“Do not look at me while I weave.”
01
The wounded crane
02
The cloth
03
The door
A poor man rescues a crane. A woman comes to his door. She weaves in a closed room and asks only that he not look. The cloth makes them rich; his curiosity (or greed) opens the door. He sees a crane plucking herself to make the weave. She flies.
The folktale is cousin to Psyche’s lamp and to every relationship, calling, or art that requires a room without an audience.
Inspect
INTERPRETATION
The crane wife is the vulnerable source of a gift. Looking is not always love; sometimes it is management. Hillman: the soul needs a cell of privacy or it will not keep weaving.
The shadow
Curiosity that is not trust. The opened door that kills the cloth.
Four lookings
Campbell
Which gift of yours is made of your own feathers?
von Franz
Where has curiosity become a way of not trusting the tale?
Hillman
What room in your life needs a closed door to remain alive as soul, not as secret?
Coelho
What would you have to stop watching, in order to keep the cloth?