Posts Tagged ‘Spinning Wheel’

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Feast of St. Elizabeth of Hungary

Tobit 12:6b-9
Luke 6:35-38

The spinning wheel is, for us, a cultural artifact from a time before the Industrial Revolution. But for much of history in many parts of the world, spinning wheels were not only necessary household tools but carried significant symbolic meaning. In Grimm’s Fairy Tales, heroines are commanded to spin straw into gold or unwittingly prick their fingers on enchanted spindles. In India, Gandhi mobilized the already rich cultural associations between the spinning wheel and the manufacture of homespun cloth, transforming spinning into a spiritual practice and an act of Indian resistance to British rule. And in Byzantine icons of the Annunciation, the blessed Virgin Mary is often depicted holding a spindle and distaff – the ancient equivalent of the spinning wheel. Legend holds that she was one of the young women privileged with the task of spinning the yarn that would be woven into the great veil of the Temple in Jerusalem. Read More