When we think of taboos, we often think in terms of what they prevent us from doing/having, or what they protect us from. Since instituting the spinning taboos that I keep, I've discovered that taboos can also give us things. Today when unwinding my spindle before starting a new week if spinning, I was amazed at the difference between what I can do now, and what I could do when I first started. The daily spinning has not only given me discipline, but a useful skill, and the wool I cleared from my spindle will go into some hand knitted mittens of my own design, then for sale. The taboo mandates that I don't spin at the weekends, or on festival days (unless roving has been set aside for spinning as an offering with other spinners), and this gives me a set time off from it. The more I spin and keep these taboos, the more I learn of Frîja and my foremothers. It's taken many years for me to get from being the tomboy that always fought with the boys with no interest in the fiberarts or goddesses. There was a time when I only ever offered to male gods. But then there was that one pivotal day on a frozen lake in Germany when everything changed. A week or so from now, that moment that changed so much will be commemorated in ink on my skin in a tattoo big enough to be a half sleeve. In a lot of ways, this feels like it's going to be an initiation of sorts, and perhaps it is?
To what though, only time will tell.
