Reflecting on rigging - the tie that binds
I was recently at a canoe blessing, and felt a calm and beauty there - it was a wonderful day because I began and ended my social outings by standing in a circle of blessing. In the AM, at a canoe blessing, and in the PM, at the end of our Confirmation celebration banquet.
I took a short video of my coach and some other guys from the Hui rigging one of the Koa Canoes, named Enay for one of the Hui's "saints", a former coach. Rigging is the process of tying the yaka (yoke) to the ama (outrigger/floater) and to the hull of the canoe. In all, the yoke is tied in four places. It takes a couple of folks, at least, to do this, and up to four can be helpful (two on each side). You have to hold the line in place while it is being stretched taught, and then while it is being threaded through the wholes in ama or in the canoe made for the line to thread through.
Think of the details in the process, the symetry, the beauty and elegance of the threading the cord to yoke the ama to the canoe with the yaka ("yoke"). There is much spiritual in canoes, and many metaphors that I am sure will make sermon analogies. Today, I'm thinking about the beauty of the cords, and remember the hymn I sang so often as a child, youth and young adult - "Blest be the tie that binds/our hearts in Christian love..." The fellowship is like that to that above.
In these days of divisions, and persnickityness, I'm pleased to meditate on the strength of that which unites us, and tethers us one to another.
