Sacred Textiles

From Ethiopia to Italy and Peru, Roxanna Minnona’s travels took her on a personal journey into the ancient and sacred traditions of textile weaving communities. Along the way she discovered a way we can all make a difference to preserving the ancient traditions and support Indigenous communities.

(An alpaca shepherdess spends her days watching over her flock with her trusty canine companions. While watching over her alpacas, she hand spins yarn, weaves and knits. She is a deep and powerful woman living a very simple life filled with the richness of time and space and to sit in her presence is to sit in supreme spacious stillness.)

I once made a promise to myself that if ever I found, authentic quality fabric from natural fibers, like the stuff that from times gone by that you just can’t find anymore, I would invest in it. Not just because I love beautiful fabric, but because of everything that it represents. As it happened, during my travels to South Africa last year I met a group of Ethiopian women who make cotton fabric by hand using ancient traditional methods of splitting the cotton flower open and meshing it together. This cotton is extremely high grade, thick and will last a 100 years or more. No chemicals are required in the process, but it is very labour intensive and time consuming. In contrast, most of the cotton available today is mass-produced by multinational companies, using genetically modified cotton that is grown with fertiliser and processed with harsh chemicals. What’s more, it is mostly produced in poor countries where communities are struggling to make a living and put food on the table for their families. These toxic processes have a devastating impact on their health by contaminating the rivers and waterways that are essential for growing food, drinking water and washing. I love planet earth and I mourn the destruction, poisoning and exploitation She is subject to. In the throwaway consumerist society we live in we have lost sight of the fact that what happens on the earth happens to us. Native and Indigenous peoples living traditionally know and understand the sacredness of the earth as every aspect of their life depends on Her. This affinity with nature and tradition is evident in their labour of love and how they sing and smile while creating their textiles. Before arriving in South Africa I travelled to Italy and I was so excited at the potential to find some real Italian, quality clothes. But after searching high and low, I found nothing of the kind because expensive, synthetic clothing and poor-quality cotton dominate current fashion. I was so disappointed. My partners mother grew up in Calabria, South Italy, one day she showed me hand made hemp that her family once made. They grew the hemp, spun the fibre and wove the fabrics. She said it lasted well over 100 years. The piece she showed me was 70 years old and was in great condition. I felt a tremendous sadness that this piece of cloth was so valuable, so durable and yet SO RARE! Why? Why did we stop making great textiles? So when I met the Ethiopian tribal women, I realised that the price I had to pay for their product didn’t matter beucase I had promised myself that I would invest in things that touch my heart and I also knew the money was going to them and that I was helping to keep this rare and nearly extinct tradition alive. The woman I purchased from was selling on behalf of her family back home. With tears welling, she told me about how her mother had kept the tradition alive despite her extended family teasing her. They all thought she was crazy and wasting her time. But she passed her knowledge on and now the village is doing this work and selling the pieces to keep the tradition going. What’s a sacred textile? Although there are many incredible antique fabrics available, in my spiritual studies I have learnt that it is important to avoid buying secondhand items, (such as jewelry and fabrics), that may have been made with ‘black’ magic or carry the energy of deceased people that may be incompatible with you. A textile can be anything you want it to be, the uses are only limited only by your imagination. What makes a cloth sacred depends on the intention it is made with and the purposes it is used for. Traditionally in Peru, a “sacred textile” is called a Mesa.

A Mesa is a cloth that is specially woven for a healer/shaman with specific intentions and frequencies encoded into the weaving that are a-tuned to that particular person and their spirit and the forces that they are initiated to work with in their healing/shamanic practice. The healer / Shaman will use the cloth to transport their healing tools and medicines as well as use it to lay out an altar when practicing their craft. The Mesa is representative of the world in sacred balance and wholeness, whenever it is opened; energetic forces are activated to move a person into ayni, or balance.

So, it is very special to have a cloth made by hand with prayers and intentions woven into it just for you regardless of what ever traditions or initiations you’ve encountered. In the mass production of our consumerist society we have forgotten the precious value of “Sacred Textiles” and the role they play in our life. Whilst the title mesa is given to this cloth used in this tradition, it is no way limited to this tradition alone. It is a beautiful gift to have a Sacred Textile made especially for you in reverence to your spirit. How you use it will be guided by your spirit and can be incorporated into any training or initiations that you may have done or do in your life..

In Peru: Ilaria's community of weavers Later in my travels to Peru, I met another artisan community – this time a group of men & women weavers. Here’s some of their story …

llaria lives in a remote village about one hour from Pisac in Peru’s Sacred Valley. From her backyard, her and her husband employ a team of locals to hand weave textiles.

Four-year old Nicola is the youngest of Illyria’s three children and the only one still at home.

Nicola loves to play ‘cooking and washing’ along with wrapping the kitten up like a baby and carrying her around on her back (like the grown-up women do).

The textiles Illyria’s team makes have many traditional uses like carrying produce or babies, or as a sacred medicine cloth, (called “messa”), used to carry medicinal instruments for healing work. They also make great altar pieces, or like shown here, can be used as a Ancient Chinese Tea ritual Table Cloth.

Women dying the yarn in a pot over the fire use natural ingredients, mainly insects, to create vibrantly coloured fabrics that my photos don’t do justice to.

Alpacas are a fundamental part of the traditional Peruvian life. We met this graceful and majestic creature on a walk at the sacred three lakes in the mountains about 4,000 meters above sea level.

An alpaca shepherd spends his days chewing medicinal herbs from the mountains to fortify himself in high altitudes and watches over his flock, collecting grasses for night feeding and staying tuned to the weather patterns and predicting storms. On this day we encountered a hail storm about 1 hour after our meeting.

During my time with this community in Pisac, I feel in love with the way that the local people still live more or less communally. There is an abundance in their way of life that we miss out on through our western approach to currency. But all the same, this money is part of our modern world and sharing their craft keeps their culture alive. We can all make a difference We have the power to take a stance against manufacturing processes that harm people and planet by refusing to buy those products. By investing in what we value and buying what we want see more of on the planet. We have the power to stop the exploitation of vulnerable producer communities by buying locally made wares and produce local artists, seamstresses and Indigenous peoples that are still living in their old ways.

How to order and pricing If you are interesting in purchasing a sacred textile from Ilaria’s weaving community, please email me at roxy@atantriclife.org by no later than 16 January 2016. I’ll send you photos of the designs and colours available (which are made to oder). The fabrics vary in sizes of 1 or 2 meters wide.

The cost is AU$150-$250 per piece + postage.

Special offer for you

If you would like to support old world culture, planet earth AND own a beautiful handmade sacred textile, you can purchase a fabric from Illyria’s community. They tend to the alpacas, they spin the yarn, they dye it and then weave it all by hand. The fabric is made from pure, naturally dyed, chemical-free alpaca wool. The money will go directly to the women making them and their families and community. And by purchasing a sacred textile cloth, you are helping to:

• Keep this sacred old world commerce tradition alive

• Empower women and communities to live in harmony with the earth and all her creatures

• Maintain a clean, healthy, toxin-free environment for native people to live in

• Put your spending power in integrity with your beliefs.

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