TWINE
Once upon a time there was twine. An intentional attachment, a connection.
Snow squeaking underfoot and the sun long gone, you walk down the street. Yes it is that festive time of year, lights aglow and you could really get on board with all the good cheer if you were not so busy fighting winter winds for your coat. You pull it tighter around you, head down. You walk down past the baker, the weaver, the tailor, and then you catch a glimpse of something from the corner of your eye: the twiner. How strange, you had never noticed that before. Stopping in your tracks you wonder, ‘What is a twiner?’ A bell tinkles as you push the door; you step inside to inquire, and are embraced by a disarming heat. You expect to find twine, and you do, but it is not for sale. It is for display. Not for sale? So what, then, do they do?, you puzzle. They do not just make twine, they are twine. What? Have you ever heard such an odd thought? Puzzled just upgraded to perplexed. What does that even mean, they are twine? You look at the person behind the counter half expecting them to be raving mad, and yet they seem perfectly sane. You reluctantly admit, more sane than the baker a few doors down.
Twiners are a guild, one of many where you live. Much like in antiquity, your world is awash with artisans and merchants perfecting their crafts, engaging in trade. Whether it is wool or weaving, spices or soap-making, people organise themselves in these particular ways, and it is an essential thread in the fabric of society. One reason people organise themselves according to their skills is because it is generally held that some ideas and practices are worth preserving, and are not to be lightly scattered (if at all) amongst the masses. There is something to be said about the mastery of a domain.
You remember learning when you were younger that various priesthoods in the ancient Near East were passed on from father to son and so down the line. This was also the case with the practice of medicine in ancient Greece. These groups became the collegia of ancient Rome that persisted and saturated the Byzantine Empire. Specialised societies then appeared in medieval Western Europe, and in some ways modern societies are not too far of a stone’s throw. Precursors of corporations (to bring people into one body), these specialised societies are so important that many people bear the names of their forebears in this very form (in many languages): baker, brewer, weaver, tailor, to name a few.
Interrupting your musings on guilds, you take the seat kindly offered, and soon, tea cup in hand, you begin to hear a story. Twiners, like the other guilds, are a group of people who have something in common. Their job is not about what they do as such. How peculiar. ‘What kind of job is that?’, you ask. Their job essentially requires nothing other than who they are. Their job , they tell you, is primarily who they are. Utterly bemused and taking a sip, you nod for them to continue.
You hear how their forebears made twine in temples. Temples? You were not expecting that. What is the connection between twine and temple? Why temples? As it turns out, temples are usually impressive buildings, and they are impressive because they usually represent that which is beyond. They are a place in which people can somehow come closer to that which transcends them.
‘All right, but what does your work have to do with temples? And why do you not still work in temples?’, you ask.
The story continues. The work of their forebears was to make twine. Twine is about weaving strands together to create one thread, one cord. Twine is is about entanglement, attachment, connection. Earlier generations of twiners knew that their purpose was to make twine, and it was. They still do. But what they also knew was that more importantly than making a physical object of attachment and connection, they were to also be the twine, attached connectors, one might say.
‘I see.’ Hm. You take another sip as the dust in your cerebral chambers shows no signs of settling. ‘I understand that you both make twine and are the twine (you surprise yourself with these words), but you no longer work in temples. How does that affect your work?’, you wonder. The conversation reveals that what is beautiful about their work is that they still work in temples, it is just that temples have become internalised. I am told that in a sense, each twiner is a temple.
‘Ah’, the penny drops (thankfully not in your tea), and you summarise: so before you worked in a specific location making actual twine; now you still make twine and are twine, but the specific location is no longer a building but your… body, your being? Something like that?’ There are nods and words of affirmation. ‘I am just still not quite sure exactly what it is you do,’ you add, somewhat still confused. They chuckle as they tell you that you will see. ‘Well at least we are making progress’, you think to yourself, your frozen hands finally thawed. Now that you have understood the twine and the temple, you inquisitively probe into the deeper meaning of this craft.
You learn that to be a twiner is to be deeply relational. It is to be finely attuned to oneself, and healthily attached to others. It is also to be connected to that which transcends us. Why the Transcendent?, you ask. Because the beauty of the Transcendent is connection. For a twiner, life is about that which is between us and that which is beyond us. Twine is about connection, connection is about presence, and presence is about intentional attention. The temple is also about connection; so to work in one’s temple, for example, means to be connected to oneself and beyond, to be as fully alive as is possible. You half interrupt, asking how it is that one does that, how does one become fully alive? By intentionally reaching into connection. The Source of life is connection. Twine and temple represent the fullness of connection. A twiner is a person who is profoundly connected to oneself, one’s song, one’s story. Connection is what makes and keeps us all alive. Connection is everything. You let that sit for a few moments, deep in thought.
The bell keeps tinkling as more red cheeks and icy beards pour in, and a joyous mood fills the air. You decide to leave when you realise you are raising an empty cup to your mouth for what must be the tenth time. They kindly insist you take some twine as a gift, and after an exchange of heartfelt season’s greetings, the bell tinkles once again as it ushers you out into the crisp evening. You are quite warm, and not just because of the tea. You walk back past the tailor, the weaver, and the baker, snow squeaking underfoot. Your cerebral dust swirls within much like the snow without, and you wonder, could it be that you had just experienced the work of the twiners? Could it be that that cup of tea and heartwarming conversation is what twiners are all about? You chuckle as you now understand what they meant. It is not what they do, but who they are, attached connectors; an embodied reminder of what matters most: connection. In the frenzy of the upcoming festivities, you wonder, might the essence of it all be about the connection with that which is beyond us and that which is between us? As you press home through the bustling crowds, you smile, fondly twirling the twine in your pocket. Twiners. Who knew.
*This article is inspired by the historical concept of the Levites in ancient Israel. The Levites were a subset of priests whose sole purpose was to highlight and embody connection. They were named after a man called Levi, whose name is an adjective meaning ‘attached’. It is from the root lavah meaning to unite, join, fit to, etc.
(c) Belinda É. Samari
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