#39: The Origami Crane
An origami crane is one of only two things I can fold in the world of origami art. I remember being quite pleased with myself when I finally managed to make it to the end of a set of origami instructions and actually had the object before me as it was supposed to look like. For some reason, I always find I get half way through the instructions, and suddenly I just seem to be missing a step, and cannot figure out how to get my piece of paper with random folds in it to look like the beautiful art in the picture.
Yet cranes I can make. I learnt in high school, and after I knew how to do it, I found myself making them at all times of the day, with scraps of paper I just found lying around. When I was bored in class, or needed to help myself concentrate, I would sit and fold a few cranes at the same time, lining them up along the edge of my desk.
I ended up finding cranes everywhere. In my pencil case, at the bottom of my bag, on my bookshelves. There’s a famous Japanese legend, where it is believed that if someone folds a thousand paper cranes they will be granted a wish by the gods. You’re supposed to keep all of the cranes that you make, and I always imagined tying each individual crane to the tree outside my house. I can still see that image in my mind now, and the sight of a thousand cranes fluttering in the breeze, covering the tree like spring blossom.
This collection of cranes I found again when I came home for Christmas, just sitting in a pot on my bedroom windowsill. Yet I often gave most of the cranes that I made away to other people who were with me at the time. I was more interested in the process rather than the finished thing, and that was my interpretation of the legend. I originally heard that you would be blessed by the gods, rather than granted a wish, and as with all legends there are multiple versions. In my version, the blessing was patience, and the peace that comes with it. I always thought that to sit and make a thousand cranes would bring anyone patience, if they managed it.
So to fold origami cranes was a form a relaxation for me. Origami is a fascinating art. It feels magical to take a piece of flat, square paper, and fold it in so many ways to finally end up with an intricate little sculpture, of a crane or a butterfly or a flower. I have a friend who made me a rainbow of butterflies, all slightly different in their detail, which I then sewed together and they are now strung up in my room in Durham. It’s the details in them that I love.
And like all art forms, the process is just as important as the finished piece. For me, once I mastered the folding of cranes, it became a therapeutic process of silence and reflection in the steps toward creation. As my hands work busily to fold the paper, my mind wanders into other worlds. It’s like the colouring books that have become so popular, just another example of the usefulness of art.
Now, as I look to the new year we have just entered, I see a lot of uncertainty, stress, and change. There’s a lot that I have to do, a lot of things that are still unknown, and I need something to focus on, something to calm me down in those stressful moments. So perhaps, for my New Year’s resolution, I will practise my patience and start my old habit again, finding peace as I fold a thousand cranes.
If you want to fold your own crane, and join me in my New Year’s resolution, you can find instructions here.
