Recently some doctors in Shetland have been writing ‘nature scripts‘.  They’re prescribing walking and birdwatching for a variety of illnesses and conditions, in tandem with conventional drugs. I’m not sure what to make of this on a couple of levels!  I would image that Shetland would have a shortage of GPs like we do in Australia, and the few available are possibly so overworked that the nature script is a bit of an attempt to stop people making more appointments!  Great if it works for us.  But then why prescribe nature at all when it seems, at least to me, to be such an obvious reason why we’re on the planet. But the concept is lovely and, I believe, healthful.  Imagine seeing a healer and they tell you to draw 10 trees and paint them all purple, or in our case weave three long strips, reweave them and hang them on your smallest wall for four weeks. Certainly the directions themselves would take up some of your internal thinking time and take you away from your pain, at least momentarily.

This is a script from a San Francisco based doctor:

Drug: Exercise in Glen Canyon Park
Dose: 45 minutes of walking or running
Directions: Monday, Wednesday, Friday and Saturday at 7am
Refills: Unlimited

I think I, and you, could write yourself a similar script with weaving in it.

Lately, Australian politics has gone pear shaped.  It is all so confronting that I became obsessed and turned to weaving as an antidote to the obsession.  The very calm wool warp and the very rhythmical weaving was fantastic for my frustration and I had a product at the end of it all. 

So with an antidotal script in mind:

Drug: weaving on a Saori counterbalanced loom
Dose: warped with six metres of chilled out shades of neutrals
Directions:  Allow at least half hour each day.  Do this away from all political interference, lobbying and media coverage.
Refills:  This is for one warp only.  Feel free to refill any time.

The best thing about these scripts is it won’t involve the usual aggressive cross examination on the script by the pharmacist saving you even more stress. I feel better just writing out this script. Any more ideas for textile related antidotal scripts? Would you like a script!

PS: I have one of these pure wool, cashmere and mohair Antidote shawls (45cms x 2.6m) left for sale: $188.00. Please contact Kaz if interested.