Sparkling Lotus-land

lightness of being

Even though it's been colder than my south jersey bones think "spring" has a right to be, I'm definitely feeling a positive charge from longer light-filled days.  The past week or so has seen some pivotal healing developments and an increasingly improved attitude.  It's been a timely relief to feel continued solid re-connection with the more resilient aspects of my personality.  That shift makes the work of staying on top of my body's needs a lot more organic and free-flowing.

The more strength I've gained the more I've been able to socialize and that's been an entirely positive development.  Am also hoping to begin making more substantial progress with overdue emails and phone calls to friends who aren't in the immediate vicinity.  Also of a wider scoped community orientation:  for a few weeks now I've been feeling motivated to set up a new round of classes related to a fresh slant on the chakra intensives.  Plus I'm being strongly encouraged by some local folks to develop a few think-out-of-the-box creativity sessions.  First that means I'll have to think about "the box" concretely enough to also plan some teaching strategies and accompanying activities.

***If you are interested in either of these ventures feel free to drop me a line so I can add you to my email notification list.***

In other news I still require enough downtime to insure that I get a fair amount of reading done.  Will try to post in the near future (yes I know I keep saying this ...) about some of the more interesting books I've encountered.  And there's still some key components of offline activity and speculative development that aren't finalized enough for reportage of details.

Recently I've been having super vivid dreams.  Last night I dreamed I suddenly gave birth to a daughter without any awareness of being pregnant or going through labor.   We can only hope this relates to a purely symbolic message from my subconscious (!!) The baby developed quickly right before my eyes - a lot like time lapsed photography of a flower bloom.  At six months of age she was able to walk, climb and run.  She had a very full head of curly hair and could also speak in complete sentences about very complex matters.

For instance she had a collection of simple plastic dolls that she was using to illustrate her prophecies about the coming evolution of our species.  She explained how peoples' souls and vital spirits would be encased in special netting that "allowed for human breathing and interactions without sacrificing the integrity of the matrix life force."

It was completely astonishing to me that she had such sophisticated and mystical linguistic abilities at such a tender age.  In the dream she and Tony worked together to create a mutual safe zone.  This kept them protected from evil doers who were terrorizing other people in the dream - including myself, Jim, a few of our longstanding real life friends and, for reasons I can't begin to fathom, the cast from Seinfeld.  Our lives were being threatened with guns and over-sized pills and explosive canisters of a poisonous nature.

In the end we all managed to escape the intended annihilation but I don't know how, exactly.  It just seemed that we had teleported ourselves to a different non-threatening location.  We were in a flowering grove with the ocean nearby.  And there was an enormous chocolate cake decorated with crystallized violets and sugared orange slices.  Even in the dream I was wondering but why are the Seinfeld people here with us?  I never quite got the appeal of that show and wouldn't have thought any of the characters made enough of an impression for me to dream about them years after the fact!

Pictures in this post are of a sunlit silk hydrangea here in my workroom and some detail shots of a meditation piece-in-progress, Primary Nest.  I am at long last nearing the end of my stitching and beading; soon it will be hanging on a wall.  Back when I first started the piece I had a very clear notion of what particular wall that would be.  Now I have virtually no clue.  But that won't diminish the basic satisfaction of completing such an elaborately worked project - several years after I imagined the neurological disturbances had grown to great to ever again lose myself in this time of labor intensive effort.  Life goes on; sometimes more beautifully than not ...

increments

Partway through last week I realized afresh how much I value insightful feedback from those close enough to notice shifts and improvements in my health that I might otherwise overlook.   Even when I focus on what I'm accomplishing, rather than what remains undone, it still seems like a mighty long row to hoe.  One that has no end in sight and oftentimes I can't really get much of a fix of the field in which it's planted.  The truth of this, as well as how I perceive that truth, has prompted quite a bit of uncertainty, overwhelm and anxiety in recent weeks.

On the positive side I guess I could say that at least I'm feeling well enough to embody that kind of overwhelm and its accompanying anxiety.  For awhile, before the time change, I had something of an unplanned and not-much-liked ritual going.  Right around dusk I'd have a reflex to review all the things I might never finish (or even start) in my lifetime.  Then I'd freak out.  Quietly and without fanfare but a freak out is a freak out is a freak out.  By any other name.  

It feels just plain weird - not to mention grasping at straws - to tell myself that at least I feel well enough for the recurring if questionable luxury of freaking out.   And also emotionally controlled and psychologically modulated enough to do it quietly and strictly on my own time/terms. Tony recently shared his sense that I'm unable to perceive my improvement because it's been so sporadic and  inconsistent.  Am still flat-out exhausted a great deal of the time and the trend towards hypo-thyroidism only underscores my sense of impassable fatigue.

As you might infer the unpredictable nature of my energy flow engenders some powerful mood swings above and beyond the dusk-side crazies of last month.  Yes, I know ... there are flower essences for that and, believe me, I've been taking them.  I've also been giving myself more time and space to inhabit the moods.  Have been journaling about my feelings at copious length and also giving them more visual expression.

 Above is a detail from a work in slow progress that frequently appears on my creative blog.  It's called Primary Nest; relating to the three primary chakras and their color correspondences of red, orange and yellow.  Today I posted about some of my seemingly endless ruminations concerning Will and the solar energy center. 

This month there have been a number of times when I've felt my will to be anything but free.  That's because my truest will has been centered on getting well and that's a visualized accomplishment that doesn't have a neat or predictable process of beginning, middle, and end.  I haven't generally appeared as if I'm meeting many of my goals because, at this time, all "goals" remain secondary to the multi-plexic levels of process involved with healing my body.  I figured this out for myself but my family's ongoing reinforcement has been what enables me to inhabit the awareness with some degree of consistency.

 

In the past few weeks there have been some key points of sensing that I'll be best served to cut attachments to some of my strongest skill sets.  I need to work on developing other areas of potential even though they aren't a natural match for my basic personality or particularized world view.  I'm willing to trust that need and work in its favor because all of the changes to find me haven't required me to dig deeply into a capacity of determination or careful self-scrutiny.

Some are just plain fun.  Like my "sudden" inability to resist the lure of beautiful decorative paper.  Above is a pair of my grandmother's shears.  Earlier today I had them sharpened - a simple gesture that carried the larger significant purpose of acknowledging my desire to have "good" scissors for paper.   Thus the task was a ceremony of sorts.

Yesterday I called a wildcat strike from most of 'everything' that's become normal for me.  I had several hours to myself and elected to fill them with nothing at all.  It's still something of an issue for me to do nothing on purpose when "nothing" is so often what I feel I have achieved at the end of any given day or week.    Any time I have enough energy to necessitate an active choice I tend to feel that nothing needs to take a backseat to something.

Today I've had some more hours to myself and have managed to blend something into nothing.   I got the scissors sharpened, for instance.  Have caught up on some email, watered some plants and followed someone else's lead in traveling through an important conversation.  It was the kind of discussion I knew really needed to happen without a clue of how it could be successfully negotiated. 

Tomorrow will be an extremely busy day even by normalized standards.  I can tell that's begun to weigh on my mind and sense of internalized obligation to come through because of my dreams last night.  In one of them Dr. Drew Pinsky showed up.  We were in mid-counseling session concerning my "struggles to pass muster".  He kept stressing that phrase with elaborate hand gestures.  I kept trying to see what he was writing on his note pad. 

Finally, right before I woke up, I managed to see that he'd written the same thing over and over again:  more things have got to change.  In my handwriting.  I don't always send myself such blatant clear cut dreamtime messages.  It's usually more like clueless wandering in the literal sense.  For instance, the last time Dr. Drew appeared, we were driving around and around on a series of cloverleaf roads.  He had on a tuxedo and kept blustering about how nobody had told him this wasn't going to be a formal event.

More things do indeed need to change.  Some of the changes are clear to me.  And some of that clarity is a lot easier to implement than I would have guessed.  The areas where I feel as if I'm remaining clueless do at least have a basic form and structure. 

For a lot of years now various people - some of whom read this blog - have cautioned me not to pray or wish for patience because I might not like the forms in which the wish/prayer was answered.  And so I have avoided conscious wishes or prayers along that line.  All the while I have known that patience is something I could stand to embody in much greater depth than I instinctively embrace the virtue.  It occurs to me that over the past year I've actually learned a great deal about my own ability to be patient.  But I have called that process something else.  Usually, an ability to embody gracefulness despite the odds and obstacles.

I'm wondering:  what do YOU call a thing that isn't second nature to you - a thing that is so obviously not-you that you need to recognize is as something other than its usual given name?

the dream of knowing

It's a long ultra-rambly post.  So what.  The point of adding this preface is to verify that I'm back to actively writing on this blog although I have no clear cut idea of what that will prove to mean.  For now let's just call this initial offering a Shaggy Horse Story.

Six years ago I was carefully planning a mid-spring trip to Italy.  I was also planning the itinerary for a somewhat different jaunt to the same general landscape that I did not intend to make at the mid-winter school break.  My son was spending his junior year of high school abroad and at that time I was haphazardly & informally separated from my husband.  But I was not at all so 'separate' that I didn't care to create some detailed travel plans for his visit that he would not have time to make on his own behalf. 

I think it bears acknowledging that neither one of us was truly separated from the other - not even during the three month period of time when we lived in different places and conducted radically different lives.  But at the point of my recollection of what I was doing at this time of year I had returned to our home.  I was living in a very weird caul of hermetically sealed autonomy and something I call best friend-itis.  It's a situation that really can't be killed or cured irrespective of whatever specifics may lead us to believe otherwise.  And at the time I did believe.  For no better or greater reason than I'm pretty much of an idiot and, at times, something of a body part we don't tend to mention in polite society.

A few months before Tony embarked on his year abroad Jim purchased two plane tickets so we could visit during the winter holiday season.   Once we were alone in the house - without actually being together if only being apart primarily in our determined stubborn minds - I decided it would be more pleasant and sanity-inducing for everyone if we visited our son at different points in time.   Forget the fact that this was largely because we were so long adept at bickering like it was some kind of life calling.  Let's focus on the glory that is Florence in the springtime!  Oh hell yeah!  I really enjoyed planning the Tuscan/Veneto centric vacation that never occurred.  I also found it a refreshing challenge to draft a structure for the road trip the guys were both keen to take through the southern half of the country. For most of November I poured over guide book, websites and letters full of opinions and suggestions from friends; typing out the best sightseeing ideas as well as practical lists of possible hotels and cheap yet exceptional restaurants.

I'm glad I enjoyed myself so much since it eventually emerged that there would be no actual purpose for my effort.  The travel agent who booked the tickets had assured me it would be absolutely possible to change the dates for one of the tickets.  She could guarantee I wouldn't have to pay a penalty for making this switch provided I did it within a month of when I intended to travel - as opposed to the date on the established ticket.   Since spring was so far in the future I kept procrastinating the business of switching my travel dates.  It seemed a small thing indeed compared to all the brooding I felt obliged to foster concerning whatever (I really couldn't imagine...) I intended to do with the rest of my life.  When I finally got around to dealing with the ticket issue, there were less than 48 hours before Jim would be leaving for Rome.  The travel agent who'd booked the tickets was in China for two months visiting relatives.  The stand-in who took the call informed me she could not make a deal remotely like the one I'd been offered.  In fact if I really wanted to make that trip of my dreams I'd have to pay a penalty that was slightly more than the price of the ticket.

I didn't have the money and amassing it would insure that I wouldn't have sufficient walking-around funds once I got to Italy just as the olive trees started to bloom.  Reality intruded with a harsh nudge that left me deeply cognizant of the fact that some people have lives as perfectly scripted as whatever their imaginations can devise but I wasn't one of them.  It was going to be a matter of forfeiting a visit with both my son and my favorite country or going with my [theoretically] estranged husband.  I actually agonized over the choice (or more accurately the image of us arguing our way through the entire experience without once pausing to actually enjoy ourselves) even though everybody I knew said some variation of what!.?!  Are you CRAZY?!??!  GO TO ITALY!!!!

There are many stories to be told about the subsequent family adventure but the point of this post doesn't relate to much of that.  It concerns the fact that, in Italy, I dreamed vividly and in great detail.  The first night we were there I had a rather gruesome dream about being forcibly restrained and given a lobotomy.  I awoke with a start and looked out the window at the dormant olive grove that surrounded the home where we were staying.  Tony hadn't told anybody we were separated - only that his mother was unexpectedly able to accompany his father for the winter visit.  This pleased our hosts enormously; they had made a point of calling us the week before to ask me to 'get away' and join my husband if there was any possible way to arrange it. Upon our arrival we were treated like a fully functioning couple throughout our stay and, in some ways, the strain of complying with that fiction proved to be its own form of an emotional lobotomy.

I stared at the olive trees, the shadowy terra cotta floor of the room where we slept, and I thought to myself what in hell's name made me have a dream like that.  I thought I was really glad I didn't generally remember my dreams if this is what my subconscious felt obliged to dredge from a murky river I preferred to ignore.  Then I went back to sleep and slid into a very different dream.  A lifelong friend and I were sitting on a sun-dappled river bank somewhere Out West.  We were watching an unbridled horse drink with leisurely grace.  My friend pointed at the horse and said to me, that's the way I want to write.

I also pointed and replied, that's the way I want to live my entire life. It happens that, within the waking world, neither my friend nor myself are particularly graceful or laid-back in our basic nature.  We're both extremely clumsy and hyper-kinetic.  While it's true we are both mellowing considerably with age I don't think either one of us comes close to resembling that beautiful dream horse.  And yet it is a state of being to which we both would aspire if we could, in fact, have the consistent wherewithall to be as we dream.

When we rose to walk along the river bank the horse followed us.  After awhile it was leading the way.  Everywhere the horse stepped shape-shifted from a western paradise to a mossy tiled tunnel of Time.  We knew we were moving backwards through history.  Sometimes the horse would turn around and make eye contact with us.  We would both stop and look around, wondering what exactly the animal guide sought to emphasize.

When I first woke up the next day I did not remember this second dream.  I only remembered the disturbing lobotomy, and also, the fact that my husband's suitcase had been mis-routed somewhere between between JFK and Rome.  It could have been literally anywhere in the world since we'd been waylaid for about 24 hours due to a terrible snowstorm.  But that's yet another story meant for other daze.  The point is that the second dream swam slowly to the surface over the next two weeks of touring ruins, churches, and tiny hillside towns.  During that time we were indeed walking backwards through history.

At one point we found ourselves back in Rome in the middle of the Forum ruins.  Jim looked up at the ornate underside of a gigantic arch and murmured, we've been here before.  Before.  When it was new.  I swear that's what he said.  He swears he never said any such thing.  But that's what I heard him say and in response I became overwhelmed by the dizzying sense of recalled past lives; feeling myself moving beneath several different timeless arches in different parts of the world.  That's when I remembered the horse stepping delicately through grass and wildflowers that shifted into mossy tiles.  I remembered the intent look in the animal's eyes when it turned its head to meet my gaze.

You don't look a gift horse in the mouth and neither should you turn away a trip to Italy even if you are currently disconbobulated enough to imagine your life partner might actually be something else entirely.  If you're sharp enough to remember both the good and the bad times then perhaps you can also codify the emotions that were evoked rather than letting them lose themselves in the words of Story.  I do indeed remember the high and low points of that trip with equal measure given to both.  And we always like the good news first, eh?  Thus I deeply treasure the recollection of a breath-taking sunset view of the Arno River from the edges of the Piazalle Michelangelo.  One of my two favorite places on earth (the other is a particular bend of the Snake River in northern California ...) and here I was at last sharing the splendor of it with my family. It was a moment burnished with the inner light of contentment just as profound as the horse drinking from a dreamtime river bank.

But, you know, one extreme cannot fully exist without its counterpart.  And so I also recall just as vividly the verbal fireworks that erupted between Jim and myself smack in the middle of the central shopping concourse of Ravena.  It was an extended and essentially senseless argument that attracted innumerable Italian onlookers.  They could not understand what we were saying but they certainly recognized the emotional verve with which we were shouting.  As the crowd instinctively gathered itself along gender lines - the men gesticulating encouragingly at Jim while the women grew thin lipped and clutched their pocketbooks behind me - our son stood off to one side with a wry smile on his face that quite clearly said, Oh right.  My parents.  I'd forgotten This about Them.

It was New Year's day and, a few hours later, we would be eating an extravagant meal in a hotel restaurant; toasting ourselves and each other as if the argument had never occurred.  And that's the nature of partners who both have Aries rising with squared moons in Leo and Scorpio ... Jim was sure at that point that we were on our way to solidified reconciliation but it took me another couple of months to realize it hadn't all been just one more extreme twist of circumstance. Because I'd stupid that way although at times I prefer to call it headstrong and at some of those times mindlessly so.

Why am I saying all this?  On the other hand, why shouldn't I?   One reason pertains to the ribbon weaving I am constructing which is being detailed over at nichobella.   I have enjoyed keeping only one blog for the past months but now I am enjoying even more the apparent reality of re-opening the gates of this one.  It was late last night, while I was working on the stitching the ribbons into place, that I first realized I felt ready to make this particular move.  Earlier on I had been assuming it would happen only in the wake of another move that isn't actually going to be happening - at least not in the form I presumed it would be taking.

So there are all sorts of messages here about both assumptions and presumptions, roads not taken in favor of traveling roads you really never meant to explore and teaching that old dog of Self to drink to like a horse at least part of the time ...

picture perfect

For the past couple months I've been using inter-library loan, in part, to examine a number of books on contemporary embroidery.   Have been focused on volumes that appear on other stitchers' must have/read lists so that means becoming acquainted with a few Jan Beaney books not already in my personal reference collection.  The Art of the Needle has gotten particularly high marks from a number of people whose stitching I greatly admire.   I've been very curious about it for more than a year.  So I was quite excited when I got the email notice that my requested copy had arrived for pick-up.

Art of the Needle has been published in both the UK and the US; a few times each.  The volume I got from the library was the first US printing.  After less than an hour of examining the gorgeous full page (9 x 12) photos I knew I would love to own this book. Once I got as far as absorbing chunks of the text, the desire to have it for myself grew even stronger.  I realized it was  hard to find at a reasonable price; that's how I wound up putting it in my inter-library loan queue in the first place.

This book was published in the late 80's but, by my standards, the only thing that's really dated about it are the models' hairstyles.   And I pretty much ignored those particular images since I'm not a wearable art type.  The rest of the images have a relatively timeless quality to them.   There's also a great deal of solid design information in this book - presented in a way that's somewhat less intimidating than Creative Embroidery.  I've previously reviewed that book, co-authored by Jan Beaney, right here.   Of course someone who is totally enamored of the very latest fiber arts trends may well have a been there-done that response to Art of the Needle.  But I think for many others it will more than hold its own weight as an authentic treasure trove.

I especially love the samples and close-ups that accompany the sections on darning, cut-back applique, and a variety of highlighted stitches.  Many of the latter samples employ just one stitch in enormous variation.  There are also a few samples that combine two stitches in varied combination that's quite painterly in the final effect.  As I looked at the book on a daily basis I had flashbacks of my early childhood and certain favorite library picture books.  The memory of how much I dreaded the day when I'd have to return those books jumped track into the present tense.  I ***LOVE*** this book!  The pictures and text are quite remarkable and hugely satisfying.

So one day week before last I threw some metaphorical dice and took a look at the listings for my favorite online used book sellers. I've learned that every once in awhile you have the luck of finding just what you want in a reasonable price range - even if it generally sells for far more.  And that particular day happened to be a time when I felt a strong need for luck as well as a little treat.  LUCKILY enough, I found a copy listed in Very Good condition; with postage it was less than a fifth of the original cover price.  NOTE:  All the other available copies were much more expensive.  They were also printed or republished in the UK.  I don't think the US version is as sought-after but I'd already seen the precise version that I ordered and knew it was, in fact, just what I wanted.

The book arrived yesterday and I've been carrying it around (more little kid flashbacks...) ever since. As I've been writing this post I keep stopping to open a page at random.  Then I stare and stare; more or less forgetting what I was doing before the staring began.  If you love texture, abstraction and color study, Art of the Needle is definitely worth investigating.   The photographic range moves far beyond  'eye candy'.  This is a full-out visual banquet.

a parable of sorts

The story goes like this:  A few weeks back I thought it would be fun and illuminating to create a personal healing statement based on the appropriate chakra centers and their colors.  That meant beginning at the root, with red.  Red happens to be the color I've spent the least time exploring.  It's also the color where I have the fewest raw materials.  So I thought I don't know enough about red to jump right in with a piece about my experiential healing process.  I'll need to do a separate color study first. Then I thought I might as well make the study really pretty and inspiring so I can include it with other chakra intensive related artwork.

Even though red is the color where I have the least "stuff" to gather and audition, doing as much still seemed beyond my very modest mobilization capabilities of the moment.  So I didn't do anything but THINK about this project.  You know what happened, right?  The more I thought about it the more elaborate my goals became.  I started thinking might as well make this REALLY pretty and detailed enough to demonstrate more of what I learned from the sumptuous surface classes.  And then?  I stopped thinking about the color red and what I wished to do with it.  I started thinking hey this is actually the basis for a whole new take on the intensive workshops.  I should develop the idea so that it's an official proposal/description of what I'd like to offer from this specific switch in focus.

All of which is authentically beyond what I'm capable of in terms of sitting comfortably at this desk (or anywhere else) for the length of time it would take for me to think-through and actively manifest the kind of outlined game plan I was envisioning.  So sometimes I would catch myself thinking too bad I don't have it together enough to follow-through on that creative healing idea that hasn't been going anywhere for the past few weeks.  Yesterday morning I woke up and one of the first thoughts I had was you know what?  I'm making this entire thing 'way too complicated.  Again.  As usual.  Couldn't I just learn something from this kind of process rather than playing it out over and over?  Maybe even learn enough to actually switch things up and simplify the goals I set?

So I thought yeah hell what else can I truly accomplish with my time right now, anyway. I started gathering my supplies and damn near gridlocked to the point of impasse when I couldn't find a particular scrap of scarlet silk. The scrap was pivotal to all the thinking and planning I'd done thus far.  While I was silently despairing that I didn't have precisely what I needed (e.g. the one particular scrap) in order to proceed, I was also talking to my son.  And then eventually I was ironing a very beautiful sample of cranberry dupioni because, dammit, while I was still talking to my kid I also decided to push through my own resistance and get somewhere with the elaborate color study.  Otherwise, how would I ever get far enough along to work on the healing piece I really really wanted to make.

In the past two weeks, my son has had approximately ten dozen opportunities to suggest I stop driving myself crazy and simply relax.  And, if I can't do that in the mental sense, at least I could rest my leg and my back.  Right, Mom?  That's what you'd tell anybody else to do, right MOM??!?  Tony came home of his own volition (and rather firm insistence once he'd called to propose the generous/protective impulse he was having on my behalf) because he was that determined to help me get through this particular phase of the recuperation process.  And knows me quite well enough to realize I'd need "help" above and beyond driving me places and running the sort of errands beyond my current abilities.  Meaning:  by the dinner hour I had been encouraged (and also managed to convince myself) that I was best served to loll on my bed reading another novel.  By Alice Hoffman.  So I'd be sure and stay "lost" in it long enough to truly give my leg a break. 

Except I couldn't get lost in it.  This is pretty much unprecedented where Alice Hoffman is concerned.  My distraction had nothing to do with her writing or my continued thrill to have discovered a novel of hers which I'd managed to miss somehow.   It had to do with how badly I wanted to get started on the color study.  Because let's face it.  Starting (and then completing) the study was the only way I'd be able to move on to the healing piece I wanted to make so badly it was giving me a huge case of the itchy hands syndrome.

So I got up (while my son was on the phone and not as likely to notice me once again bopping all around when I'd SAID I was going to stop doing that...) and quickly gathered the bare minimum supplies.  A scissors.  Number 3  perle cotton. A needle.  The cranberry silk.  An embroidery hoop.  I was back upstairs before my son had a chance to realize I hadn't been there all along.  And then, at long last, I was stitching - twisted chain stich to outline the six inch square I'd marked on the cranberry silk earlier in the afternoon.

Words have no ability to convey the degree of calming satisfaction I experienced.  And all the contented dreaming I did about the beautiful embellishments I'd add to the square sometime during the next few weeks. Sometime during the next few weeks, btw, is a phrase that can be reduced to endless quagmire where my optimistic time projections are concerned. So there was no real fooling myself. I knew it might take me quite while to complete the study but what was the rush?  While I was stitching - stopping to think about it - stitching - stopping to think about it, I could also work on my Creative Chakra Healing outline.

One of my grandmother's favorite expressions was Happy as if She/He/They Had Good Sense.  And that's exactly what I was as a stitched.  Because check it out, world.  I'd finally gotten over myself enough to get on with things.  As I stitched I noticed that I really liked the way the silk was frayed on one side.  I thought I should tear the other three sides and then let it serve as an unfinished border.  In my mind the frayed edges of the color study would help me switch tracks to the healing piece I might now someday actually make now that I'd finally gotten started on the steps between here and there.

The first torn edge I created manifested itself beautifully.  The second edge was bound to be tougher since it was on the cross-grain and the silk had a noticeably large selvedge.  So I cut an extra long starting point.  I tried to rip the silk once, twice, three times with absolutely nothing happening.  At this point I was getting aggravated.  And was not to be deterred now that I'd finally gained a sliver of momentum!  I focused all my energy on ripping the silk and then I did indeed tear it successfully.

Can you guess the punchline?  I tore it so the rip encroached on the end of the beautifully simple square I had just finished outlining.  I thought the F word five or six - maybe even ten - times in a row.  I may have said it aloud once or twice as well.  My face was hot, my hands were trembling and my heart was broken.  My eyes blinked in stop-time disbelief at the havoc I'd wreaked, unable to accept it.  My small but definite efforts to get somewhere had been ruined.  The brief season of delight was for absolute naught.  And then?  A sweet steady voice rose within me.  It spoke with absolute certainty, gentleness and the kind of authority that forced me to listen to it with every cell and nerve ending.

This 'color study' has just become the most perfect ground cloth in the world for my desired root chakra healing piece.  I didn't mess up. I just got myself to the point where I'm FINALLY in the place I most want and need to start the entire process of whatever is to follow.  The details of what I did on the other side of this pivotal realization are shared over at nichobella.

spring colors

Happy Easter to those who celebrate the occasion in whatever context!  It's quite chilly but also beautifully sunny.  Am delighted to report that my mood is corresponding with the weather.  In the past few days I've been feeling much more authentically sunny; much more like my usual self than I've been since the beginning of The Leg issue.    There are a number of reasons for this which relate to the healing efforts I've been making in a consistent way, even when the individual strands of effort didn't seem to have the desired result.  In this kind of situation it seems to me that no single aspect of pro-activity is more or less significant than any other.  All the same it can take a while to form a graceful landscape from disparate bits of circumstance and response/reactions to a crisis point.

This is an undeniable healing truth (at least in my experience & observation) that I've repeatedly told myself to keep in mind.  But it's been a difficult and taxing month when mind and what it 'keeps' can be problematic at best.   Nonetheless, during my most recent Unplugged phase, I finally began to feel the merits and a positive cumulative effect of my healing choices.  There is still quite obviously a problem but I've turned an important corner in terms of coping ability and overall perspective.  Have started to see and feel more of a whole-cloth that's both healing and life affirming.  This helps to cope with issues that are still at least partially overwhelming.   Friends and family also help.  Have really appreciated the concern and care I've been receiving.  I hope that's clear for those blog readers to whom it applies even though I haven't had a lot of extra energy for detailed individual response.

Tony visited yesterday and the small but mighty family had a lovely afternoon and evening together.  I asked him if he'd be willing to drive me to Michaels while Jim finished making dinner.  Tony was really pleased that I had a concrete request and so off we went.  I was on a quest for something that wasn't actually there.  Couldn't resist the consolation prize of the gorgeous variegated DMC floss.  And the ultra cheap "craft thread" which may or may not be colorfast.  I will be testing it before I work these threads into something that requires washing.

The trip to the craft store was an impulsive idea on my part - borne as much from cabin fever as a legitimate need to run the errand.  The ride back and forth to the mall, plus walking around the store, is the most 'performance' I've asked of my leg so far.   Fortunately I didn't push myself too much.  Maybe I'm actually learning how not to do that.  This afternoon I hope to sit in the sunlight at the edges of the main garden bed and do a little sketching.  It's quite chilly and also fairly windy so I'm not sure if this plan will come to comfortable fruition.  At the very least I'll just take a tour of the beds, camera in hand.

Have been concerned that the crocus patches have yet to emerge.  I need to look under various sections of the straw mulch and see what's happening there.  Yesterday it occurred to me that, in my worried nosey-ness, I was actually thinking of "trespassing" within a powerful form of botanical liminality.    This caused me to think a little more deeply about the 'gray area' between the ground and the top of the mulch.  I wonder if plants dream and experience visionary journeys within that realm?  Maybe something will reveal itself to me while I'm outside.



Last night I stitched this small sampler (6 inch diameter) by following the circle created by the embroidery hoop.  I used the variegated threads in the second picture of this post.   I intend this as the centerpiece of a book cover so wasn't overly concerned about whether or not the colors will run when wet.  I just HAD TO stitch something right then and there because the burst of colors made me very happy.  It was a nice change from working within the Gray Areas of my March BJP page.  Am now fairly confident I'll have that page completed by the end of the month.  This helps to chip away at my ongoing angst related to Falling Behind.   There is really no time (or place) for angst of any kind on such a beautiful day ...

looking for things ...

I am in awe of people who can fit everything they need to stitch into something the size of an Altoids tin.  Hell.  I'm in awe of the ladies whose backseats and trunks are outfitted with wall-to-wall plastic containers full of various projects-in-the-works and extra craft/stitching supplies.  I'm in awe and frankly unworthy of anyone who develops ANY kind of organizational system - who makes it a point to have it reflect their relationship to their supplies and projects at hand.  To me, that's squaring the circle of creative manifestation.



I have a purple plastic container that I call the other sewing box. Other as opposed to roughly half a dozen sewing boxes that are an even mix of plastic shoe boxes, children's craft supply boxes and decorative cookie tins.  They are all sort of interchangeable in my mind because I do know what's in them (more or less ...) but there's always the dangerous lure of getting distracted.  And flat out overwhelmed if in a very pleasant way.



Am trying to stay on task today so I didn't start pawing through these things and dreaming.  Just found what I was looking for and continued with my morning.  The goal is to deal with the top biz and domestic related priorities until lunchtime and then give myself an afternoon of stitching.  It's very gray weather today and surprisingly warmish.   My original plan was to hit a vegetable store as it's been far too long since I made a hearty soup from scratch.  But I didn't think I should be on the road that long or on the particular road I'd need to travel to the store of strongest choice.  So I simplified the errands.  I've found when I need to do this, it's helpful to construct a secondary list - things to be accomplished IF later circumstance and physical energy flow allow.   In this case, I'm wondering if Jim would be up for making it a mutual excursion this evening.  Hmmmm...



Mainly it would be nice to formalize that plan and then relax at a deeper level.  My body is unfortunately still tense from recent pain onslaught.  Everyone knows by now that quilting and other handwork lowers your blood pressure as well as your stress reflexes.   Have been finding out a lot about that healing property recently.  It is very nourishing to consider the afternoon plans I've made - no plan but to stitch in a series of small individual tasks that all yield a large result at the visual level.

I remembered the large mint green bead in this shared trove and as the time came to see if it would be well-placed on the TIF wall organizer, I re-discovered a few other things as well.  Yes, especially the black bead with white stripes ...   

still motion

Photos on this post show detail of my first Take It Further challenge project.  Yesterday as I worked I developed a creative backstory.  It relates to the ideas I had when I worked on this page for the Fabric Art Journal anthology project.  I am making this piece as if it were constructed by the goddess Persephone with the same thoughts for how she'd always work with what was on hand and held the greatest symbolic meaning to her.  Everything she expressed would be codified and layered upon itself ... yes.  This is better than trying to express the same story with words.  Persephone would spend her time learning from many other female goddesses and mortals.  Her stitching would be a form of documentation that changed as she grew into stronger meaning and resolve.  At some point she would stop keeping track of her spheres of being influenced and switch focus to the aspects where she herself held so much sway and counsel ...


But I do also want this piece to serve as a viable wall organizer for the side of my dresser.   The other night I had a super-vivid dream of meeting in the open air - grouped with other females at the edges of a medicine wheel.  We were talking about the simplest possible stitches we could take without compromising durability.  Purpose is becoming as important to me as form - a somewhat startling development but it does seem in line with larger shifts of consciousness & opportunity ...



All along I have had a polarized response to raw edges.  A part of me was aesthetically attracted but their great prevalence over the past few years have made me instinctively reluctant to embrace A Trend.  Then I got to thinking about the limitation of that thinking - the rejection of taking the trend's visual language and learning from it at the level of collective [un]consciousness.  I thought there was a reason the rough hewn edges were appealing to me.  I can further pinpoint the time at which things first clarified themselves for me, back in the mid-90's.



Finding connections in the tangle of creative synapses is always rewarding on some level or another.  This particular project is helping me maintain strong fine motor control.  I would like to see what it's like to work Kantha quilting stitches in a hoop, or at least layers that had been securely basted.  I do like the textural quality of the stitches but would like to be able to compare the working rhythm, etc.   I think a smoother tension would be preferable for cotton and linen fabrics.  Spent this morning sewing in the sun and must now  move on to other things.  Unfortunately!

Sheila Paine

This book arrived in yesterday's mail.  Coincidentally, our errands for the day included a stop at the library to retrieve two more Paine books that I put on hold through inter-library loan.  Jim has been hauling home a lot of books for me since he's been doing the mail run ...each package animates me as much (or more) than the last.  So he has adopted the habit, consciously or not, of watching me look through the books.  Just, you know, in case you've been wondering what we actually do all day.  Heh.

In any event I will be spending my desk time today NOT working in the lovely sunlight but simply reading here.  I looked through about half of Amulets last night and my heart was literally aching from how much I've wanted to read this book without even knowing it.  There are HUNDREDS of pictures of amulets from all over the world.  The top-quality images show sacred charms of power and protection from a wealth of different cultures and spiritual pathways.  I really can't think of anyone I know who reads along here who wouldn't massively enjoy this volume on one level or another.  Or several.



When I ordered the Amulets book it was cheaper than the postage & handling.  Not so - by a long shot - for available copies in Paine's trilogy...I was lucky enough to score the first and third volume through inter-library.   Of course it was the second volume (set in the himalayas) that interested me the most when I was first looking at titles and not yet understanding these three volumes told a cohesive story of one particular mission from Paine's life.  Honestly.  With women like this and Margaret Mee around, I don't know how anyone would feel short of authentically adventurous female-powered inspiration but that could be a just-me thing.



The book right above is the third volume.  It's also the title and cover image that grabbed me the hardest when I was researching online.    Who would not want to read this book - especially if they knew it was the last leg of an Obsessive Quest?  One online review compared Paine to Indiana Jones and so I have been waiting in a very vocal and impatient way.  Got the email that the book had arrived on Friday but spent that afternoon visiting with Tony.  Yesterday I presumed the library closed at noon but Jim insisted we stop there at 1:30.  I [still] presumed it was closed but Jim doggedly drove to the back of the building and lo, the new place here in town is apparently open until 3 on Saturday afternoons.  This is SO good to know!!!

It was our first trip to the new library and we really didn't stay to look around.  I do need to call to see if they accept book donations.  I have a few nice offerings if that's the case ... "few" as in a couple of cartons.  Will be getting right on that once I have read these babies and a few others that I haven't even mentioned. But I can already tell from the skimming that these  particular books are ALL rising on the charts with a bullet.  The Linen Goddess has a particularly nice section of color photos.  All images are highest imaginable quality.  It's like looking at a museum catalog only much better and less...contrived.

The week of downtime with Jim has been really lovely.  Yesterday was the first time I actually left the property - we went to Staples so I've got a new color cartridge.   This is right on time to help me keep my 2008 resolution about journaling in general becoming a more visual process and, specifically, keeping a nature journal.  In addition to the Beech theme, I'm planning to introduce Wren information.   That bird represents another sentient species that has brought special attention to me in the past little while.  I did feel these kind of connections would probably make it easiest for me to develop confidence that I'm capable of this project - that it can, in fact, become an ongoing fluid part of my daily life and how I express myself. 

Plus!  Today I have re-connected with the true buzz/itch to stitch.  Want to work on a doodle cloth at least, using these threads...oh, I hope at least a couple of people discover or re-connect with Amulets because of this post!  Right now it's intent to find itself on my top ten book list.  P.S.  by now it's probably obvious that I also made a resolution to spend more time with books and learning new/fresh-to-me intricacies about the subjects that evoke the most passion for me.   This year I have just been more naturally inclined to embody resolutions than to "make" them.  Have been thinking a lot about why we would, as a species, make an annual event of constructing a framework for certain hopes and wishes rather than simply, you know, becoming the infamous change we obviously want to see.

small ambition(s)

Yesterday afternoon, I came to grips with the fact that I'm not going to be able to seamlessly 'catch up' the work/writing/reading time that I lost to viral infection.  And further came to grips with a corresponding truth:  I may not meet certain deadlines.  So far today I've been working out a way to make this clear to everyone most directly involved - in a way that doesn't pass too much additional responsibility and obligation to any one person.

Could be head-ache inducing but I'm striving to have more patience than reactive stress.  I'm making the effort because, frankly, I have enough natural(?!!) pain goin' on at this time.  In order to cope with that effectively, I need to find joy and emotional/psychic engagement where-ever it offers itself - that's the best way I know to stay light and relatively optimistic.  So I gave myself a reward last night - sitting at the still-tidy work table.   I was recently gifted with a lovely cache of shisha mirrors.  Also had the amazing Roumanian thread pictured below.  It's called Violetta de Parma.  And is as sweet as the flower darlings with the same name!



Having continued neurological limitations, I focused on the quality of time I was spending learning a new embellishment technique.  I was pleasantly spent attaching one mirror and so I stopped there.  Have plans to attach at least two more as a way of refining the basic stitch.  Then I will be ready to include the mirrors on a certain piece of work that's been dormant for quite awhile.  Fun, huh?



This is a simple doodle cloth of scrap linen.  I am using the violet-pinkish-brown-orange color range.  Have never stitch-doodled with an established color scheme so that's another tiny adventure I'm enjoying.

Need to have myself pulled-together enough to make a bird seed run.  Correction.  I'd like to be able to do that.  It's what I originally envisioned when I thought about my priorities for the day.  Part of me* thinks it's unlikely that I'll make it as far as the "good" seed source.  I'm likely to just make a run up the hill so I can pretty literally be back home in the time it takes to say Bob's my uncle.   Am conserving as much energy and pain management stamina as possible because what I really want/need to do is make it to creativi-tea today.  Will take my leopard study.  The stitching involved suits my compromised skill set.  The image in general is an excellent visual point to hold in the general landscape of my general pscyhe. So, yeah.  That's my plan at this point.  Even if this means two bird seed errands in the longer run - all I really need right now today is thistle seed.  We have a larger band of goldfinches this year and I am waaaaaaaay too empathic when they start to fret over dwindling food supply.

*As I've sat here typing, I've grown resolved to go to the "good" seed source where I can also get the things I'll need by the end of the week...


In truth I will be fine with changing all of these plans - if I get out to the car and realize - like it or not - it's simply best to make a quick run up the hill.  I will even be okay with missing creativi-tea if I'm really not up for it by mid-afternoon.  Preference, I'm learning, isn't necessarily the same thing as attachment to outcome...