find patterns in situations and behaviour based on very narrow slices of experience.”  It is fascinating reading, and if you are interested in why we can make effective snap decisions, it is a worth while book to read!

For me, one of those instant cognition moments came several years ago, during a walk with my previous dog, Kym.  It was winter (have I already told you this story?  Apologies if I have, but it’s worth repeating!)  The trees were bare and stark against the winter sky, and I looked up at the silhouette of a hawthorn tree and thought to myself - “that’s a fractal“. 

Then I did a kind of mental double-take.  I know I stopped walking and stared up at the tree, whilst my mind was frantically running around in speed-time, thinking things like “where did that word come from?”  “What on earth’s a fractal?”  “How do I know this?”  “Where should I go to find out about fractals?”  “Is this a proper word?”  I also know that I asked the dog what on earth a fractal is? 

We’ve probably also all had those moments of suspicion, when somone doesn’t seem to be acting quite right, only to find out later that they just went on to committ a crime or hurt themselves.  There may not be anything obvious either in their behaviour or their demeanour, but we are aware of something slightly off - something not quite fitting the pattern.  Also, there have been those moments when you feel that you shouldn’t do something just yet, and later you find out that you avoided a tragedy.  That feels like it’s crossing into spiritual realms, but it could be because your subconscious spotted something out of kilter and warned you off…

I’ve only read the first main chapter so far, but the book has me hooked!  It has an easy reading style and is full of real-life examples that get you thinking!  The subtitle of Blink is ‘The Power of Thinking Without Thinking’.  If you have a curiousity about things, you’ll love this book!

I went to a wonderful lunch party yesterday with one of my students, her husband, sister and friends.  It was an amazing collection of people.  After a delicious lunch with home-grown soup and salad (try growing a soup and see how that goes for you!!! <G>)   we all indulged in a little show and tell.  As the first person started to speak, I noticed that two four-letter words were already creeping insidiously into the conversation. 

These two quite often do.  They are pernicious wolves masquerading as lambs.  They subversively undermine the words that follow them.  They negate skill and creativity.  They are words we use subconsciously, self-deprecatingly, almost false modestly, which don’t help us in the slightest.  Neither word is inherently bad.  Both have other meanings which have positive meanings.  But in this context, those two words are poison!! 

The first word is ‘just’. 

The positive take on ‘just’ is “imminently, directly” and as such is very positive - you’re going to take action in the immediate future….  That’s great! 

However, in everyday parlance, especially amongst women (and Brits tend to be realllllly good at this!!), I’ve noticed, ‘just’ denigrates every achievement that it is used in conjunction with. (Ooch - ouch!  Terrible grammar - sorry!!) 

“This is just something I made” meaning ‘this took me hours and hours of painstaking work” translates into reality as “this isn’t worth your notice, I’m not a serious artist, I play at this, it’s a hobby, don’t take it seriously”. 

And we use it unconsciously all the time!  Having heard it used a couple of times in connection with some exquisite machine embroidery, I had to stop the proceedings and ask for the two words to be removed from our vocabularies for the duration of the show and tell.  From that point on, we were all consciously aware of when it was used, how often it was used, and how it affected not only the person saying it, but those listening as well. 

The other word that has a similar effect is ‘only’. 

“It’s only a small piece”, could mean “I’ve got larger pieces at home, but this is all I could carry”, but it often translates as “I can’t do anything larger/more intricate/ more polished”.  ‘Only’ can be a call-to-action word when it is used to imply scarcity - “There are only 3 more places left on this seminar” or “Only 5 more hours to get your order in before the sale ends”…..  You get the idea.  Let’s leave ‘only’ as a call-to-action, and not as a negative, somewhat pathetic word implying lack of skill, willpower, talent, creativity.

I’m on a crusade!!  Will you join me in doing what we can to eliminate these two words from their negative connotations?  Will you be aware of how often you use these words in the course of your conversation?  Will you see if you can find alternative, more accurate ways to describe what you do?  What we mean when we use these words is quite often so different to how they are interpreted.  Surely we owe it to ourselves to ensure that our audience, whether it is one person, or a conference, understands what we are saying without the gnawing effects of those two gremlins.

How about saying, “There are …. stages I go through to create this work”, rather than “I just do this, and then this, and then this”. 

Can we re-frame our language to eradicate ‘just’ and ‘only’ used in these contexts?  Yes, I think so. 

I have largely managed it.  And one thing I have noticed from doing it - my self-confidence has grown, and I’m prouder of my achievements in my weaving.  I am no longer apologising without knowing it.  I am no longer denigrating myself and my accomplishments in front of others.  If they don’t like what I do, fair enough.  If they don’t appreciate what efforts go into the work, that’s up to me to educate, entertain and encourage their interest. 

I am no longer going to sabotage - yes, sabotage! - my own talents and skills.  There are enough people out there waiting to knock down people who want to succeed.  Don’t let you be your own worst enemy!!

I’ve recently been thinking a lot about how our own thoughts can help to sabotage things we’d like to do.  For me, as anyone following this blog knows by now, time is an issue.  I try to squeeze as much as possible out of one day and that in itself can be a limiting programme.  It’s something I learnt as a child - I couldn’t sit and read until all my chores were done - and I still am aware that this programme runs through my mind even today.  I’m reading a Kathy Reichs book and this morning fancied sitting down for an hour or so and immersing myself in my book.  (And yet I’ll sit and waste time watching TV!!!)  But I talked myself out of it, instead going to do the ironing.  OK, so the ironing needed doing, and I’m glad I’ve got it out of the way, but was it really better to do that rather than to indulge myself and read for an hour?  It’s a huge mind-block that I have to overcome whenever I want to read!!

I have various programmes that run silently in the background telling me that I can’t do certain things.  Mostly I don’t notice them, until I’m about to do something that is contrary to my programming.  Take drawing for instance.  Since being told at school - as so many of us have been - that I can’t draw, I now believe that I can’t draw!  OK, so when I try it, it doesn’t look much like what I am looking at.  But the funny thing is that when I draw without moving the pen, or looking at what I’m doing - for instance, looking out of the window at the fence and trees and drawing them without looking down on my page - I produced a fairly reasonable sketch.  So the whole ‘I can’t draw’ thing is a load of baloney!  I don’t think I can draw, ergo I can’t draw, but once my brain is out of the way, I can indeed draw!!!! 

Just realising that those programmes exist can help to eliminate them.  I also realised that I have a programme that tells me Photoshop is hard.  OK, so it might be, but I’ve now told myself that I don’t care - I’m going to try and learn it anyway!  Other people can and I’m not stupid, so I can too!  This is one of those occasions when comparisons with other people can help and not paralyse! 

I have decided to look out for limiting programmes from my past that are no longer useful to me, and eliminate or transform them to positive programmes which will help me persist and stay focussed on my goals.  Nature is sprouting new shoots everywhere and so will I!!    What programmes are limiting you?

I know for many of us that the winter has gone on a long time.  This year’s jet stream has brought lots of snow to places that normally have very little or none of the white stuff.  However, snow is an amazing thing.  It has the power to transform what is normal and so everyday that we don’t see it or notice it until something suddenly jumps out at us and makes us marvel.  I was walking round my usual route with Charlie this morning – the same fields that I’ve walked for nigh on 18 years, and for the first time, I saw a dip in the field that I’ve never been aware of before!  OK, so that doesn’t seem like much of a revelation, but it got me thinking about the transformation possibilities of snow and then to thinking about other things that transform us or our surroundings, or how we perceive things.  A good book can do that, a song which is linked to a certain time or event in our lives.  A certain dress which is associated to a particular memory.  A chance comment that can change the pattern of our lives for ever!

That’s got me smiling because my thoughts have veered away from my original thoughts I had whilst walking.  This morning, I couldn’t help but be immersed in the wonder of a beautiful sunny morning and a Christmas card scene.  It was magical.  It was so beautiful it almost hurt to see it.  It was so soulful. I just stood there and drank it in.  Those are magical moments, moments that stay with you for the rest of your days.  That was an internal photograph moment, captured on my retina and saved into my memory banks that I can refer to time and again when my soul or my mind needs solace.  An experience that, whilst it might be fairly common place, is also extraordinary.  A moment of meditation and reverence that pervades your whole being.  I’m smiling as I’m waxing lyrical here but I think you probably know what I mean, even if you don’t share my childish love of snow.  These moments are both exciting and deeply spiritual, childish and eternal, deep in our psyche as human beings that that we cannot help but be touched by them.  And they are important to us.  I feel so privileged to be alive this morning.  To be walking through this winter landscape with my dog and able to appreciate the beauty and eternal mystery of this wonderful white stuff, of which every flake is unique and so beautiful whilst being at the same time symmetrical and predictable whilst not being predictable at all!  I love paradox and this is one of nature’s best for me.  A blanketing effect which yet transforms.  A new way of light touching familiar contours.  Highlighting contours in a way that we don’t normally see, and even better this morning, with a beautiful clear blue sky and gilded by February sunshine.  Perfect!!!  My day has been transformed into something wonderful.  Now, isn’t there a song about Something Wonderful?….

I originally wrote this entry a year ago, and was thinking about this very subject this week when my son and I were having a philosophical discussion on “how do you know when you know yourself?”  In trying to put down in words what we were discussing, I got myself into knots, and deleted the whole thing, when I suddenly had the impulse to look at articles I’ve written but not yet published.  And there, right at the top, was this!  Serendipity at work!  Enjoy….

“Know Yourself”

This is a local secondary school’s motto near where I live, and it always gets me shaking my head.

I can’t say too much about this other than to say that the children really don’t get time to know themselves!  But what I wanted to think about today is how this short phrase applies to each of us individually.  Do we really know ourselves?

There are certain things I know about myself because of how I feel in certain situations.  For instance, I have an intense dislike of confrontation and will sometimes not stand up for myself or seek to turn a conversation to avoid confrontation although these days I would not go so far as to compromise myself or my principles.  But the flip side to this is that I have a very active (or overactive) sense of fair play.  If someone else is suffering an injustice, I leap in to defend them even at the risk of personal injury!  Now how does that equate??  In Homer SImpson’s immortal words – Doh!!

Why do I do that?  Is it a sensible thing to do?  No – usually not!  But somehow I can’t seem to help myself!  Choices.  No-one can say whether any choice is right or wrong.  We have laws and social codes but they are only guides, and they can change over a period of time as society itself changes.  We each live by our own personal codes, so we can only judge each other seen from our own standpoint.  Also our own perspective changes as we mature (age!) and we can choose (if we wish) how to react to any situation. When we are born we seem to be hard-wired with one disposition or another but as we get older we can sometimes develop into the opposite of that. 

So I’m back to where I started.  And how do we get to know ourselves? 

For me, it’s spending time on my own.  Lots of time.  Thinking.  Reading.  Weaving.  Thinking some more. 

Also it’s spending time with other people.  Lots of different people in different situations.  Watching. Listening.  Talking.  Listening some more. 

I’m not a social animal by nature.  However, give me a group of people with the same interests – weaving, philosophy, travel, readers, writers, music, theatre – and I’m as gregarious as anyone else.  It’s like heads and tails, chalk and cheese.  And I don’t think I’m alone in this.  I cultivate what I’d like to become – so I don’t watch violent movies.  I read to expand my mind and my soul.  I travel to learn more and experience more about the world.  I walk with my dog and examine closely the nature I see around me.  I weave because I love art, and weaving and experimenting fulfils my soul. 

I don’t know if what I do really helps me to know myself.  All I do know is that I like doing these things and I feel that I’m getting to know myself.  And perhaps that’s all any of us can aspire to. 

The words and music from The King & I, “Getting to Know You”, are running through my head now.  Perhaps it is more about getting to know others and finding through that that we get to know ourselves.  Hmmm.  I’d be interested in your thoughts…… 

Just recently, I woke up and looked out of the bedroom window onto a beautiful morning – low winter sun shining on the willow tree forming a tracery of orange against the clear blue sky…. Orange?!  Look again – yes!  Orange!  Bright, vivid, ineffably orange.

Orange isn’t a colour you normally associate much with winter.  Of course there are carrots, peppers, satsumas, mandarins and oranges, and pumpkins.  But I’m talking big amounts of colour you see round you everyday – like blue and green.  This is one of the incredible gifts of winter, often unseen, that we don’t normally get to see. 

We see sun shining on familiar objects such as trees, bushes, hedges.  But we don’t actually see beyond what they symbolize.  A tree is generally just a tree to us.  We see the outside silhouette, and register the impression of a tree. But if you look past the shape and presence of the tree and notice the branches, twigs, moss, bark, and so on, another world appears.  A microcosm of life – a mini-universe in the environment of the tree.  But you still might not see the truth of the tree at that moment.  For instance, the willow.

The realisation this particular morning that the sun shining on the tree at this time of winter makes the tree orange.  I thought to myself – “I’ve become Monet” – able to see through what I was seeing to the underlying colour and reflection of light, and I instantly understood what it is about his work that so appeals to so many of us.  His colours look fantastic – in the sense of almost bizarre or imaginary – and yet he is truly seeing what is there, even if very fleetingly.

There are a myriad of colours we see but which don’t even make it to our conscious level because they fall under the general impression of shadow or sunlight.  Think of all the purples and blues in shadows on snow!  No wonder sunny days lift us up so much – our sunny world is a world chocker-block full of colours which we don’t notice except by their absence, much in the same way that we don’t notice all the harmonics that go into music we listen to – we’d only notice them if they weren’t there.  Think of how you feel on an overcast, or rainy, or foggy day.  Drained – all colour gone.

So here’s a challenge – see how many unexpected colours you can find today – truly ‘see’ the colours of the light reflecting off familiar objects by thinking about what you’re looking at and what you are actually seeing.  I’ll bet you’ll be pleasantly surprised. 

Sorry to republish this, but I was asked by Dusan from Arahne to make it clear that Arahne did not charge for my phone calls, but that I was referring to my telecoms provider.  I am more than happy to clarify that, with my apologies if anyone read it that way.  I also forgot to put in the links for my weaving friends, so I’m pleased to have got the opportunity to update those. 

I missed last week’s blog as I was working away on a TC-1, a computer jacquard handloom.  What was even nicer was that I was visiting fellow Complex Weaver, Belinda Rose.  Belinda has a TC-1 set up at the moment for 60 epi and 14″ wide, with 4 modules deep.  She has a black/white warp so that was ideal for utilising double cloth structures.  I was exploring a number of images to create dimensional effects.  I don’t yet know the total outcome as I have still to repair the various ends that need mending and then to photograph the work before shoving it in the washing machine!! 

I’ve been using ArahPaint4 and ArahWeave, and after overcoming some teething problems with the Operating Software, and several expensive (but well worth it) phone calls to Dusan and Anton at Arahne, and a helpful email from fellow weaver and friend Sheila O’Hara, I was able to do what I wanted to do….  The weaving community is a wonderfully warm and helpful one! 

Since I’ve been back in my studio, I’ve mostly been tidying up and getting everything in order so as to de-clutter my mind before I fling myself back into the sample weaving on the AVL dobby loom.  I’ve been thinking how to translate some of my jacquard thinking into dobby weaving, and am looking forward to trying a few things out. 

I find December to be quite a strange month.  There’s the frenetic activity in schools and shops, compared with the quieter times in the studio with less teaching and fewer workshops and lectures.  I actually like this down time.  It’s a time for reflection, a time for planning, a time for re-evaluating priorities.  This economic downturn we’re all in has repercussions for most of us, and I am no exception.  It’s really easy to feel low when the money dries up and times are tough, but we have a choice in how we react to these circumstances.  Today I made my decision -  I’m going to relish the challenge of overcoming the difficulties.  So this winter, I am using my existing stash and not buying any more yarn.  I am selling off yarn I no longer require (such as a 6ply cotton rug warp!!) and some books that I have duplicated.  I am tidying up so that I know what I have, and I am using my book resources combined with my own weaving experience to develop my work.  Technology is wonderful, but I sometimes forget how resourceful we humans can be, and when pushed to it, it’s good to rediscover that side of us. 

One of the many sayings that sounds good to me is “Want what you have, not have what you want”.  Right now, that’s a good place to be!!