I’m tucked in by the woodstove, with the rain and mossy forest surrounding me. The sourdough is bubbling and filling the air with it’s delicious scent. The frog has been singing in celebration of the rain, in the front pond. I can see the goats outside happily munching on their hay and wagging their tails, while disrupting the cats’ nests in the soft mounds. I hear the gentle rain, creating a peaceful mood today, the perfect day for playing in quiet contemplation with Wool.
This wool came from a sheep named Pearl, living down the road on my friend’s farm. I touch it and hold it with reverence, inhaling it’s sweet scent and feeling it’s softness against my cheek. There is something so precious and holy about wool.
Yesterday I washed Pearl’s fleece in the bathtub and hung it up to dry by the woodstove. It was dry when I came down this morning and I began carding it with two hand carders shaped like paddles. I love seeing it turn into a fluffy mass, filling up the basket in a blink. My hands grow softer from the lanolin, until they feel like they are no longer my hands, my rough farm hands, but the hands of a baby.
My connection with wool seems to go deep down into my bones. What is it about wool that is so soothing to my soul?