I was sitting quietly on an October day before a small wooden handloom about half the width of my upright piano, ready to weave for the first time, hoping for a scarf to buffer the oncoming winter chill. My mind was a blank - I didn't know what I was doing. I had had zero experience with any sort of craft or handwork. Dim memories of elastic-loop frames from my early schooling filled me with despair - even my mother could muster only politeness about those soulless, sloppy "potholders".

Now I didn't even have a pattern to follow, for Saori is improvisational weaving. My Saori teacher, Mihoko Wakabayashi, who happens to be my wife, calls it "weaving from the heart." I did have some inkling of improvisation from playing jazz piano. The chord progression of a tune, and the layout of the piano itself, were channels through which my musical imagination could flow. Now my only "chart" was a 15-inch-wide row of longitudinal threads called a warp. I'd watched Mihoko prepare warps for folks getting their first taste of Saori at demonstrations so they could just start weaving immediately, like being plopped on top of a snowy hill so they could coast down without having to drag their sled up. But the warp I was staring blankly at I had clumsily threaded on my own, randomly alternating strands of squirrel gray, forest green, and dandelion yellow. In choosing those colors, I figured I was setting a mood of quiet modesty for my piece, but I really had no idea what would emerge from my improvised weaving's interplay with my warp. I sat skeptically facing my supposedly untapped power of visual artistry, straining to trust Mihoko's encouraging words. "Don't worry about anything," she said. "There are no mistakes in Saori. Your deep creative spirit will come forth naturally. Just weave yourself."

Don't worry! No mistakes! Worries about life's mistakes were rampaging through my mind. We'd recently moved to Worcester from Kyoto, the fabled ancient capital of Japan, with our two boys, Asa and Noriyoshi, ages 5 and 2. What were we thinking? I was struggling to readjust to American life with uncertain income and career prospects at age 45, amidst a bout of pneumonia and severe back pain. I had pledged myself to helping Mihoko launch the first Saori studio in the United States in the front room of our triple-decker top-floor apartment. Saori, for all its robust following in Japan, seemed totally unknown here. Were we crazy? Maybe, but in any case, I needed first-hand acquaintance with Saori in order to get the word out to others.

So there I was, surrounded by spools of limitless color options, feeling spiritually and creatively dead as a doorknob. "I'm just not a visual person," I muttered, slapping a familiar label on myself. "Just start," Mihoko replied. "You think too much." That struck home. I knew that like many traditional Japanese arts, the contemporary art of Saori was steeped in Zen, with its emphasis upon embracing each moment with a fresh "beginner's mind" and an open heart. I sat in meditation for a few minutes, simply following my breathing in and out, softening my heart-mind and arousing faith. At last, I picked out a spool of subdued blue, wound it on a bobbin, stuck the bobbin in a canoe-shaped wooden shuttle, and coaxed my body through the motions of weaving, trusting my spirit to follow.

Luckily, the Saori weaving motions are so simple that my 5-year-old Asa can do them even though his feet barely reach the pedals. There are only two pedals, and the waltzing rhythm of "slide the shuttle, switch the pedal, pull the bar" did not take long to master. I just went back and forth in blue for a few inches, getting the hang of it. Then Mihoko put a basket of thread scraps of every possible hue by my feet. "We save even tiny pieces of extra yarn so that nothing is wasted," she gently coached. "Feel free to stick in odd threads or bunches whenever you like." That resonated with the jolly 3-year-old mess-maker inside me, and I began to get into a playful mood. Could I really just do anything, and not worry? I started to insert threads of all colors, like wispy rainbow clouds, at intervals whenever I felt like it. When I grew tired of the mellow blue in my shuttle, I switched to fire-engine red. Then, on an inspiration, I asked Mihoko to show me how to weave halfway across in one color, and continue across in another! Yahoo!

Before I knew it, I had woven nearly a foot, and had to wind my warp forward. Although my warp was over 6 feet long, I could only work on the 9 inches or so in front of me at the moment. As I wove, I unwound more warp, scrolling up what I'd woven where I wouldn't see it again until the piece was done. It was like writing on this word-processing screen without being able to scroll back to see earlier paragraphs - no editing possible! At some point, it hit me that this was like life: memories of what I've created, and ideas about how much I have left, can help me make poetic choices in the NOW. But all I can really know and affect is what is right in front of me. Thinking too much about what's before and after can limit my freedom and dam my creative inspiration. At a later point, I realized that I was so absorbed in moment-to-moment awareness of the edge of my unfolding tapestry, that my worries had vanished, and that I was in love with this new realm within me that I never knew or believed existed.

My first scarf turned out to be wild, humorous, and, to me, beautiful: Triangles and squares jutting in from the edges, spontaneous stripes, crazy chromatic contrasts. I asked countless "How do I…" questions, and had a few ecstatic flashes of insight when I discovered new techniques all by myself. There were several points where I had an idea, but couldn't make it come out the way I had it in my mind, or, worse, made something I thought was ugly. Lo and behold, when I unrolled my scarf, those "blemishes" appeared just right, like a gnarled, irregular knot lending charm to an old tree. "You see," Mihoko said, smiling, "No mistakes."

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The Saori Story

The word Saori is a Japanese pun: sao mimics the final syllables of the given name of the founder, Misao Jo (who, at 88 years of age, is still weaving and teaching), whereas ori means weaving (not the same ori which means folding, as in origami). The Japanese word sa also means "difference", so Saori also means different, or "alternative" weaving as opposed to conventional weaving. Misao Jo began weaving in her mid-50's, and from the start she abandoned traditional patterns that she believed a machine might imitate, seeking instead a style that was "full of humanity". Despite the popularity of her work with fashionable kimono shops, she refused to repeat any design she had already made, realizing that the secret of her success lay precisely in her spontaneity. Today Saori is a large non-profit organization with studios in every major Japanese city. Mihoko pursued her training as a teacher in Kyoto and was accepted as a member of the Saori Leaders' Committee shortly before our return to the United States. A certificate on her studio wall, signed by Misao Jo herself, acknowledges her little Worcester outpost.

Saori is uniquely famous in Japan for demonstrating that the potential for unleashing our creative human spirit is in all of us, regardless of any physical, mental, or developmental challenges we may have. Saori's gift to Japan has been to build common ground between people with and without disabilities through a shared joy in original creation. This is Mihoko's dream as well. Among the 25 or so students that come weekly to our tiny studio, none are more focused and prolific than the half-dozen teenage boys and girls from the Dr. Franklin Perkins School in Lancaster, which teaches students having a variety of emotional and behavioral challenges. Mihoko hopes someday soon to move her studio to a location that is accessible to everyone. Meanwhile, her portable looms travel with her to workshops and demonstrations at schools, churches, hospitals, communities for the elderly, and other institutions around the region. In Mihoko's own words: "I'm beginning to see many possibilities for Saori as a kind of visual meditation that lets people be very skillful and, at the same time, completely relaxed. I just want to share this wonderful way with everyone!"

For more information about classes, events, and Open Studio Days, call (508) 757-0116 or email to mihokosaori@juno.com.