We Are One: Spinning to Calm the Roaring Spirit

Gandhi spinning on a book charkha, 1942, Wikimedia Commons public domain photograph

What is it about spinning yarn that makes it so appealing as a meditation practice?  Why are spinners, some famous like Mohandas Gandhi, others unknown, drawn to the rhythm of the wheel or spindle?

Spinning, like meditation, is about doing, not about theory (although one can certainly study both spinning and meditation).  If you want to meditate, you must meditate; if you want to spin, you must practice with spindle or wheel and fibre.  No amount of reading or mere inquiry will make you a meditator/yogi or a spinner. 

Like meditation, spinning is simple, not easily done well.  Meditation is more than sitting, more than reflection and much more than watching or controlling your thoughts.  Only a few yogis achieve emptiness, or still mind.  Only by lengthy, sustained practice will a spinner develop muscle memory, control and deep understanding to the point where she becomes one with her yarn.

If you are a karmayogi, like Gandhi, spinning can be a means of practical service.  Although we need not concern ourselves with the yarn forming when we meditate, the resulting yarn can be used to cloth ourselves and others, to provide care and comfort to people suffering.

The mechanics of spinning yarn are ideally suited to meditation, the practice of staying in the Now, being with your thoughts, yet not being your thoughts.  As Gandhi discovered, the whir and clicking of the charkha soothes the mind and brings peace to the spirit. (In his autobiography, Gandhi speaks of how the sound of ashram women spinning helped heal him from illness.)  Both spinning and meditation can calm the roaring mind; angry, upset, we sit or spin or practice both.  After a time, the anger settles, the upset decreases and we no longer feel that we are our emotions.

Meditation helps release attachment, to habits, to emotions, to the human condition. When we practice unsupported long draw, as required when spinning cotton at the charkha, we must maintain focus and a light touch. Spinning cotton is a practical reminder that attachment brings suffering-if our attention wanders, if we clutch the fibres, our yarn becomes sloppy or breaks.

When we spin, we are connected to a larger self, the part of us that is about spirit and community.  Spinning connects us to all spinners who have gone before us, who made possible the cloth that allowed humans to move across the planet, to stay alive.  Spinning connects us to communities here,  through shared experiences with local, national or international spinning circles. Like meditation, spinning can relieve us, if only for a moment, of our sense of being alone, lost in a sea of constant changes. In this way, spinning provides us with a tool to connect with the larger self that is found in meditation, whether we see that larger self as something within us or as a link to a universal whole.

The next time you sit down at your wheel or pick up your spindle, try spinning in meditative reflection.  Stay present (i.e., don't "zone out" or concern yourself with what the yarn will become) and focus on what is happening as your hands move, the fibre changes, the yarn forms.  Pay attention, the way you would were you meditating on a candle flame, and see if the rhythm of the spinning whorl as meditation/yoga practice helps to soothe the chatter of the whirling mind.

Mohandas Gandhi spinning, late 1920's, Wikimedia Commons, public domain photograph

The Circle Game Continues: More Research on Gandhi and His Spinning

Gandhi at his spinning wheel in 1929.  Public domain image.

I'm gathering information for the major research paper which is a requirement in my Yoga Studies class.  While Gandhi's reasons for choosing spinning in his political goals are reasonably well known, it's less clear why he thought cotton spinning was an excellent tool for his spiritual practice, although he states its importance often in his writing.  Since hand spinning is no longer a common activity, let alone combined with meditation and spirituality, finding written material on the subject is an adventure.

Here are a few things I've discovered about Mohandas and his spinning:

• Early in his career, Gandhi made the common mistake of confusing "spinning" with "weaving."  ("Tantra" means "loom" in Sanskrit; "sutra" means "thread," but is also used to denote instructive ideas, as in the Yoga Sutra. Perhaps some of the confusion stemmed from this?)
• Gandhi learned to spin later in life, sometime after 1917, when he was approaching his fifties.  By that time, spinning was little known in India and the process of finding a spinning wheel was difficult.  Gandhi was assisted in his endeavours by a widow named Gangabehn Majmundar, who after long searching, found him a wheel in Vijapur.  It was Gangabehn who helped people in the Baroda State dust off their unused wheels and begin spinning again, when one of Gandhi's followers, Umar Sobani, found a steady supply of cotton slivers to feed the wheels.
• Gandhi promoted the use of takhlis, the small metal spindle used for fine cotton spinning, as well as the charkha. 
• Gandhi was attracted to the spinning wheel both as spiritual symbol and as a mechanical device. "Charkha/cakra" means "wheel;" its imagery is connected to the Sun, a powerful object and symbol of worship in Hindu tradition.  As known to every spinner who has moved beyond the basics of spinning, the spinning wheel produces a rhythm and sound conducive to calming meditative states; Gandhi felt the lure of the wheel, too.
• Gandhi is credited with modernizing the Indian charkha, but it is difficult to say how the modern book charkha came into existence.  Gandhi promoted several design contests for wheel modifications.  He made it clear that a modern wheel should be light, portable, easily made from inexpensive materials affordable to the poorest Indian, but exactly who designed the book charkha and when it came into use is unclear.  There are photographs of both Mohandas and his wife spinning; in most cases, the pictures I have seen show them spinning at a traditional wheel, although they certainly used the book charkha.
• In the famous 1946 photograph by Margaret Bourke-White of Gandhi at his wheel, Gandhi is not, as is often thought, actually spinning.  Rather, he is reading, with the traditional charkha in front of him. Among other things, the photograph symbolizes Gandhi' s commitment to education and work.

Almost finished: my shawl spun from organic and naturally coloured cotton.

Brass takhli spindles, a spindle bowl, my woven cotton fabric (commercial cotton warp), skeins of cotton singles and unginned cotton (my favourite cotton spinning preparation)



The Circle Game: Kasturba Gandhi, Spinning and Satygraha

Mohandas and Kasturba Gandhi (from Wikipedia public domain photographs)

It's Reading Week at the university and I've been researching material for my class paper.  One of the works I read is a biography of Kasturba Gandhi, the wife of Mohandas, written by her grandson, Arun Gandhi.

Contrary to popular belief, Mrs. Gandhi (born Kastur Kapadia, 1869), was not the subservient, long-suffering wife that many Gandhian biographers have deemed her.  Married to Mohandas in 1882, when they were both 13, Kastur became an essential part of Gandhi's Satyagraha Movement of peaceful protest.  In fact, Gandhi credits Kasturba with teaching him the basics tenets of non-violence, through her patient, but determined behaviour in the face of his often stubborn ideas and sometimes angry reactions when others did not follow his path.  It was Kasturba who kept house and home in order while Mohandas was away on his frequent political journeys, and it was she who cared for Gandhi during fasts and marches, sometimes enduring harsher prison terms than Mohandas himself. It was Kasturba who stayed behind to work on social and health problems with the women in Champaran, at the time of the indigo tenant farmers' protest in and around 1917, teaching them the basics of care and sanitation after the protests had ended.

The daughter of wealthy merchants who owned a trading house dealing in cloth, grain and cotton shipments, Kasturba learned to spin at the Sabarmati ashram in 1918.  Upon arrival at the ashram from Champaran, Mrs. Gandhi found that:

The women. . .had become wholly absorbed in spinning.  Mohandas had long hoped that his ashram could help start a renewal of India's self-sufficient village economy by reviving an age-old cottage industry, the spinning and weaving of the cloth known as khadi....Now, all the ashram residents, beginning with Mohandas himself, spent at least one hour a day at their spinning wheels.  Ba (i.e. Kasturba--my insert) quickly concluded that her first task at hand was to learn how to spin.  She did.  My grandmother became one of the ashram's most skilled spinners. (A. Gandhi, p.211)

From then on, until her death in prison in 1944, Kasturba made the symbol of spinning and the charkha her own. The shy, quiet child bride pictured with Mohandas in the above photograph, became a champion of Indian civil rights, rallying men and women to the cause and using her spinning as a sign of devotion and duty.

Higher: On the Subject of Lofty Spinning

School is keeping me busy.  I'd forgotten how much time and effort is involved to study and participate effectively, even for a single class. 

In addition, I was asked to take over a Relax and Renew yoga class.  Although I've practised yoga for years and taught for a long time, I've never taught a yoga class.   I wasn't tapped for my brilliant asanas and instructional skills.  I was the only one available to teach this class and I was looking for a way to thank the studio for all it's given me.  So, in I leaped.

My experiences have me thinking: how did I get here?  At what point did yoga, meditation and fibre arts become my life?  How on earth did I decide to combine my spinning with meditation practice?  Why do this?

If the combination of sitting and string seems "weird" (as some so straightforwardly put it), the idea of combining the mundane with the spiritual has a long tradition, from spinning for magic and ceremonial purposes down to "The Man" himself - Mohandas K. Gandhi.

Even non-spinners know the association between Gandhi and the spinning wheel, especially the charkha.  Lesser known is the philosophy which led to Gandhi's commitment to the wheel and cotton spinning.  There is not a lot of popular literature available on Gandhi and spinning, but while I was searching for references to Gandhi and karmayoga (loosely meaning "yoga through action"), I came across a reference to a gem of a book, the cover of which is pictured above.  (I have no idea why the image insists on separating itself from the body of my post.  Sometimes the mysterious ways of the cyberworld defeat me.)

The book is apparently unavailable for purchase, but I've been able to read excerpts on line.  So far, it's the best synthesis I've found of Gandhi's philosophy and his commitment to spinning both as meditation and as a vehicle for the greater good.  The author, Mohit Chakrabarti, nicely sums up Gandhi's choice of cotton spinning as symbol and action:

Why does Gandhi take recourse to the spinning wheel when discipline is essentially a training of the mind which can be well-exercised by means of other media of exercise of the mind?  The answer, as Gandhi advocates, is quite clear.  He is quite aware of the two types of disciplines necessary for the growth and development of being viz., inward and outward.  Quite unlike other humanists, Gandhi launches his programme for introducing the spinning wheel to serve the twin purposes of inward discipline while undergoing outer discipline or discipline in the extrinsic form at the same time. (p. 11)

So there you have it: spinning, with its steady rhythm and repetitive movement is a means to draw us inward.  In the process, we make a product which can be used practically and symbolically.  In Gandhi's case, cotton spinning helped end British colonial rule in India.

Now, I don't have such lofty goals, nor do I fancy myself walking in Gandhi's footsteps.  The thing is, Gandhi was not "Mahatma" until others made him so.  Gandhi was no more or less that human, with all the faults and contradictions attached to the human condition.  Sometimes quick to anger, he was by his own admission, often unkind, especially to his wife.  Gandhi was a product of his time and culture, as are we all.  Yet he found a way to transcend his faults.  He used simple means to change his world, inch by inch, thread by thread, with a constant return to mindfulness and right practice.

Gandhi's devotion to spinning and the changes he effected is a practice worth exploring.  I'd like to go there for a while and see if I can apply some of Gandhi's ideas and actions to my life.

Let's go higher and see where we land.

Namaste.

Birthday!

Today is the anniversary of Mohandas Gandhi's birth, a day of reflection upon and gratitude for the work of this remarkable man:

Gandhi used the charkha not only as a tool and symbol for revolution, but also as an essential part of his meditation practice:

I will be marking the day by spinning on my charkha and celebrating birthdays in my own family, that of my sister, Annamarie and her daughter, Kaitlin.  I'm not sure if they remember that they share a birthdate with The Man Himself, but since the charkha is going with me to the party, I'll be sure to remind them!

Happy Birthday, AM and Kaitlin!

Revolution

In honour of the anniversary of Gandhi's birth, October 2, I've been playing with the Bosworth book charkha I bought from sheepless at Olds Fibre Week this summer.  I've used an Indian book charkha for years and loved it, but it's a quirky little machine that is worn out from hard use and our dry climate. 

The story goes that Gandhi promoted the book charkha as a means to make spinning available to everyone in India, including urban apartment dwellers who didn't have the space for large charkhas.  Charkhas are fast and efficient; their rhythm makes them conducive to meditation, which Gandhi considered essential to well-being.

Bosworth charkhas are rare things-there's a long waiting list-and expensive, so I leaped at the chance to get this one.  I wasn't disappointed.  These machines are masterfully engineered and beautifully finished.  Set up is easy and this charkha spins really well.  There is a learning curve with any new tool, so I started by spinning some cashmere and silk "waste," bits of top, tangled fibres, etc. cut from factory machines.  The fibres are soft and spin well with a bit of coaxing.  They're short, so they're excellent to use for the unsupported long draw required for the charkha, where one hand turns the drive wheel while the other drafts the fibres and feeds the yarn onto the spindle:

The open charkha, ready to go, showing the built-in lazy kate

My right hand turns the drive wheel

Note the light touch on the fibre supply

My left hand drafts the fibres back

Spinning occurs as I draft off the spindle tip



Winding on occurs when you hold the yarn perpendicular to the spindle shaft

With practice, it doesn't take long to establish a rhythm of cranking, drafting, adding twist and then winding on to the spindle.  Meant for fine yarns, the spindles hold plenty of highly twisted singles.  The charkha uses an accelerator wheel, so the ratio of spindle to drive wheel rotations is 70:1.  I measured my drafting length and counted my turns when adding extra twist; I'm adding about 12 to 13 twists per inch here.

Although the wheel can be used for plying, charkha plying is not the most relaxing activity on the planet.  (This part was not meditative.  There were many words chanted, none of them calming.  On the other hand, I was totally focused!)  Many authorities recommend winding off the spindles and using a traditional wheel or handspindle for plying, but I was determined to use the charkha to produce a plied skein.  For the first sample, I used the built-in lazy kate, with the rubber band tensioning recommended in my instructions:

It worked, but I discovered that if I stopped plying, everything tangled.  The spindles didn't wind off evenly, causing snarls and snaps (many of them coming from me).  I persisted and managed to ply a 20 metre sample skein, in all its uneven glory.

With my remaining singles, I wound a plying ball.  Plying from that ball was more successful and I think that's the way to go, if I don't want to move to using storage bobbins, etc.  I intend to take this wheel on the road with me and I want to keep extra equipment to a minimum.

The charkha folds up into a book size box when it's not in use:

The closed charkha, with the finished sample skein and a Tabachek mini niddy noddy

Here are the finished skeins, both washed in hot water and dish soap, lightly fulled, rinsed and dried flat:

If you get an opportunity to work with a charkha, give it a whirl, if only to appreciate the mastery of its design and efficiency.  Charkha spinning is lots of fun, too, and I'm sure the plying will be more enjoyable, once I get a feel for it.

Namaste and Happy Birthday to my sister, Liz!