Parabola's Fall 1991 issue: Craft For a craftsman, it is important to gather and use the materials lovingly, and this attitude allows the materials and the technique to teach one their ways. Along with the inner attitudes, the art of waiting needs to be cultivated. Silence is a tool of the intuitive realm, the vehicle of inspiration, just as readiness is the vehicle of physical techniques. Standing in readiness for any possibility allows recognition of outer conditions that might serve one's deeper intent. Recognition is the ambassador of seeing. --from "Writing with Light" Cover: "The Shoemaker" Sixteenth-century woodcut by Jost Amman In this issue:

• "The Use of Art" by Ananda K. Coomaraswamy
  - The distinction of utilitarian craftsmanship
• "Spinning: Leaving Well Alone: An interview with Barbara Wheeler"
  - Attending the wool from sheep to woven fabric
• "Some Notes on Arab Calligraphy" by Jean Sulzberger
  - The inscription of the geometry of the spirit
• "The Craft of a Contrary Man" by Victor Hammer
  - The art of making the spoken word visible on the page
• "Gifts from the Celestial Granary" by Marcel Griaule
  - The smith and the potter in Dogon cosmology
• "Close to the Earth" by Gladys Remde
  - Containers made from the four elements
• "Writing with Light" by Paul Caponigro
  - The photographer as silversmith
• "The Master in the Stone: An interview with Alan Bird"
  - Clerk of the works at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine
• "Birth of a Sculpture" by Henri Tracol
  - Recognizing the present moment in inner craft
• "Les Compagnons du Devoir
  - An ancient French tradition lives on
• Arcs: "Tools of Transformation"
• "Shaping Space" by Harry Remde
  - Tools, machines, and a carpenter's workplace
• "The Basket and World Renewal" by Julian Lang
  - Ritual objects for a Northwest Native American dance

Tangents - Reviews

• "Material Worlds" by Rob Baker
  - A review of ATLAS: an opera in three parts by Meredith Monk

Epicycles - Traditional stories from around the world

• "The Story of Arachne" / Greek - retold by Barbara Ensrud
• "The Patience of Penelope" / Greek - retold by Ellen Draper
• "Loki the Trickster" / Norse - retold by P. L. Travers
• "The Hose-maker" / Jewish - retold by Martin Buber
• "Marionettes" / Hindu - retold by Tom White