(K)not a Magician - Written by Ren GS

My mother was a lot of things.

Including (accidentally? Purposefully? I may never know), a fairly adept magician.

It wasn't until many years later, when I was researching folk magic traditions, that I consciously realized my mother had, for years, been draping me in… spells.

Hand-crocheted spells. 

Marginally stylish, occasionally itchy spells.

You see, I too, am a lot of things. I am definitely not a lucky person. 

Not naturally, anyway.

But whenever I wore one of my mother's, er, unique creations*I seemed to vacuum up all the good fortune in a room. 

It seemed my mother, stitch by stitch, knot after knot, imbued these garments with, well, love. Moreover, all the hopes and intentions of that love -- that I'd be happy, healthy, and successful.

See, my mother tapped into an ancient, global magical technique, one passed down generation to generation, tradition to tradition, because it works: the tying of knots as a spell activator. Somehow, the act of knot making transforms the knot into a buzzing little loci of focused intention.

And this holds a remarkable amount of power.

A remarkable amount of power anyone can learn to wield.

A (very) incomplete history

Humans have been revering the humble-ass knot for eons. Literally. Knots secured fish hooks, arrowheads, and spears; fashioned hides into clothing, reeds into baskets, twine into nets. 

Knots assured our survival. Then allowed us to even thrive. Now, they may seem overly simplistic, obvious -- even quaint.

But knots were indispensable technological innovations. They were strong, accessible, and portable.

They could also be unreliable. Without the right twist, amount of friction, or material, they could come undone. Sometimes, even tied correctly, in the best of circumstances -- as if picked at by invisible fingers -- they'd loosen or break.

It's not a huge mental leap to see how we ascribed power to knots themselves, and, with their fussy cruciality, power to the people who mastered the art of knotting itself. 

To tie a knot was to attempt to tame the earth itself.

By the time we reached the seafaring age, knots and knot-making were inextricably connected with magic, in both story and practice.

Lore 

Traditions portray knots as tests to power, like the Gordian knot, which irked Alexander the Great so much that he simply slashed it undone when it refused to untie; or as storehouses of wild natural forces, as in the Ásatrú Edda's recounting of Völundr the Smith releasing across Midgard 7 great storms stored in a knotted rope in his workshop, as revenge for being held captive of King Niðhad. No sailor worth his salt left on a voyage without a "wind knot" in their ditty, believing that the knots carried safe winds within, which could be released as needed. 

On a smaller scale, binding charms went literal, using ribbons, cord, or even hair to hold a person or idea close, or to keep them away -- finding their way, even, into Christianity, as priests eschewed fancy cravats for plain collars to prevent accidentally trapping demons who'd disrupt their ministering. 

The power of the knot wasn't only a phenomenon of Western Europe, either. There are countless examples of knots and their power in China, Japan, Egypt, the Incan civilization, Russia, and amongst the native peoples of Aotearoa, northern North America, and the Romani -- just to name a few.

Science!

I became a Chaote because of science -- a familiar path. Integrating the natural world and the unknown, using the scientific method to run spells like experiments made sense, when I learned how slippery and flexible laws get at the very big (universe) and very small (atomic). Add in my sentimentality over my mother's love spells and my own predilection for repetitive, meditative motion (I am on the spectrum somewhere, and knitting is a stim of mine), it is obvious I'd get into using yarn for magic.

I'm taking my mother's magic, though, and moving beyond. It's not just a potholder, kids. It's a goddamn portal between dimensions. 

Well, almost.

Tying it together

As expert knot-nerd Clifford Ashley, author of the encyclopedic Ashley Book of Knots wrote, the act of tying a knot "is an adventure in unlimited space…an excursion that is limited only by the scope of our own imagery and the length of the ropemaker’s coil."

Taking this idea further, mathematicians and physicists have developed a sub-discipline to theoretical physics, in which the topological variants of how knots can be tied, in three-dimensional space, can be examined, both literally and as metaphor, to understand statistical mechanics behavior at a quantum level (there's a great intro lecture here  [link: Knot Theory and Physics 1 Introduction ]). The complexity -- and apparent chaos -- of a seemingly randomly knotted length of cord, and how its length, volume, and surface area models possible behaviors of matter, space, time.

 

No biggie.

Now, if a magician were to construct herself such a model, in whatever way sings best to her -- for me, knitting something; for you, perhaps a braid of hair, a bit of twine, a paper and tape Möbius strip (feels grade school, but remember, the Möbius is the simplest non-orientable surface that also remains finite) -- how could such an action, done with attention and deliberation do anything but straddle the known and unknown...especially when that action is performed while setting strong intention.

Being a Chaote, I don't give a flying fuck how you, individually, set that intention. Some of us chant, write, or recite witchy spellcraft verse. Others might sigilize the cord, flinging the meaning far into the subconscious/collective unconscious, or activate by repetition, ritual, or 

suggestion (the very real neurological phenomenon of) the placebo effect [link: The neuroscience of placebo effects: connecting context, learning and health ]. It's about whatever works, for you, for now, for this.

Try. Experiment. And practice. You'll soon create reverb that transcends time, like the weird yarn concoctions that, decades after her passing, still bind me in a mother's love.

Thanks, Mom.

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* and I mean "unique." I was once the reluctant owner of a crocheted, pastel dirndl, complete with puffy sleeved blouse and apron for an Octoberfest.

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