As our Dream Map Project* unfolds, I will be featuring artists taking part in this collaborative piece of art. Today, we hear from Homani Ahava and her embroidery "Stitching A Dream" along with the powerful poem she wrote to accompany it, and a lovely interview. Photo credit: Adi Ziv Av.
STITCHING A DREAM
by Homani Ahava
(December 2024 / Month of Kislev 5785)
During my stay in the land of the butterflies,
they showed me their way of life.
Food neither comes from
the blossoms of flowers, nor trees.
Their nectar of life,
sweet, golden, bliss,
runs through a network of hearts.
All butterfly beings are interconnected
through tubes in their middle -
an intricate, dynamic, flexible grid
in whose center beats the heart of their world.
There is an endless exchange of honey.
They intentionally contract their hearts,
pumping liquid warmth into communal tissue -
while receiving nourishment
in return through their chords.
Sucking in juice by force,
means cutting yourself off
from the web of life.
Nobody knows and nobody wonders
where the nectar originates or is produced.
The continuous flow of Eden
solely is conditioned on
sharing.
Stitching this dream
I stand on burnt soil.
The ugly monster of war
raised its head once more.
In the month of Kislev,
month of dreams, of miracles,
I remember the butterfly beings...
their nourishing network of hearts.
I gaze at my Hanukiya.
Every candle is interlaced with
every other candle.
In ornate symmetry.
I smile.
The butterflies taught me
that
the Hanukiya of our souls
is a messy, chaotic fabric -
organic, alive.
The echo of explosions still in my ears,
I feel tormented by toxic discourse.
Polarization, gas lighting, erasure.
Layers over layers of self-perpetuating traumas.
I need to be like the Shamash -
grounding the light right through the center of my being...
bolstered by ancestral wisdom.
Tending to my tiny spark of light,
I commit to weaving
that gauze of love.
My red little blossom aches
in the face of human suffering.
Yet -
every time my heart contracts in pain,
I want to pump
some of my own amber delicacy
into the red glittery net.
I imagine blood drops once soaking the land,
turning into pomegranate seeds.
A day dream about the Children of Abraham
turning banners into flower garlands
on which the butterflies can land...
Homani's practice:
I am in love with the vibrancy of tribal and folk embroidery.
Fluctuating between traditional patterns and intuitive embroidery, every stitch is my very personal expression of feminist prayer.
I am inspired by the hearty stew of daily life, a crazy potpourri of the sacred and the profane. I listen to the ancestral spirit of the land and all its beings.
I dedicate my work, my joy to the Divine Presence, who nourishes it.
* * *
Homani answers a few questions about her creative practice, and life in general:
1. How did you come to textile work, and what is the meaning of textile art in your life?
It might sound cliché... but crafting was part of my upbringing as far as I can think back.
Before learning to write, I weaved little carpets for my doll house. I recall that I made my very first embroidery in the age of 7: a hedgehog next to a basket underneath a pear tree. I stitched it on a sky blue cotton bag, in which I keep my socks today.
For many years I only embroidered randomly, mainly making birthday or holiday gifts for friends and family. I also enjoyed sewing for my son when he was little: shorts, embellished vests and Purim costumes - my favourite one definitely was a wild boar costume.
At the age of 39 I experienced a major shift in my relation to embroidery/textile when my mother, may her memory be a blessing, passed away.
It was as if there was a creative explosion, paired with an unstoppable drive to stitch, hours and hours, weeks and weeks, months on end. Initially it helped me in my grief journey around my mother's passing. Slowly embroidery turned into my very personal Sacred Medicine. Healing of the Feminine, a way of working through layers and layers of inter generational trauma, as well as tapping into ancestral wisdom and resilience.
Embroidery got into touch with all areas of my life. My work as an Ayurvedic practitioner, Yoga practice, music, my deep art based research and teaching of the stars, Astrology. Embroidery became a medium to channel stories, energies, meeting mythological beings and the Holy One in so many forms. At times the Biblical Matriarchs showed up, offering their wisdom while being stitched on fabric - intertwining with the elements and the seasons.
During the recent war PRAYER became dominant in my artistic practice. Through embroidery I tried to create a bridge between the harsh, painful outer reality and my ideals. I stitched my prayers, slowly, intuitively... and they transformed, calmed and nourished me - mostly without me being aware of it during the process. And again, a lot of grief work. Processing the unbearable suffering I witness in my close environment. Together with the grief, rejoicing. Stitching the tiny gems of love and joy that drip out of a heart, broken so many times that it feels like Shoarma.
2. Can you share the significance of the dream map for you?
Do you have a dreamwork practice (i.e. writing a dream journal)? What impact have dreams had in your creative journey?
I am a big dreamer. When I was a child I was ridiculed for my dreaminess, called a "dream dancer" which was an insult in our language and cultural setting back then.
Many years of transformative inner work later, I'd proudly wear a T-Shirt with this term.
I resonate with the views of many indigenous people, among them the ancient Israelites, according to whom dreams are of great importance - be it as seeds for manifestation, prophecies or access to parallel realities - dreams as magical keys to invisible realms.
Dreams in all of their forms are an integral part of my life.
A few years ago I was part of a precious group experience: joint dreaming in a feminist Jewish - Arabic dialogue program, supported by Shamanic facilitators. I was lucky to go through this process in the Galilee (North Israel).
The Dream Map Project deeply moves me. I love the vision of gifting it to humanity. Our civilization is in desperate need of empowered creative dreaming.
On a very personal level my humiliated, dreamy inner child celebrates a late victory. I feel her confidently straightening her back... the very first embroidery she sends abroad... being a DREAM. And instead of mocking her, people will listen.
3. What is your creative method (intuitive, planned, responsive? etc)
I have no idea. Maybe a little bit of everything?
["Big smile.."]
4. What is the importance of nature for you?
I feel that I am part of nature, nature is a part of me. My body is an integral part of the Earth. The elements we seemingly experience on the outside, are an inherent part of our being. The notion of being separate from nature probably is the biggest illusion of our time and age. Connecting to nature, inside and out, is an important aspect of feeling the Divine. I believe respecting and caring for nature around and inside us means sanctifying life. Maybe our most sacred task.
5. Can you share the best advice you've ever received?
"... I would like to beg you, dear Sir, as well as I can, to have patience with everything unresolved in your heart and to try to love the questions themselves as if they were locked rooms or books written in a very foreign language. Don't search for the answers, which could not be given to you now, because you would not be able to live them. And the point is, to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps then, someday far in the future, you will gradually, without even noticing it, live your way into the answer. "
--- Rainer Maria Rilke
In my twenties I moved from Amsterdam to Johannesburg as a part of Greenpeace International's "Africa Team", supporting the set up of the very first offices of the environmental campaigning organization on the African continent. My heart was full of passion, questions and insecurities. As I embarked into the unknown, a wise friend gave me Rainer Maria Rilke's "Letters to a Young Poet." This was the best advice I ever received. Cherishing questions rather than answers.
Where to find Homani @sacred_folk_embroidery
Photos by Adi Zivav - Instagram: @adizivav
*About the Dream Map Project: with artist Sofie Dieu, we are mapping dreams worldwide using embroidery, appliqué, stitching...
It might be a recent dream or a dream received in your childhood. Perhaps it was so powerful that it still lingers in you. As active dreamers, Sofie and I invite you to share it in an embroidery work. The world needs to dream again!
GUIDELINES:
Each artist creates a 30cm x 30cm textile work that depicts a significant dream they have received.
We will assemble the selected artworks to form a dream map. This map will then be exhibited in Scotland and Melbourne, Australia.