As I worked with my antique linen in re-creating an alb, a 13th century liturgical garment, I became aware of the linen textile itself.  As a part of human culture for millennia, linen as a material has been imbued with spiritual meaning related to purity and light.   The alb is used in Catholic rituals to cover the clothes of the priest, as if the white linen becomes a symbol of transformation.  The priest is no longer simply a man – with the white linen mantel, he  becomes a representative of the divine.  In Jewish rituals, a white linen covering became “a robe of light.”  The most poetic name  related to white linen was the one given to  it by the ancient Egyptians: as a covering during religious rituals and used to wrap the corpse to become  mummified, the Egyptians  called white linen “woven moonlight.”  So the material was not in itself the light of the divine, but rather a reflection of the divine, as the moon is to the light of the sun. The following photographs are images of the linen from the alb that I made.  The textile is indeed like woven moonlight.