myths/stories

 

 

Three Sisters Story

 

As women, I suspect that you, like I, have found that the creative process is often a cooperative process - after all two heads together are better than one, so much the better if there are three! This particular way of accessing creativity reminds me of the timeless story of the three sisters - Bean Maiden, Corn Woman and Squash Blossom. To them, collaboration is at the heart of soulful sisterhood.

 

Although the story we chose to illustrate our three hats is one, presumably, of blood sisters, these hats were actually inspired by sisterhood of a different order. As the eldest of four sisters I can attest to the ups and downs and complications in sisterly relationships. It can often be rather like pulling on a rubber band: sometimes it fits snugly and holds everything together just so, sometimes reluctantly so, and sometimes it snaps and stings you.

But sometimes we are blessed with a friend who is so close, that she becomes a life-sister. Just over a year and a half ago, such a friend came into my life. The first time we decided to share a cuppa, we didn’t stop talking for three hours. We found that we had much in common in our backgrounds and interests – and that we were both newcomers to Oregon who had followed our hearts to arrive at this very place and time. It felt like we had known each other forever. Such a rare occurrence, this, and what a delight!

And then, with the discovery of cancer in her lungs, in the chemo treatment rooms, in the car on our way to myriad doctor’s waiting rooms, followed by late breakfasts at the Cadillac Cafe on Broadway or lunches in quaint northeast Portland spots, during long visits and shared holidays, our friendship blossomed into sisterhood. We talked of, and lived in, the moment. Moments of relating, connection. Moments of fear, despair and surrender. Moments of hope, planning, exploration. Moments of facing life – and death. Some were her moments. Some were mine. We shared them. She was so very generous in that way, this Divine-Woman-sister-friend.

Last spring she requested a hat to wear to her son’s college graduation, an event so important to her she was determined she would not miss no matter what, chemo treatments notwithstanding. So I made her a white cotton cloche, and we noticed how friends and sisters often choose to ‘wear different hats’ for each other, and in each other’s lives.

That little white cloche, as you may well have guessed, became the inspiration and prototype for the Three Sisters crochet cloche hats we are sharing with you here. When you make this or either of the other two hats in the pattern, you’ll notice, I’m sure, that though they each look very different from each other, at the core, they are really so very similar. Like sisters.

My sister-friend has left this world now – and a gaping hole in my heart and life. It’s what this moment holds. I feel deep sorrow, and deep gratitude.

 

Teresa Dane Marcel

It is then, in her honor that we dedicate this story, as we imagine 'Squash Blossom' might have told it:

 

Squash Blossom's Story

My mother, Earth-Mother, died giving birth to twin sons. Her mother, Sky Woman, buried her and from her body grew my two sisters and myself.  The eldest, Corn Woman, grew tall and strong. She wears a flirty little cloche to protect her silky hair from the sun. My second sister, Bean Maiden, is thin, quick and very agile. She’s always moving about, always alert and observant, even if she isn’t very strong physically - and she knows how delightful she looks in her sassy little trademark tam.

 

I am called Squash Blossom, and am short and sturdily built. I don’t move very fast and as we three sisters have traveled about, I’ve appreciated my brimmed hat’s protection from the elements.

 

We are constant companions to each other and to our people - in times of peace and leisure, as well a those of strife. And so it is that we three sisters have traveled with our people from time before time on the journey of life.  It is a hard, often merciless journey. There have been many times when people who could not keep up were left to fend for themselves or die along the path. Despair and suffering are all around us, but we three sisters help each other stay alive  and keep moving. We stick together, and, different as we are, each one contributes our strengths to the effort.

 

Since I only manage a slow and steady pace, I always worry that I might not be able to keep up with my sisters in our travels. But we all help each other along the way. Corn Woman draws upon her strength to help us keep upright and moving along when we get tired. Bean Maiden, delightful soul that she is, is always darting about, disappearing here and there into the thick bush along the trail and reappearing with food to keep us going. I just plod along, seldom stopping, but in my slow, steady pace, I often notice things that my sisters have missed - such as small springs that keep us refreshed.

 

To this day, we are remembered for our creative, sisterly cooperation, and corn, beans and squash are planted together to remember us: the tall, strong corn supports the bean plants and keeps them away from the muddy ground and bugs, while the bean takes nourishment from the air to help the corn and the squash grow. The squash grows slowly but steadily, and during the hottest part of the summer shades the ground and keep the moisture in.

 

© 2008 Divine Women Creative Studio. Written by Teresa Dane Marcel.

 

Further thoughts from Squash Blossom:

On felting: When we wash and knead wool to felt it, all those tiny little fibers hook on to each other, enmesh and become a stronger, more solid fabric. I know from personal experience that the sisterhood of women is like that too: all that enmeshing can get pretty messy sometimes, but in the end it makes us stronger: after all, as it has been said, we are not put on this earth to see through one another, but to see one another through.

Flowers from the same garden: Oh, I know sisters don’t always get along. Sometimes you wouldn’t even know they come from the same parents, they are so different - they are, I suppose, like different flowers in the same garden. Are you familiar with the adage which says that “If you want to be incrementally better, be competitive. If you want to be exponentially better, be cooperative”? Though so different in their very way of being,  I believe that my sisters Bean Maiden and Corn Woman are a living example of this, for, at their very roots they nourish each other while they support each other’s growth outwardly.

 

On creativity: Do you think that being creative means coming up with new, fresh, never done before ideas and making something of them all by yourself? And that if you don’t do that, you are not creative? As I trod along life in my slow and steady pace, being so close to the ground, I might be forgiven for feeling that it does seem awfully difficult to reach up to the sky and touch, much less hold onto even one of the wondrous creative ideas dispersed in that ether...  Then I remember that Helen Keller said, “ Alone we can do so little; together we can do so much.” I don’t have to do everything by myself. You don’t have to do everything yourself. Get together with your soul-sisters - put your heads and hearts together and see what you can come up with together!

 

Differences as strengh: As you’ve probably noticed, my sisters and I could not be more different:  my sister Corn woman is wonderfully tall and slender, and Bean Maiden is so agile and sassy, while I am so very short and close to the ground. I could so easily be envious of them, and feeling like Cinderella steeping in her ashes while her sisters get all dressed up and go to the ball. I must admit that sometimes I do feel like that. On the other hand, our differences and the different hats we wear in life can, if we are willing to look for them, bring out the imaginative possibilities in our natures and highlight the ways in which our differences become talents and abilities that we add to the pot, so to speak - as I imagine happens between you and your sisters, as well as the women in your life who are such dear friends as to be soul-sisters. And that is something worth celebrating, wouldn’t you say?