Weaving Life and Death
With Mo Hohmann
Mo is a basket maker and interdisciplinary artist who is working to create healing and collaborative pathways for death through basketry woven with willow locally grown, tended, and harvested by hand. Her business, Woven Thresholds, is based in Port Townsend, which is on S’Klallam land. Mo offers teachings, art, resources, and threshold vessels—a term for woven coffins and soul boats that support individuals and communities through the threshold of death. Mo’s work is intimately tied to her relationship with the earth and ancestral connection.
Her journey of creating a life of purpose while holding the duality of joy and sorrow is full of insight. Mo speaks about the ways willow has shown up as a companion and a grandmother in her life, and the power of baskets to hold so much more than just what is physical. She reflects on her path to basketry, threshold experiences, creating a closer relationship with the earth, connecting with the unseen, and growing partnership in our communities. This story is potent—holding grief, love, hope, and care, as all of us do in our own ways.
“It was just really getting to a point of listening to what I really deeply longed for and what my soul was really longing for, which was ultimately a connection between the earth, my hands, and my mouth.” -Mo
Photos caught by: Erin Scabuzzo
“The baskets, the cradles, the coffins, and the soul boats, its like they’re culture creating vessels. They invite dialogue, they invite people coming together and making meaning and having ritual and falling apart. They invite a kind of intimacy– both in the creation but also just in the presence.” -Mo
Death is a big topic. It can bring up intense feelings of fear and grief, yet it is all around us: in the decay of a fallen log in the forest and pieces of crab bodies washed up onshore. Birth, life, death, and decay are natural cycles of the earth, and as humans we exist as part of those cycles, although our modern systems tend to distance us from them.
The death industry, especially in the US, is largely harmful to our environment, generating significant carbon emissions, polluting the earth with toxic chemicals, and consuming a large amount of resources. These practices also often perpetuate a sense of detachment between people and the natural cycles of death and decay. These issues have led to the emergence of more sustainable death care practices.
Featured SDGs
SDG 14: Life Below Water
Conserving and sustainably using the oceans, seas, and marine resources for sustainable development
SDG 17. Partnership for the Goals
Strengthen the means of implementation and revitalize the Global Partnership for Sustainable Development
SDG 15: Life on Land
Conserving and sustainably using land ecosystems with the primary goal of preservation
Caught & Woven by: Syd Carver