Journeys From The Journey -
Textile Narratives

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Life as pilgrimage

At the end of life,
a journey away from,
yet returning to the beginning.

Healing, reconciling, reframing.
The despair of twisted ankles,
met by the hope of horizons.
The blisters of
institutional failure,
soothed by the salve of
compassion and activism.

We walk with
companions from the past.
We forge new connections
under the
strength and guidance of
individual and collective light
of the North Star,
the Big Dipper,
Cassiopeia and
the Pleiades.

In a universe measured in light-years,
so far away…
and so close…
taking small steps
returning to a seemingly
impossible destination –

Connection.

I have explored life as a Pilgrim, walking daily. In 2019, I walked more than 600 miles on the Camino de Santiago from St. Jean Pied de Port in France to Santiago de Compostela and on to Finisterre and Muxia on the west coast of Spain. In 2025, my wife and I walked more than 300 miles along the Portuguese route of the Camino from Porto to Santiago and on the Finisterre and Muxia. And in 2026, I joined Freedom  Walk 2026 for a 750-mile walk retracing Underground Railroad routes from Maryland to Canada. -T.D.

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The North Star

Like a moment in time along the Erie Canal, this needle-felted art piece casts a soft light on my life and what I hold most dear.

Winding, wooded, and often secluded paths have shaped my journey.

Water has always been a dynamic energy for me. Billowing waves celebrate the Atlantic Ocean, with memories of childhood summers. Turquoise beauty speaks of my lifelong love of both Green Lakes and Skaneateles Lake, special places of serenity for me.

For their majestic nature and silent wisdom, I’ve loved trees for as long as I can remember.

The Two Row Wampum Belt, a sign of friendship between nations, gives honor to the Onondaga Nation, Fire Keepers of the Haudenosaunee, on whose ancestral land I live.

The North Star reflects the freedom journeys of Harriet Tubman, as she paralleled the Erie Canal on the Underground Railroad. Knowing Harriet was a source of guidance, I believe she is not done with us yet.

Like a clarion call, the sky announces, “I’m here, look up.” No two skies are alike, no two days are alike, and no two people are alike. Yet, here we all are, not separate entities, our lives intertwined and intimately connected, magnificent embodiments of earth, water, trees, stars, and sky. -M.D.

Felting by storyteller

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The Cost of a Door

Life threatened,
a clear solution—
available to some, but not all.

Who decides the door? People, or profit?
Open, or slammed shut?
A path forward, or a dead end.
No expense denied, or
to know denied expense.

We cry out: “Healthcare is a right”
"People before profit!"

Yet we demand concierge services and supplemental policies.
The direct number for scheduling.
Shrinking waists, engorging phalli,
the third third of life, driving quarterly returns.

There are no profits without customers,
no production without demand

And we ask again, who decides the cost of the door?

 

The routine of school drop-offs in the candy apple red station wagon changed forever the day my mom had a stroke while driving us to school. With one learner's permit among us, my sisters and I got her to the hospital, where we carried her motionless body into the emergency room. The exam indicated that she had a hole in her heart, and we learned that insurance would not cover the procedure. This was my first introduction to the injustice of systems that are profit-driven and has informed my continued work to change the broader systems that perpetuate injustice. -A.P.