Dressed in nature.
Published with permission from the Author.
Once someone said that my voice has the softness of woolen thread spun with silk. I am an embodiment of my creative practice, always mixing strands of lustrous silk with coarser wool when I spin yarn or felt textiles.
I wear nature's fibers next to the skin. The coarse and rough wool feels tickly and sensual against my skin in a different way than silky, soft fabrics. The coarseness demands my attention, awakens my senses to the wild landscapes where the wool was grown and washed clean by the salty sea. Engaging with clothes in such a way creates a safe place for me. I embrace my sensitivity and vulnerability through the way I dress. Clothing is shelter.
Working with dye plants and natural fibers brings me back to where the materials were gathered, the feelings I had, my thoughts, the soft melancholy of my barefoot steps through the forest. My clothes become a healing relationship between my inner wilderness and the natural world, a continued connection with the animals and plants that gifted the materials for my clothes and my emotional landscape. Clothing is an extension of my sensuous being.
I dig my fingers in the forest ground and leave the soil and scent under my short fingernails (and wear the dirt like nail polish) before going to a party, bringing the tranquility of the forest with me. I wash my hair in the forest pond, dress myself with a protective layer of water. I sleep in the forest, cuddled up on my sheep skin, fingers braided with moss and heather. This is my sacred, secret ritual. I dress up in nature to feel safe and grounded.
published in The Lissome vol. 4
https://www.thelissome.com/contributors-1/arolilja-svedal-jorgensrud
