I once read (and have since forgotten where or from who—please feel free to correct this quotation or provide a citation if you have one), that

Creating is not something that gods do, it is something that they are.

Elsewhere, in reading feminist interpretations of the bible (specifically, the time in Eden), I discovered a reading of the myth of the forbidden tree that interpreted “if you eat this, you shall become as gods” to be that, once the apple was eaten, humanity gained the ability to procreate—to participate in the essential element of godhead.

Of course, I do not think that creation of life is necessarily the only kind of divine act—all acts of creation, in my mind, qualify. Programming a computer application, writing a poem, sculpting a nude, formulating an equation, sketching a lover’s hand, and—though it has taken me some time to come to this determination—sewing.

I’ve used to envy knitters—they create things from just string!—and lament my lack of creativity. But I’ve since discovered that I do have some modicum of the divine spark of creativity.

Arachne, Grandmother Spider, Anansi, and the other divine avatars of the spider are always patrons of weavers and civilization. I still hope to one day learn to weave, but until then, I accept that all the fabric arts (a designation that still makes me snicker) qualify as much as participating in the divine act of creation as poetry, sculpture, and watercolor.

So, when I sew, I see it as an act of communion with the divine—whether or not I’m praying as I snip, measure, and thread, I’m engaging the energy of creation. At the end of the day, there is Something that Was Not at the beginning of the day. And I look upon it and it is good.