The Tension in Knotted Threads

The writer of 1491 had some wonderful pages about the knotted strings that were used to carry information in Mesoamerica. I should lug the book up here to cite his name, and the name of the researcher who gave him so much more data about the tension and the twists carrying megabytes of information. Maybe on a more energetic day.

And the other day I looked up prayer shawls, wondering if I'm going to work on more of these newfangled Christian ones; and found a lovely pair of websites about the tallit, the real prayer shawl. A Jewish man would possibly wear his all the time, but to pray, he can pull it over his head and have a private tent. And the fringes are at the four corners, and there are specific instructions on the turns, the twist, the knot, of those fringes, so that the tension and the twists carry information to the wearer as he fingers the fringes. These fringes became the hem of the garment. Plays nicely into the new research about Mesoamerica. Even the color of the string used, a blue string in each corner for special reminding...

Black bird of happiness?

Well, here we are in Holy Week and I still haven't particularly bounced into enthusiasm for Illinois. The little iris under the linden weren't particularly numerous this year, although the old established group in back were remarkable, brilliant and jostling each other. The snowdrops lasted a really long time, snowdrops near the hellebore are still showing white. Glory of the snow (chionodoxa) are in a second week of showing. The new scilla are showing more and more every day, as blue as can be. Daffodils have burst into color.

Got through all the really good books I had on hand and finally went to the library. And standing outside it, spent half an hour, well, more than that, trying to decide without binoculars whether there was really a large bird in a distant tree or maybe just an old big plastic bag stuck in bare branches. Finally went far out of my way to try to get next to that tree, and it's in back of a large residential retirement center, can't get a car in there -- I swear, I think it might have been a wild turkey.

Sat in the front yard, and a neighbor came by who let me know that if I'm enjoying hunting a sighting of hawks, I should go a mile east where there are apparently a lot of hawks living on the side of a visible quarry. Not a trip to Kankakee, just go to First Avenue? By God, I've gotta remember to bring the binoculars. I wish I'd had them when I went to the library.