Where can women go to learn basic woodworking skills where wellbeing and the feminine qualities of simply existing, perceiving, and receptivity are welcomed and celebrated in the world of building, alongside masculine expression of dynamic, directed doing?
Building sites are worlds full of commotion and clamour, swearing and sweat, deadlines and time pressure, hierarchy and inflated ego. They can be unsafe places of relentless violence against the human body and spirit. Men’s Sheds could be an option but implicitly or explicitly both exclude women by the very name and nature of the culture within their walls.
Walk into The Railway Shed, Mullum and you’re walking on the right side of the tracks. The comfy couches as you enter, walls lined with neat jars of assorted leaf tea, eclectic collection of mugs, bottles, and a bottle exchange, all speak to a culture of wellbeing, of comfort, inclusion, and belonging.
Shed your fears and build with Curiosity: Shedders 5 Agreements
- Celebrate mistakes
- Own the tool
- Check in with our feelings
- Communicate our feelings
- Be kind
My breathing and heart go quiet in this space as Sophie the founder of Shedding greets us and invites us in to get comfy while she shares her story and the 5 agreements of Shedders. It’s multilayered and fantastic and I am riveted. Her Shedding Story and Agreements rival the The Four Agreements: A Practical Guide to Personal Freedom that sold 10 million copies in the US that I have on my bookshelf and have never read.
It becomes clear through wobbly voices and tears, as the 3 women and 4 men open up and express their vulnerability, that many of us carry some kind of trauma around tools or wounding around exclusion and by default belonging. We want to create through our hands but lack access to a emotionally safe, supportive, empowering environment, the tools themselves and a basic human right to know how to build and fix stuff.
The tagline Shedding fears and building with curiosity rings true. It’s what I’ve been doing this past year; what we have all been asked to do through COVID, fires and floods. As I course correct my life in the pursuit of joyful, simple reciprocal living with Nature, I know I will need the practical skills that Sophie teaches – measuring, marking, squaring, sawing, drilling and screwing timber.
As Sophie explains, she demonstrates, moving her hands and body around the tools with a blend of Qigong grace and the athleticism of a contemporary dancer. She reverses the chi; we become the object and the tools become the subject of our fascination and curiosity. The body is a bridge between these two worlds and the tools are the medicine.
In doing the job at hand safely, there is no harm, there is no violence it all begins as a kind of fluid foreplay. The part of my heart that’s been broken by witnessing others’ brokenness and experiencing my own starts to fix itself back together. I weep privately with a mixture of joy and gladness that I’m here learning mindfulness and reciprocity with tools and wood that’s in flow and harmony with my body.
Through breath and softening into the resistance of saw moving or drill screwing through wood we learn to listen to the song of each saw: Japanese saw, tenon, jacksaw, and sounds of the impact driver and drill. It’s sensual; we can feel, smell and hear the difference between harmony and the blunt whine and stink of damage. Sophie makes sawing sexy, drilling an irresistible act of penetration. And no one is blushing, we all want this.
Looking around the shed, I see colourful felt flags and acoustic panels hanging from the roof beams. There is great beauty in the order and cleanliness, everything and everyone has a place and a feeling of wellbeing washes over me. There’s a table of items needing repair, neat stacks of wood, tools and equipment. It’s a place of regeneration and repair of bodies, hearts and spirits as well as household objects.
As our Upskill course finishes, a group of older women are milling around the lounge holding onto various items, waiting for their turn at the Repair Cafe. I Imagine they secretly want to keep shedding parts of themselves, perhaps returning home to their partners more empowered, euphoric, defiant, self-assured like us. That’s what building and fixing stuff does, especially for others and it shouldn’t just be reserved for men. Emerging into the bright sunlight of a Mullum Saturday arvo, the three of us hug and happy dance because finally we have found our teacher and a place to belong. We are going with the grain instead of against it.
