imazighen wool traditions

We were privileged to host artist storyteller Maya Poon and photographer Kate Berry in the beautiful Atlas Mountains foothills earlier this year, on our Morocco Wool Weaving Workshop.
Below, Maya shares about the experience, accompanied by Kate’s beautiful photos.

It was in the valleys of Morocco,
along the running river,
through the mountains of pink soil,
that we witnessed the power of songs from the Amazigh women.
Sung while they were washing the wool in the clean river,
sung while they were spinning the material into a thin thread,
sung while they were weaving together as sisters —
they sung the ancestral spirit.

Just as the Siroua sheep gave her wool,
to the clean river,
to the hands that transformed it into a thread,
to the threads that soaked in henna,
to be woven into a rug —
the song like the wind,
carried the ancestral spirit through each hand that touched the wool,
continuously weaving remembrance and wisdom at every step. 

And perhaps —
the songs were not only heard by our ears but woven into the wool,
into the threads and deep into the rugs —
into the mountains and the flowing river —
as an act of remembrance of their roots and an honoring of Nature,
the source of their craft. 

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