My Sewing Practice

I grew up around sewing, but I never sewed as a kid. My Mom had her own sewing room and she made clothes. She would not take orders or have paying customers. She made the clothes she wanted to make, for people she loved. She had attended a vocational high school in New Brunswick and learned the basics there.

I really enjoyed the fact that my Mom sewed. She made us matching sweatshirts. She would make Christmas pajamas and during the 80's, she made me various nylon vests and pants to aid me in my breakdancing aspirations. But I never took on the notion of learning from her.

When I began my Zen practice, she made me some nice drawstring pants for zazen.

When I took Jukai, she marvelled at the hand sewing we did. She was never much for hand sewing. Any hemming or hand finishing, fell to my father. He did not think of himself as a sewer. He had been a career sailor before my birth and was just a man who took up what needed to be done.

As an aside, I like the word sewer better than sewist or anything else, regardless of the other implications of its spelling.

My Mom helped me figure out how to make Rakusu bags, though my first one was too small and ended up as a book cover.

I learned to sew the Rakusu because we had to sew our own for Jukai. I kept up the practice, because others needed help.

Before I was a sewing teacher for the Sangha, I spent several Jukai sesshins just making straps. One year, I think I made the straps for at least 75% of the class.

Do'on Sensei helped to guide me in my sewing when I did Jukai.

I was the last person to finish. I remember sitting there with another practitioner, sewing in the hidden stitches on the back border while Do'on attached the neck piece.

When I became a sewing teacher here, I trained under Sho'on, who had led Jukai sewing a few years, along with Rev. Yugen.

Eventually, we needed to move beyond just Rakusu. The Seminary program was starting up and we were going to need to know how to sew O'kesa and various priest robes.

Do'on Sensei was able to get me in contact with Kaaren Wiken, my (and Yugen's) current sewing teacher.

Quick history: Kaaren was the sewing student of Tomoe Katagiri, the wife of Dainin Katagiri. Tomoe had learned to sew Rakusu and O'Kesa while working with Shunryu Suzuki Roshi in San Francisco in the 1960's.

Since then, I have learned to make O'kesa, Zagu, Juban, and Kimono. I am travelling out to see Kaaren this summer and learn more. At the same time we are working to transform all of this sewing knowledge into community knowledge. As of that process I am happy to announce that the Teachers have invited Shugen and Yuzo to apprentice under Yugen and I as Assistant Sewing Teachers.

When I hold the needle, I feel my father's hands. When I take on another sewing project, even when I am not sure how to proceed, I feel my mother's heart, as I sew robes for the people I love. It's not actually the sewing that I love. It's the people that I am sewing for.