On Weaving
A woven altar cloth created for me by Nikiah Seed — a reminder that growth happens thread by thread.
Hello Courageous Thrivers,
Recently, I was reviewing some journal entries from early 2025 and found this line I’d written as I looked ahead:
It’s a weaving year.
Which is a different kind of growth imagery than rocket, or race, or even spiral.
A slow building.
An intertwining.
Thread by thread.
Ohhhh, I thought.
That explains it.
Because I’ve made a lot of goals I haven’t met.
Made and unmade them.
Reshaped them.
Wondered if I’ll ever be able to set goals and meet them outside of school.
Wondered what the hell is wrong with me.
But if the goal was weaving, I think my friend Sara’s reflection to me was right on.
I rocked it.
What SAORI Teaches Us About Authentic Growth
It’s cool too because one of the physical items that has been with me this year is a woven altar cloth created especially for me by Nikiah Seed.
According to Danielle Cohen, my current coach and teacher (and the person who sent me the cloth), it was woven with great intention using a practice called SAORI:
SAORI is a movement and integrated space of practice of creative and personal realization founded in 1969 by Misao Jo and continued by her family in Osaka, Japan. It is rooted in the activity of free-flowing, uninhibited hand weaving and the core philosophy that we are all born with unique sensibilities and the power to create. SAORI is not only a practice of connecting deeply with one’s own creative and authentic self, but it is also a practice of connecting deeply with others. By discovering and nurturing our individuality yet shared humanity and ability to express ourselves, we cultivate awareness and compassion within ourselves and the global community.
I wonder: is this what I have been doing this year?
Supported by Nikiah and Danielle and Misao Jo, among many others.
Have I been cultivating awareness and compassion within myself and within others?
I hope so.
When I think of 2025 that way, it reshapes my assessment of where I have “succeeded” and where I have “failed.”
Rethinking Success and Failure
For example,
I have not moved my income forward in the way I’d hoped this year.
But Dave (my husband) and I have made many, many tiny financial decisions in ways that are both honest and more aligned with our values.
We’ve had increasingly aligned conversations about money in which neither of us gets triggered.
We’ve created a Saturday morning “money date” habit that we actually enjoy — so much so that we show up to it with ease instead of pushing or gritting our teeth.
We’ve invested and spent with greater intentionality.
Tiny threads. Woven together.
And also:
I still haven’t completed the half-marathon I started training for back in 2024.
But I’ve continued strengthening my body and increasing my literal alignment — my pelvis has been twisted and tilted in odd ways that running training revealed.
I’ve gotten support to strength train, in part by admitting that while I “should” be able to do exercises at home alone, years of data indicate that I will not do so.
So I set aside money to pay for a trainer and found someone who loves working with women my age and older. Bonus: she’s also become a friend.
I recently began run/walk training again (I will complete a half-marathon one day!) and wouldn’t you know — my hips and knees didn’t require an ice bath afterwards like they used to.
Weavings are created thread by thread, not in one fell swoop.
I wonder: what have you been weaving together this year?
How might this perspective change your view of your own successes and failures?
It’s Never Too Late to Begin
And before I close, there’s one more thing the late-bloomers reading this might want to know.
Misao Jo didn’t start weaving until she was 57.
And even then, her work had not yet become what it would be later — not until she realized her weavings had a profound impact on people’s lives.
It was then that she extended the meaning of SAORI to reflect the Japanese word sai, which signifies a “difference among objects, each with their own dignity.”
What if you could live with that recognition every day?
Might you know deep in your heart and soul that your differences — including your childhood wounds, your seemingly ridiculous needs, the experiences you call failures, your late-bloomerness — aren’t a problem.
They just are.
As you just are.
Might you know your own dignity?
And so as I close this reflection, I invite you to look at your year (or your life) as if it were a weaving.
Notice whether you can see your differences or supposed failures not as evidence that you are alone, but as evidence that you belong.
You have your own dignity, as part of the whole.
Deb
REFLECTION: What Are You Weaving This Season?
Q: How do I begin to notice the threads that shaped my year?
A: You might start as I did, by noticing where I thought I failed and then looking for the tiny shifts, changes and new patterns you developed. Name them. Write them down. Share them with someone. Nothing is too small. When you shift the lens from “Did I perform enough?” to “What was being woven in me?”, you may find that you knocked it out of the park!
Q: I feel as if everyone my age has accomplished so much more than I have, doesn’t it make more sense to focus on what I need to fix, rather than what’s good?
A: I absolutely know how this feels and if doing that feels like it’s working for you, go forth. For me, it left me feeling like I never could relax, hearing harsh critical thoughts all the time, feeling depressed, not really enjoying life. That’s not how I want to live so I started playing with new possibilities.
Think of the loom itself. Every thread has its moment to show up, to become visible, to add its color or texture. Some patterns don’t appear until the very end. Your timing may not look like anyone else’s, and that is not a deficit. It’s part of the dignity of your particular weaving. Misao Jo began at fifty-seven and wove almost every day untils she was 98 - that’s 41 years! (She lived to 104).
If this reflection stirred something in you, and you’d like accompaniment as you practice a slower, kinder way of growing, you can learn more about my 1:1 coaching.