It Begins with a Knot

When I make a kekkai stone, I begin by twisting the cord.

The outer fibers of hemp are carefully dried until they become golden strands known as seima. I twist two bundles of these fibers together, using friction to turn them into a single cord.

Then I tie that cord around a stone.

Whether twisting fibers into a cord or tying that cord around a stone, bringing two things together requires friction.

Friction is what allows them to hold their shape as one.

It feels a little like human relationships.

The Japanese word musubu—to tie, to bind, to connect—seems to carry much more than a simple physical action.

We musubu a bond.

We musubu a relationship.

There is something active in the word. It suggests reaching out by one’s own will and beginning something.

You extend your hand and create a new relationship between things that had previously been separate.

And from there, a story begins that did not exist before.

But there is a subtle difference between musubu—to bind—and musubareru—to be bound, or to find oneself connected.

With musubareru, you may not have chosen anything at all. Somehow, you simply find yourself already in relationship with someone or something.

There is something mysterious in the way the word feels: a story beginning beyond the reach of your own intention, whether you asked for it or not.

And with such a beginning may come not only joy, but also anticipation, uncertainty, and sometimes fear of the story that is about to unfold.

What I find especially interesting is that musubu evokes not only beginnings, but endings as well.

In Japanese, we have the word shimekukuru: to bring something to a close.

To shimekukuru a story is to end it.

And yet kukuru itself also means to gather things together, to bind them, to tie them.

We tie, and something begins.

We tie, and something ends.

Beginnings and endings appear to be opposites.

But perhaps they are simply the same event seen from different sides.

Whenever something begins, something that existed before it is ending at the very same moment.

And whenever something ends, something else may already have begun.

Perhaps beginning and ending are, in some sense, the same thing.

A cord needs friction in order to become one.

A knot needs friction in order not to come undone.

Through friction, things are able to remain together, at least for a while.

Human relationships may not be so different.

Two bundles of fibers are twisted into a single cord.

Then the cord is tied around a stone.

It begins with a knot, and ends with a knot.

Tosei Shinabe