The Occasional Beauty of Barbed Wire

The land we were on for our wilderness rites of passage program is private land with a logging history. There is a big tumble of rusted, old barbed wire right near basecamp. So on June 16th, we wound it all with the yarn colors of the four directions, hung things from it, and left the banner in the center. We were kind of quiet, it was sweet, and one woman reframed the barbed wire. She spoke to the folks who made it, who strung it, who believed it would keep the right things in or out, etc. I had seen it only as a symbol of oppression, so I was very grateful to her.