Going up

Ah, Petra is becoming a fading memory already. But I have the photos to remind me and prove I was really there. These rocks are just so incredibly cool. And the sky was cooperating, too. Up we go, toward the High Place of Sacrifice.

And up, and up and up. You have to keep on going, beyond where it looks like reasonable people might stop, to reach the actual spot.

Trees!  I noticed that the dry places of Jordan have these cedar-type trees, which are familiar to me from other dry places like Ladakh, India. They seem to be able to grow with very little soil and moisture, and I suspect some of them are very old.

Here we are. I lay down on the slab where my backpack is, thinking that was the place of actual sacrifice. But the actual spot is where I'm standing to take the photo. There's a kind of drain, for the blood. 

Click to enlarge (that works, right?) and you can see buildings on the ground behind me. That's the area leading to the Monastery, which is the other place we climbed up to. We spent 9 hours hiking through Petra, since we only had this one day.  Up, down, across, and up again. It was great. 

Looking down on the tombs. 

Wandering around on this level, we saw smoke rising from a small fire behind a rock outcrop, and found a Bedouin family having tea. They invited us to sit and drink tea with them, and we were more than ready for a nice cup of sweet black tea. It tasted especially good, cooked in a teapot directly over the coals.  Sitting there in their perfectly sheltered nook (it was windy and cold otherwise,) we felt completely relaxed and peaceful, and got a real taste of how people have lived in this place for centuries. I was again reminded of Ladakh, India, where things would be very nearly the same, except for the landscape.

At the end of a full day in Petra, this remained my favorite moment.

Entering Petra

Let's walk in, shall we?  The siq, or canyon which is not technically a canyon because it was caused by a split in the rock, winds along for quite a ways, and it's breathtaking the whole time. It's impossible to do the place justice in photos, especially with a little point & shoot. But I'll show what I've got anyway.

Starting at 6:30am, we had the place nearly to ourselves, with only a few other people spaced out far enough to give a sense of solitude.

The rocks still show signs of having fit together once.  On the left above, and both sides below, you can see the carved water channels that run the length of the siq.

Look for the geometric, carved alcoves in the photo below, tiny in the face of the rock. There were so many of these, all with subtle stairways or paths leading to them, as if the Nabateans tended them regularly.

Okay here it comes....

No words for that moment, except that the camels are very well placed.

The intricacy and depth of carving, into and against the living rock, is staggering.

 We reached the Treasury before the sun, and as we turned down the next path, we found that the men from the coffee shop opposite the Treasury had come down here to sit in the first warm sunlight, as it lit up some tombs.

Next, we go up.

Crusader castles

I was lucky enough to visit Jordan with a medieval art scholar, so on our way to the famously impenetrable Kerak Castle, I got a full narration of the Battle of Hattin and the Third Crusade, including the dastardly deeds of Reynald de Chatillon and the ultimate revenge of Saladin.

Not only that, but my friend Beth had the name of a curator at Kerak, so we were treated to a special tour that involved opening locked doors and descending underground. The image above is the underground hall which served as a war room, with the throne at one end. That's natural light coming from above.

After our tour of the hidden depths of the castle, we clambered around on top, a cold wind whipping at our clothes.  Further along the way to Petra, there was one more small castle, and our driver knew we would want to stop, having witnessed Beth's enthusiasm.

Shobok is much smaller than Kerak, but its isolated location on a high promontory lends drama to the ruins.

My photos from both castles show my penchant for arches, especially in multiples.

I also loved the hand-hewn projectiles for the catapults (Beth calls them trebuchets.) The site was littered with these handmade stone spheres, and they made me smile, somehow losing their sense of weaponry after so many centuries.

It's impressive to think that theses were built to be in communication with one another. A fire signal from Shobok could be seen in Kerak, and the signal from Kerak would reach Jerusalem.

I had a very hard time imagining the scene during the Crusades, but Beth has a vivid imagination and a huge wealth of knowledge. Her expertise shone in full glory in this show at the Getty Museum.

Jordan juxtapositions

It is going to take me a while to present my brief but wondrous trip to Jordan, but in looking at my photos from Petra I could not help seeing these Bedu weavings (the simplest, most everyday weavings, some old and worn, used as drop cloths and tent roofs) as somehow reflective of the landscape's drama.

I eagerly photographed both, and they seemed to have a dialogue going back and forth. 

Most of these utilitarian weavings are made with recycled synthetic yarns, not handspun. They inspired me with their straightforward practicality, their obvious role as useful objects.

There is much, much more to come.

Spin-Off

It has been a long time since I posted, but I have a print article available right now, in the Spring 2012 issue of Spin-Off Magazine.  It's about the Bedouin weaver I met in the souk here in Doha, and readers of the blog will be familiar with some of the content from previous posts, such as Ouerjan and String.
Above is a bonus view of her most recent weaving. The variegated natural yarn is handspun.

While I'm at it, I'll share my Bedouin-inspired finished pieces from the turn of the year. A bag made from my cotton ouerjan weaving:

And from the handspun souk yarn, a pillow cover with a bit of twining and a figure eight joining stitch.

Meanwhile, here in Doha we've had nasty, dusty wind, coming over from major storms in Saudi Arabia (a dust storm and a snow storm, apparently.)  So I've been thinking about the color of dust.

Ode to Khadi

When Gandhi was promoting swaraj, or self-rule (ie, independence from the British) in India, he urged Indians to discard their milled cloth from England, learn to spin and weave cotton themselves, and wear only cloth that was produced by hand in India.  This was his concrete and powerful  manifestation of self-rule.  Gandhi set the example by spinning on a charka for long hours, even during meetings and interviews, and wearing a simple dhoti made of homespun cotton, sometimes with a homespun wrap or shawl.

Therefore, the bust of Gandhi at Mani Bhavan, the house he occupied while in Bombay which has been converted into a small museum, is not garlanded with flowers but with handspun cotton yarn.

The homespun cotton is called khadi, and it became a lasting political symbol in India. From the first Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru to today’s members of the Congress Party, politicians wear khadi garments as expressions (however hypocritical or sincere) of solidarity with Gandhi’s original vision. 
Khadi fabric is produced all over the country as a government-initiated cottage industry.  Every town of any size has its own khadi emporium, and the products vary according to the traditional dress and garment needs of the region.  The cotton (and silk, and wool) is spun and woven by trained artisans in their own homes.  I believe that nowadays, the term khadi is applied to fabric that has a handspun weft, while the warp may be milled yarn.

 Even humble handtowels and bath towels have elegance and intrigue when made from khadi.

For me as a quilter, khadi was an extremely interesting fabric to come across.  Given its relatively loose, handwoven quality, it’s not great for precision quilting, but a blanket made of large khadi squares in different colors is a beautiful sight.

King-size khadi wedding quilt I made with a hand-cranked Puja sewing machine in India, circa 1999:

I have never been to any production sites for the weaving or spinning of khadi, but I avidly shop for the yardage whenever I’m in India.  The shops run a gamut from the sleek, chrome-and-steel, multi-storied department store atmosphere of the Khadi Gramodyog Bhavan in Connaught Circle, New Delhi, to the dusty, poorly lit, unrenovated-in-60-years look of the Khadi Bhavan on D.N. Road in Fort, Mumbai.  (no photos allowed inside - bummer!)
When we were living near Dharamsala in north India, I made regular trips to the khadi shop there, a small cubby with floor-to-ceiling shelves of promising yardage. The stock seemed to turn over quickly, and there would always be something new and different. Bulky weight, lightweight, streaks of purple and green or just blue on white, or a new solid color I’d never seen before, in mint green or the honey yellow of a monk’s robe.  The shopkeeper got used to my strange habits of admiring the cloth and buying a meter here, a meter there, sending him to remote shelves to extract an interesting looking wedge of color and texture.

It always amazes me to think that this shopkeeper was working for the government of India, as are all the employees of the khadi shops and all the craftspeople that make the fabric throughout the country.  I’ve had the experience of telling someone in India I practice handicrafts and being asked, “Government job?”  Wouldn’t that just be great.
I like to make myself clothes and shawls from khadi, because it soothes me to look at the weave. I can literally get mesmerized by the details of the cloth as it drapes my body, and the handcrafted warp and weft give a strong sense of grounding calm.

The khadi shops also offer "ahimsa silk," which is silk produced without killing any worms, in accordance with Gandhi's principle of non-violence (ahimsa in Hindi or Sanskrit.) I have a khadi  ahimsa silk shawl that has gotten progressively softer and more excellent with washing and wearing. It's one of the very nicest fabrics I own.

So while I can't talk about details of current production methods, I wanted to at least share the love and let others see the wonder of this rich and symbolic cloth. Any additional information is most welcome.

This extremely beautiful video gives a poetic picture of khadi. If you're a spinner, it will make you want a charka. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z5PJrzLdAbk)