Restoring Flax-to-Linen Culture Clothing ourselves Feeding ourselves

Restoring Flax-to-Linen Culture

Clothing ourselves. Feeding ourselves. Healing ourselves, birthing and dying at home, in community.

Not self-sufficiency, not survivalist but rather in community.

Barnraising, adobe brickmaking, haying, quilting, canning. These parts of our culture are only possible in community. The same is true of processing fiber: flax, making felt, shearing sheep.

Examining the past …allows us to dispassionately observe what we abandoned in the 19 th century, the practices we evolved with.

Researching the Textile Trilogy and the 19 th century for the past twenty years, gives insight into where we find ourselves today.

Using extractive sources of energy seduced us into the cul de sac we find ourselves in now. Our addiction to petroleum and its chemical byproducts is killing us, the planet and other species on it.

The philosopher Thomas Berry says we must find a new dream. Domination, born of the marriage of Christianity and capitalism, holds us in bondage.

Mankind as the apex of creation with dominion over the natural world is the consequence of a patrilineal system. The balance between yin and yang, earth and sky, male and female energies has been the casualty.

This delusion is the crux of the problem with our relationship with the natural world.

When European women came to this continent they had no rights to their children or the fruits of their labor… whereas parity between men and women in the matrilineal native cultures of the Eastern tribes begs the question of “women’s rights. ”

Credit is only now being given to native matrilineal women for influencing the women’s rights movement and feminism.

With the righting of that imbalance between masculine and feminine energies, the world is returning to harmony.

If one of the first premises of a new way-of-life on the planet is sustainability and reciprocity, where are we going to look for a model?

We do not listen to our prophets. Those who resist are held up for ridicule. Let us restore respect for our allies.

Every one of us comes from places where we were indigenous. Indigenous cultures know how to keep their homelands in balance. Let us learn about this continent from them. Let us learn to be indigenous to this place.

Let us take chapters from our own heritage in the agricultural world we evolved within. Just as the Sixties counterculture reignited practices we evolved with as a species, young people today are reinhabiting our traditions.

WHAT IF. . ?

What if this addiction we have to petroleum and its chemical byproducts could be seen as a 150 year blip a brief anomaly. . .

… a 150 year blip in the vast expanse of our evolution as agricultural and craft people living sustainably in small communities?

WHAT IF. . ?

What if the improbable migration of young people to a lifestyle they are teaching themselves is a sign of restoration?

The technology is there to marry the best of the 19 th century to the best of modernity: Solar Wind Water Geothermal

What does it mean to restore the flax-to-linen culture? Restoration of the four elements: land water, air and fire (energy we burn to fuel our lifestyle. )

Restoration in the natural world compels us to restore our culture.

What have we lost?

What have we lost? • Peace and tranquility: a sustaining spiritual life

What have we lost? • Harmony with the natural world

What have we lost? • Respect for the interrelatedness of all species

What have we lost? • Communal activities: Childrearing Growing food for us and our animals Generating music, art and craft A sustainable way of building Healing arts

Restoring a flax-to-linen culture means: • Caring enough about the menu of choices artisans have to create clothing.

Restoring a flax-to-linen culture means: • Re-establishing trade schools that will train millmen, teach production weaving, foster agricultural knowledge.

Restoring a flax-to-linen culture means: • supporting the cultivation of other bast fibers like hemp, milkweed, nettle.

Restoring a flax-to-linen culture means: • working collectively to share equipment, knowledge, and pass it on to next generations.

Restoring a flax-to-linen culture means: We must question all the beliefs we bring with us to restoration processes. Are you willing to buy or barter for a garment that has been entirely sourced in your watershed?

What would that commitment spill over into, of necessity, to support a culture of consumers? Name our allies Other craftsmen, farmers, sustainable processors, Native Americans, Visionaries and prophets, & Community organizers