When Making is Praying

Moving Day

2009-01-25T19:36:00.000-08:00

Well, not really moving. More like rearranging. You see, I haven't been idle although I haven't posted in awhile. No, I've just been rearranging the furniture, so to speak. When Making is Praying is now a Category of my new website, Weaver Womyn's Web. I plan on posting specifically to the topic of making and praying on Sundays. Also, a new feature - Textile Thursdays that will talk about textiles, their techniques and uses. And my blog, renamed Weave, Knit, Bead, is now available here. Go check them out. I think you'll enjoy the new arrangement.

Already two weeks into 2009

2009-01-12T15:06:00.000-08:00

I can't believe that it's almost two weeks into 2009 and I haven't even posted. I have the feeling that this year is going to be one of those times that just sweeps by. I seldom make resolutions, but I do take time to be still and notice if any themes seem to be wanting to come forward. This year I have heard "Finishing Up," and "Working Studio Artist." I can go with those.

So, in the continued interest of "Finishing Up," here are some projects I've completed in the first two weeks of '09. All of these are from my stash, or my mom's stash that I inherited. First, the socks from the Yarnarian's KAL. I thoroughly enjoyed working on these, in spite of trips to the pond several times. They were so worth the effort:

Then there's the scarves I'm making for gifts. First one is Black Wool-Ease from my mom's stash, in a simple K3, P3. Next is a diagonal pattern in shiny rayon yarns from my Mom's stash. I googled the yarns, both Bernat,and neither are made anymore. And last, a WIP, with one down and the other on the way, my Julia-Inspired socks. (You hang in there, Alison. I'm praying for you with every stitch.)

So far, I like the way 2009 is shaping up.

Finishing up

2008-12-30T15:31:00.000-08:00

Just as 2008 is finishing up, I'm finishing up some projects that have been left on their own for far too long. Number one is the Julia Shawl that I actually finished knitting several weeks ago, but couldn't seem to get around to weaving in the ends and blocking it. So, today is the day. It's knit with a yarn called Chispa, cotton with dashes of acrylic, so I'm not sure that it even needs to be blocked, but I felt like it needed some sort of something (how's that for a technical approach to finishing?). So, I washed it with Eucalan, figuring that after being hauled around on two trips and sat on by SarahCat many, many times, it probably could use a light wash. Then I laid it out on two cardboard cutting boards used for cutting out fabric, covered them with a waterproof tablecloth and put them on my outdoor worktables. I planned on pinning it out, but it didn't really seem to need it. Here's how it looks so far. I am so excited and so pleased with this.

Tomorrow, hopefully, I'll have pictures of me wearing it.

Normal

2008-12-27T16:50:00.000-08:00

Seen on a refrigerator magnet in the gift shop of our hotel:

"Normal" is a cycle on a washing machine.

Kind of says it all, I think.

A Turquoise Christmas

2008-12-25T09:07:00.000-08:00

As soon as my cold waned, Doug and I began planning where we would go for Christmas. The weather had been erratic for So Cal, so choices were somewhat narrowed, but with good planning, we still had a wide range of options. We chose Las Vegas, left home a day early to avoid being blocked by possible closed passes due to an upcoming storm and made it easily into Nevada, admiring the snowy landscape created by the prior storm along the way.

So, two days ago found me at the front desk of the Tropicana Hotel on The Strip in Vegas. The clerk, Sand, was very friendly. We chatted while she did the necessary paperwork, and she gave us an upgrade on our room since Christmas isn’t exactly a prime tourist time in Vegas. She handed me our keys, explained the route to our room, which required both sides of an 81/2” by 11” sheet of paper. I fetched Doug, complete with suitcase, knitting bag, camera and laptop and off we went. I led the way, map in hand, past the craps tables, through a maze of clanging slot machines, up an escalator, across a bridge spanning the tropical-themed pool area, and around the corner to the elevator area painted bright strawberry yogurt pink and emblazoned with parrots sitting amongst big green leaves on a vine curling across the elevator doors. Up we went. Up all the way to the 18^th floor, where we exited, turned right and finally entered our room. We were greeted by a large window looking out at The Strip, bamboo furniture and bamboo framed mirrors on the walls behind and to the side of the bed and on the ceiling overhead. (Hey, it’s Vegas.)

I was ooohing and aaahing at the view when the phone rang.

“Hello.”

“Linda? This is Sand from the front desk. Are you missing a purse?”

I knew instantly, without even checking.

“A small blue Guatemalan bag?”

“Yes. What are some contents in it that could identify it?”

“A chunk of turquoise and some loose change.”

“Yes, that’s it. I have it right here. Someone picked it up and brought it to the desk and I just knew that it was yours. I’ll send it over to Security. You can pick it up there.”

I thanked her again and she repeated how she had just known, somehow, that it was mine.

Back to the pink elevator, across the bridge over the pool, down the escalator, and right there at the bottom, as Sand had explained, was the Security booth. I explained who I was and the situation. The Security agent asked for ID. I gave him my Driver’s License and he peered at it. After a few moments, he explained that he didn’t doubt my ID, but that he had forgotten his glasses that day and it took a bit for him to read it. We both laughed about the vagaries of age, he handed me my little purse, wrapped securely in an envelope and officially labeled with my name and off I went, back through the maze that led to our room.

I find this to be an amazing story. An anonymous stranger found my little purse, turned it into the desk where the clerk who had checked me in just “knew” that it was mine and contacted me immediately. It’s not that the little purse is so valuable – the change in it is less than a dollar, and while the chunk of turquoise has some monetary value, its value to me is symbolic and sentimental. No, this is a Christmas story.

The Christmas story tells us that we are touched by something far greater than ourselves. When we open to and accept that, something is birthed that blesses and redeems our lives. By listening and looking closely, and by believing, we can be led to this Presence and honor it with our gifts, the gifts that in Truth, are gifts from that Presence. I call this Presence “God.” Others may call it Spirit, Life, Universal Power, Goddess, or maybe not have a name for it, just know that there is something more than us as individuals. And in that “something more,” we are blessed and share our gifts of Love and Beauty and Joy in our connectedness. Today I say thank you to God for the sharing of the Turquoise with people I didn’t think I knew. Thank you, God, for this shared moment. Thank you, God, for the connection of the One. Thank you, God, for Christmas

Merry Christmas to All of You, however and wherever you are sharing this day!

Daughter of the Sun

2008-12-13T13:49:00.000-08:00

It's the perfect day to read, and, of course, knit. It's overcast, threatening rain, the wind is blustering and since I have a cold, I am sticking to a regimen of plenty of fluids (hot herb tea) and rest. While rest has meant a few naps, I also had the perfect book.

A few weeks ago at church, I shared my love of northern New Mexico and Arizona, their landscapes and juxtaposition of peoples. Our book store manager came up to me after the service, telling me that she would bring me a book that I might like. Thank you, Sallie! Because Daughter of the Sun by Barbara Wood, is a book that I might not pick out for myself, since I tend more toward metaphysical, history, psychology and away from novels. But this one has me rethinking my ways.

Daughter of the Sun is set in the place known today as Chaco Canyon. When Barbara Wood, the author, visited there, she was taken not only by the landscape, but also by the mystery and the stories. Chaco Canyon is known as a site of Abandonment, one of several sites in the southwest that were mysteriously abandoned by Puebloan people. The definitive answer as to why a seemingly thriving culture would suddenly leave has not been found, although theories abound. Wood decided that she needed to come up with an answer of her own, and Daughter of the Sun was born.

Wood has done her research, and her use of the history and geography of the place is a firm structure within which the plot unfolds. Daughter of the Sun is a love story, the traditional attraction of two people, Hoshi'tiwa, a member of the Tortoise clan and Jakal, a Toltec who worships Quetzalcoatl, who are separated by ethnicity, caste and responsibility. Now, we all know where that leads to in love stories, but credit Wood's development of these two characters, I kept rooting for their love to triumph all the way through. Daughter of the Sun is also a story of everyday people making their way in difficult times, people like Yellow Feather, stolen from her clan and using her body and wits as a way to survive. It's a story of irresponsible, ego-ridden leadership and petty bureaucrats only interested in themselves who live through the selling of political favors (hmmm, this is sounding way too familiar.) It's a story of belief in something greater
than themselves,whether kachinas, Quetzalcoatl or family and, an appearance of a new, for these people, idea of Oneness. But mostly, it is a story of change that is not without pain but does also offer hope.

Given my own predilection towards the philosophy that we are all connected and One, and my passion for making as praying, I was especially taken by the heroine's role as a potter in the unveiling of this Truth. It is through her dedication to and belief in the practice of making sacred rain jars, that she finds direction, meaning and purpose.

Daughter of the Sun is entertaining and an enjoyable read. It fits all of my needs for metaphysics and history, yet offers a rich story too. The history that it rests in is an added bonus that adds to its richness. It's a perfect read for an indoor sort of day.

One morning while walking . . .

2008-12-12T08:52:00.000-08:00

Yuck. Hack. Cough. Sneeze. My body has decided to do the let's-have-a-cold-thing. So, while looking around for more pleasant things to think about, I came upon these photos that I took on our latest trip to Taos. I was out walking, and this is some of what I found:

Horsepower

When East meets West

Kit Carson
Died May 1868
Aged 59 years

Lights

Isn't Life amazing?

Of Rattlesnakes and Manicured Lawns

2008-12-10T09:28:00.000-08:00

Over the weekend, I attended my church's annual retreat. This year it was held at Rancho Capistrano in San Juan Capistrano. It's a beautiful setting with manicured lawns, a man made lake, and mission-style architecture. Sitting on 171 acres, the surrounding land has been left natural and it is not uncommon, at the right time of the year, to see rattlesnakes.

The property has an interesting history. The promo sheet handed out by the Rancho explains that it was first owned by the Franciscans in the 1700s, reflecting California's Spanish and Mexican heritage. Unfortunately, that simple statement of "first owned by the Franciscans," reveals another part of California's heritage. Prior to the Spanish arrival, this land was not owned, in the sense that we understand ownership, by anyone. Rather it was tended by native peoples who were treated unbearably cruelly by the arriving missionaries and soldiers. Interesting to me that this beautiful retreat and conference area is surrounded by land that is home to rattlesnakes. The staff at the Rancho Capistrano seem respectful of the snakes, explaining to us that they do their best to return them to their land rather than just kill them on sight. I wish the encounter between the Spaniards, and future arrivals, and the native peoples might have been more like that.

I found the place filled with sharp metaphors like landscaped yards and rattlesnakes. In the carefully maintained grounds, there was a path that seemed to lead, well, nowhere. Nowhere, not because the hillside wasn't enticing, but nowhere because it was an area that it seemed the Rancho preferred you not to walk. Stay on the path, you know, the cement path. Or just maybe it was one of those passages to somewhere else that frequent our dreams?

The steps had been built around this tree, a Eucalyptus. The Eucalyptus is not native to California, although it is a dominant feature of the landscape today. In my own town, Westminster, the local history society says that Eucalyptus were imported from Australia and planted here to soak up the water in the wetlands. As a native Southern Californian who has experienced most of my almost 60 years here as a time of drought, it's hard for me to imagine trying to get rid of water.

At night, the Egrets gather in the Eucalyptus. The lake is right below. Nothing like having breakfast handy when the sun rises. I love Egrets. Also, Blue Herons. They are elegant, beautiful birds. But I always think they look funny in trees. More like they should be wading around in those now way-too-few wetlands.

Oh, well. At least they're safe from the Rattlesnakes in those trees.

A Travelin' Yarn

2008-12-04T09:14:00.000-08:00

Yes, it appears quiet. Empty. Peaceful. A road leading out of a parking lot, into the main street of Laughlin, NV and who knows what adventures in the nearby casinos and river? But two nights ago, it was not empty. It was not quiet. It was The Place of the Travelin' Yarn.

Stories abound in this area of gambling and mining. Get rich quick, lose it just as quick. All that glitters is not gold. We had settled in here at the Tropicana Express, a favorite hotel of mine. Great beds. Great pillows. The Colorado river. Great buffet, well, not really, but Harrah's is right down the street and *that* is Great Buffet.

Anyway, The Husband and I had settled in to relax after a tiring day of driving through beautiful scenery and stopping wherever and whenever we wanted, when Wonderful Husband realized that I really, really, needed more stuff brought in. So he volunteered to go down to the van and get it. When he returned, he proclaimed: "You, WeaverWomyn. You owe me a gazillion twice over in favors." Now, he is not usually demanding, unreasonable, or referring to me as WeaverWomyn, so of course I had to know why. And this is what he told me.

"I made my way through the hotel lobby where they are now laying carpeting in an effort to trip and flatten the tourists, and out to the van. When I approached the van, I noticed a glint. A shiny something in the moonlight." (note: probably more like the neon lights of the hotel, but oh well, the husband can be a romantic at times.) (next note: Husband is unusually fond of checking out glints in the road. He will stop and retrieve a cheap wrench, just to take a look at it and throw it away in disgust that such tools are even allowed to be made. Glints call to him. I digress. Back to Husband's story.) "I followed this glint, down along the van and watched as it disappeared up into the back right wheel well, spun around the axle and then headed out into the lane. When said glint got to the middle of the lane, it headed south, straight away, over the bump. I followed. Finally it came to rest and I realized - it was yarn. At this point, a very small ball of yarn, but very similar to that large ball of yarn you've been using for that shawl you're knitting. Picking it up, I began to wind, following that line of glint back to the wheel well, untangled it from the axle, alongside the van, straight to YOUR door. I put the ball in YOUR seat, WeaverWomyn. It's waiting for you."

Now, all of us in the know, that is, yarn-people, know that that glint was not gold, or even a cheap wrench, it was Lurex, a tiny thread of it spun into the wool. Who knew Lurex and wool could have such an adventure? Up into the wheel well and around the axle? Not even broken? No sign of tumble weeds, sand or, gasp! oil or tranny fluid? Thank you, knitting gods. I do penance today for your blessings, for my carelessness.

But wait, I didn't get out of the door at that parking space. Husband dropped me off in front of the hotel, to go check us in. Did the yarn drop out then? Ride along on the step until he parked? Then roll to the back along the running board, fall off, bounce in a mighty effort to get back up on the step, only to fall again, but now back into the dark cavern of the undercarriage, finally to escape into the bright lights of Laughlin, take off towards the casino and . . . Who knew? Who knew she with that glint of Lurex had such aspirations. Truth is, we'll never know.

She's not talking.

When Making is Praying

2008-11-30T06:46:00.000-08:00

The desert is a very wonderful and mystical place. It is also harsh and demanding. So it is no surprise to me that an artist's colony would spring up in the midst of the Sonoran desert in what is now southern Arizona.

Tubac is that colony. Inhabited for centuries by the ancestors of the present day Pima and O'odham people, it was occupied by the Spanish from 1691 - 1821. During that time, the Christian missionaries built missions and insisted on the conversion of the native peoples to Christianity. In 1751, the native peoples rebelled and all of the Tubac area settlements were destroyed. But the Spaniards regained controlled, and the area remained under Spanish rule until Mexico gained its independence from Spain in 1821. It was almost 100 years later, in 1912, that Arizona became a state, and Tubac became a part of the United States. 50 years after statehood, a new type of settler came to Tubac and, like the others, left his mark.

This new settler was Dale Nichols, and he founded the Tubac School of Art. Within 12 years, the Tubac Festival of Arts was in place, and in 1970 the Tubac Center of the Arts opened. Now, the fact that Nichols could open an Art School says to me that something along art-lines must have been already present. But, nevertheless, in the way of history demanding a nice, tidy linear timeline, Nichols is given credit for the beginning of Tubac's reputation as an Arts Colony.

Doug and I visited Tubac yesterday, including the new section called La Entrada. Only time will tell if La Entrada is a blessing or a curse. It's new and spiffy, but lacks the charm and character, the history and the suffering, the seasoned desert Beauty of Old Tubac. Hopefully, those artists who have chosen to remain in their old studios rather than moving to the new development will still be able to make it. I wonder. It looked yesterday as if most of the tourists were staying with the new, which brings me to When Making is Praying.

As an artist who knows that her work is her prayer, I know that for many artists, the prayer is to simply be able to make enough money to keep making their art. And while that prayer may sound like a victim or someone just hoping to get by, in Truth it is not.

Please, Creative Power, give me the strength, the knowledge, the skill, the ability, to Create. I am so grateful to do this. Please help me to continue. Thank you.

Here are some of the prayers I saw yesterday:

And so it is. Amen.

San Xavier del Bac

2008-11-28T18:03:00.000-08:00

Not far from Casino del Sol, where Doug and I had our great Tucson Thanksgiving dinner, is the San Xavier del Bac mission. Now, a lot can be said about the missions throughout the Southwest. To say that the native peoples were treated poorly has got to be the most obsequious understatement of all time. So it is always amazing to me how many of the missions still stand and function as a spiritual center of the community. San Xavier is one of those missions.

The stark white beauty of the mission is in direct contrast to the rougher, more subtly colored beauty of the landscape. But the day we visited, rain was present in the area and the sky and the clouds were anything but subtle.

Light and Dark. Sunshine and Shadow.

What a difference a stitch makes . . .

2008-11-27T18:17:00.000-08:00

We had a unique and wonderfully tasty Thanksgiving dinner. After we explored Tucson a bit, we headed out of town to a more open desert area and ended up at the Casino del Sol casino/resort on the Yaqui reservation. (Yes, I know. It sounds like we gamble constantly.) Doug had prime rib while I had an array of lox, crackers, fresh fruit, cheeses, and roasted corn chowder. We shared homemade tortillas and chocolate dipped strawberries. You see, it's the buffets at the Indian casinos that we really enjoy, not the gambling. It was a lot of fun, with mariachis serenading us and exactly the sort of how-could-we-ever-plan-this? sort of day that we love.

While we were at Casino del Sol, I took advantage of the good natural light and strategically placed rocks in the landscape to photograph my ventures with the Cherry Tree Hill wool yarn that I am knitting the shaped shawl with.

Here's my initial start, with garter stitch as called for in the pattern. I was really disappointed. The colors of the yarn seemed to just disappear into an all over spotty mess. The light gray dominated the other colors and washed out the whole thing.

Then I tried the same shaping, just switched to stockinette stitch. What a difference! The colors flow into one another and the darks "pop" the other colors. Yes. This is much nicer. I'm on my way.

Giving Thanks

2008-11-27T07:46:00.000-08:00

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone!

Meister Eckhardt said long ago that, and I'm paraphrasing here, if the only prayer you ever prayed was "Thank you," that would be enough. And so, today, I say thank you. Thank you to the Spirit that gives Life and surrounds us, fills us and expresses as us in this amazing world. Thank you to my friends and family for their love and for simply being who they are. Thank you to you, for reading my blog and sharing in my life. Thank you to the four-leggeds for the lessons you teach and the awe and companionship you provide. Thank you for the plants for your Beauty and allowing me to tend you in my garden. Thank you for the wild things to remind me that I am not in control. Thank you for creativity and the ability to make things. Thank you, God, for prayer. And so it is. Amen.

On The Road Again . . .

2008-11-24T08:34:00.000-08:00

I've been carrying around a torn out page from one of those tourist magazines you get from hotel brochure racks for quite awhile. It's a writeup of a gallery called "Feminine Mystique"
in Tubac, Arizona. I went to their website and discovered that Tubac bills itself as an art colony and, it's only about 40 miles south of Tucson. Sounded like an "expetition," as Pooh and Piglet would say, to me. So, we are heading out to Tucson and Tubac for the Thanksgiving week. Yes, week. Why take a weekend when a week is beckoning? First we're stopping at Parker for some time on the Colorado River, then on to Tucson and Tubac.

The biggest challenge of traveling, for me, is deciding which projects and books to take along. Something easy for while Doug is driving. (Which is all of the time. He lives, eats and breathes cars, so isn't about to relinquish driving time to me. Okay by me. More knitting time.) But I also like to have a bit of a challenge in the evening. Hmmmmmm, decisions, decisions. Thankfully, the knitting dream gods and goddesses provided me with the list when I woke up this morning.

I'm taking this drop-dead gorgeous skein of Cherry Tree Hill Oceania to start the Weaver's Wool Mini Shawl by Peggy Pignato. Only, I'm going to make it a full size shawl. Ever since I knit the Julia shawl (pictures to be posted when I get back), I have been intrigued by shoulder shaping. Peggy's shawl is another example of this and I want to explore. So, there's the easy-while-driving project.

For a little more a challenge, I'm taking my Yarnarian KAL socks. I absolutely love how they are turning out. Love knitting the pattern so much that I forgot to decrease for the gusset. Hrrrmmmmmph. So I am now tinking back to that marker on the left. Almost there.

And, I'm taking my spinning. Going to the wool festival in Taos really inspired me to start spinning again. I have a wheel, but am enjoying carrying around my drop spindle. Perfect for travel.

Books? I have to choose yet. But other than that, I'm set. Oh. Clothes. Guess I'd better pack clothes.

Just pickin' up and leavin'

2008-11-21T14:48:00.000-08:00

One of my favorite things about being retired is what my father used to call "just pickin' up and leavin'." For him, it usually referred to changing a campsite, but for Doug and I, it means heading off somewhere on the spur of the moment. Which is exactly what we did yesterday. We ended up at the Pechanga Casino/Resort, an Indian casino out by Temecula. It's one of my favorite places. I enjoy playing the slots, the buffet is a delight, but what is best is the location. It's in the foothill area with big rocks, coyotes and clear skies. A room on the 10th floor gave us a great view of it all..

But really what amazes me about the place is its rather quirky design sense. The floors are highly polished stone of some sort that, no matter how I try, remind me of old linoleum floors in bowling alleys. The lobby is a wonderful mixture of, who knows what? Leaving this morning, I just had to take some photographs, especially since Christmas is now thrown into the mix.

There are wonderful sort-of Japanese style art deco fountains, now topped by poinsettias.

Colorful mosaic columns contrast with the fountains slate gray. Outside, giant ornaments were secured in the artificial waterfall
And, eyeing it all, a mostly patient husband or, as he put it, the guy left holding the bag.

Ms PurpleSweater returns

2008-11-18T13:06:00.000-08:00

Since we got home from our vacation, Ms PurpleSweater has been languishing on the sidelines. She was a little put out that she didn't get to continue *her* story (slightly different than MY story) of our trip. But, finally, she has come out of her funk and is ready to proceed.

First, a few notes about Ms Purple's pedigree. She is also known as The Crystal Cove Pullover, designed by Jill Vosburg, owner of JustOne MoreRow.com. I love her designs and hope to knit more. The pattern calls for cotton, silk or a rayon blend, cautioning that wool may curl at the hem. But I had this wonderful yarn that I got on sale on my trip to Asilomar and I wanted to use that. (Imagine me looking stubborn right here.) So, I am using Sirdar Donegal, a wool/polyester/acrylic blend. Oh, and there is also the issue that I may not have enough because although I bought every skein they had, well, it just may not be enough. However, I refuse to see rolling hems and not enough yarn as anything but a design challenge. I know that something great will come out of this. (Did I also mention that I don't know if it will fit because its kind of hard to tell exactly when it's knit on the diagonal like this?) And - I'm making it all one color because I think my jewelry will show off better than the two colors called for in the pattern.

So, the next step is to sew the shoulder seams so that the sleeve sts. can be picked up along the edge. I thought that a light steaming might help make that an easier task, so aided by my studio assistant, that's what I did.

First, we smoothed out the edges and pinned them.

Then I explained the next step.

Hmmmm, seems to have been a slight mis-communication. Oh, well. Don't you just love the way the rows come together at angles?

Once upon a time . . .

2008-11-16T09:30:00.000-08:00

Once upon a time, in the rarefied Land of Weavers, I was at a local weaving conference. Now, the highlight of most weaving conferences in those days was the fashion show. In this case, the fashion show had been rather hastily thrown together and there was concern about it happening at all. But, all of the garments appeared as well as their models, the stage was clear and the dressers were in place. Then someone noticed, where is the moderator? You know, the person who tells the audience about the garment being modeled, especially important at a weaving conference, because people want to know not only the more obvious fashion aspects of the garment, but also HOW it was made. What is the fiber? The weave structure? The sett? Wet finish? Handspun? Handdyed? Waaaaaaaay more questions than an ordinary fashion show. And now the moderator was missing.

In an act of desperation, they asked me. Now, for those of you have seen me, you know that fashion is not my strong point. Cotton pants and a tee shirt are my usual attire. Dressed up or down with great jewelry, of which I do have some really good stuff, and some hand knit or woven scarves. Hand knit socks with Birkies are also good. So, clearly, it was not my fashion expertise that they were after. However, I am a good talker, can be funny, think on my feet and do not suffer from the fear-of-speaking-in-front-of-people syndrome. So, I said yes. Besides, they assured me it would be easy. Each model, most of whom were weavers I already knew, would have a card with all of the info I needed for a reasonably intelligent description.

The first model came out and handed me her card. All of the info was there, piece of cake, I thought. And so it went through the first ten or so models. Smooth. Easy. Then the what-is-the-worst-thing-that-can-happen happened. I looked back towards the curtains and there was no one there. No one. No model. No dresser. Not even someone signaling me that yes, they do know that there is not a model appearing, please try to carry on. No one. For all I knew, they had all gone out the back door and across the street to enjoy lattes at the local coffee house.

So, I turned to the audience, saying there had been a slight delay, and asked the rhetorical question, "How many of you are weavers?" Laughter rose up and a hundred hands or more pushed up into the air, some holding knitting needles, others holding drop spindles, very few of them empty. "How many of you are spinners?" "How many of you knit?" And last - "Why? Why do you weave, knit, spin?"

The answers poured out, like one mouth, one mind, all just waiting to be asked that question. It's fun. I love it. To embarrass my kids. :) I'll never be able to do all of the things I want to learn about. Friends. Animals (goats, sheep, llamas, bunnies). It was a wave unleashed. Finally,it ebbed and they looked back at me. And in that moment, I got it. I really, truly got it. Yes, we knit, weave, spin for all of those reasons. But, truly, at the very essence of it all, we do those things because we believe that somehow doing those things makes our lives, and the lives of others, and maybe even the world that we live in, a better place.

I spent the day yesterday, as the fires danced in the hillsides, knitting, weaving, soothing my cat and tending the plants. I believe that I spent the day in prayer, just as the name of this blog implies. And, I believe, that it made a difference. Thank you, weavers, knitters, spinners and bead workers, all creative people, for what you do. You make a difference.

Not a great day . . .

2008-11-15T14:20:00.000-08:00

Today is not a great day for Southern California. Once again, the hills are on fire. I am not in danger. I live in a very flat coastal plain, about 7 miles from the ocean, not a high fire risk area, and quite far enough away from the coast to not be a part of the high tide advisory. So, I sit, watching the sky as the smoke shifts and turns overhead, creating an eerie light and reminding me of how foolhardy it is to even entertain the thought that we have "dominion" over Mother Nature.

From my front porch about two hours ago. That's smoke, not a rain cloud.

Then, from my backyard, about the same time. Beautiful So Cal blue sky complete with palm tree, although windier than usual.

And, now, same palm tree:

Everything has an eerie glow because of this.

My intention today is to not contribute to the fear and to stay centered. My strategy is to knit and weave, moving from room to room, depending on which window offers the most uplifting view. My options on windows are starting to shrink. Please hold, with me, all of those affected by the fires, including the animals and plants, in prayer.
Blessed be.

A Very Precious Gift

2008-11-14T14:10:00.000-08:00

I received a very special gift last Sunday. These are prayer beads, gifted to me by the practitioner interns at my church. It has been my pleasure and honor to be with them on their journey to becoming Practitioners. As part of that, I facilitated a day of meditation and visioning. To thank me for that, and to honor the journey that we have been on today, right before we gathered to pray on the prayer requests received that day, they gifted me these beads.

Thank you, Jyl, for sharing your talent and stepping forward into your ministry. Thank you, practitioners, for the time we have spent together. I'm looking forward to this next part of our journey together. And so it is.

Making Space

2008-11-12T06:57:00.000-08:00

Doug and I are moving. We're not sure when and not completely sure where, but what we do know is that we are moving. This is not a sudden urge. We've been thinking and talking about it for oh, I'd say, about 10 years or so. Then, over the last 3 or so, we started looking. We think we've found the place and now it's time to start clearing out and making space for this to happen.

Hence, the new look of my blog. As I've posted before, I love clutter, lots of stuff, baskets filled with things I've forgotten about and mysterious objects stored away. But that's hard to move. Plus, I have complete faith that even as I clear away the past, that is, 30 plus years of living in this house, more good stuff is waiting for me at that new place. My blog was feeling cluttered to me, and it seemed an easy place to start.

Now, on to the rest of the house. It's an interesting, not to mention daunting, task. Meanwhile, SarahCat says, "Moving? Snow? I don't like rides. I don't like cold."

Thank you

2008-11-11T08:54:00.000-08:00

My dad, with all of the other labels that he wore, was also a veteran of WWII. Some of my best memories are sitting with him, usually after dinner, a Chesterfield King dangling from his mouth, smoke rising and the ash growing longer and longer, his left hand wrapped around a can of Coors. I listened as he told stories about when he was in France and Germany. They were exciting stories, stories about getting convoys of trucks out of deep mud in pouring rain, with no lights, just your wits to guide you past the German lines. He talked about dancing in the streets of Paris, losing the jeep he was supposed to be driving a general around in, only to find it, days later, with the window smashed and the seats gone. The general remained lost for several more days. All sorts of stories, some much more harrowing than these, but none of them about the horror that the war was. The horror that, when he got home, sent him on a journey across the country from Illinois to California, because the memories he carried within himself couldn't live with the hero status of returning soldiers.

He was wounded twice; I have his Purple Heart. He gambled his way through the war; I have his dice. But mostly what I have is the memory of him, all of him, in all of his shortcomings and wonder. And I'm grateful that he made it through that war so that I could be here and have those memories. Thank you, Daddy, and thank you, God.

Secrets . . .

2008-11-10T12:30:00.000-08:00

We were wandering along the trails in the Arboretum at Flagstaff, Az and came upon this sign. I wish more of the secrets along my path were this clearly marked. At least, I think I do.

U-turns and Double Decreases

2008-11-08T12:58:00.000-08:00

Doug is fond of saying that when we embark on one of our road trips, at least 50% of our mileage is made up of U-turns. This is not a complaint. It's an affirmation of the many unexpected things that we will see along the way and deem worthy of a second look. I feel the same way about the so-called mistakes in my knitting.

Sometimes, a second look only proves that it truly is a mistake - something that needs to be corrected. Often, though, this seeming mistake provides a U-turn to something I hadn't really thought about. This is exactly what has happened with the socks I'm knitting that are inspired by the Julia shawl I knit (finished and just waiting to be blocked, yeah!) from Alison's book, Wrapped in Comfort.

You may remember this sample that I did, waaaaaaay back before we went on vacation. Well, having just finished knitting the shawl and this sample, I felt as if that stitch pattern had become a part of me. So, off I went on vacation, sock yarn and #2 DPNs in my bag, to knit my socks. And, I did. Only one problem: While I remembered the stitch pattern, I didn't remember which double decrease the pattern used. Now, I have to tell you that I thought that I did. I thought that I was doing everything just like the sample. Hmph. The knitting gods must have been enjoying themselves. How silly those humans are! Because, after several rows, I looked at my sock, and it just didn't seem the same. And, yet, it still didn't occur to me to stop, take a good look, and reconsider what I was doing. Not until I got home and compared the sock to the sample, did I realize that I was doing a different double decrease. Look at the difference! But, you know, I kind of like it. And, I have a new appreciation of the aesthetics of decreases. But, I still think the knitting gods tune into the station I'm on when they need a good laugh.

Let's see what they have in mind for me this afternoon when I block the Julia shawl.

All Creatures, Great and Small

2008-11-05T09:50:00.000-08:00

The election results are in, and, I, for one, am relieved that it's over. Enough of the ads, the commercials, the signs cluttering the chain link fences around my neighborhood. Enough. Time to move on. I got who I wanted for president, didn't get what I wanted on prop 8. I know that that's the way it goes - win some, lose some. But it can be hard. For some reason, I keep having the images of the road in front of us as Doug and I traveled through the high deserts and mountains of northern Arizona and New Mexico for those three weeks. In the seeming emptiness of that yet-ever changing landscape, creatures kept appearing and, disappearing.

I've already written about the cow at the end of the post about my stash enhancement. But there were others. Just outside Taos, on the mesa before Tres Piedras, there were big, black tarantulas. Yup, tarantulas. It was a dance, (the Tarantella?) between these hairy ones with the long legs and Doug. Doug swerved slightly in order to not run over them. Like the cow, they were unconcerned with our concerns about them. Some came from the left side of the road, a stately pace taking them over the warm pavement, across the yellow line, to the right. Others came from the right - same journey, opposite direction. They were only there in mid morning. By later in the day, when I had finally had the thought that I should photograph them, they were gone. Do the same ones cross the road every morning? Do they spend one day on one side, the next on the other side? I don't have the faintest.

Then there was the road runner. He stood at the right side of the road, watching us approach, just outside Tuba City. At the last minute, he/she ran out in front of the Jeep. Doug braked. Road Runner sprinted along directly in front of the car, a grand, futile gesture of leadership and retrieval of self-respect, before recognizing that, nope, this one's too big and too fast. He executed a tight U-turn to the dirt shoulder of the road, right back to where he had started.

And, I can't forget the coyotes. There they were in broad daylight, in the middle of the day, not a usual Coyote time to be out and about. I've seen coyotes before, lots of them. But mostly I have heard them in the darkness and seen their shadow moving past me, their eyes a glint in the light, whether firelight or electric, when we lived in the desert. These two coyotes were just trotting along the road, only one was looking to cross, and he/she waited until we had passed.

Of course, there were also sheep, usually peacefully eating their way through a meadow. But on one of those arrow straight roads across the mesa, the roads that just go on and on, there was a big ole ram and his harem of three ewes. Doug had to brake quick and hard for these. And, then, as the Jeep stopped just a few feet from them, Ram thought better of it and headed back into the bushes, where the ewes were still hiding, no doubt muttering about the machismo of that ram and how he always had to be the one in charge. Probably didn't tell him that, though. But I bet he still knew.

I'm not sure why all of these images are in my head this morning, although as I've typed, I've heard the political analogies: right, left, retreat, playing games, being seen in unfamiliar places, more likely to be in the dark, deception. I'll leave it up to you. But what I do know this morning is, I am grateful for all of the creatures who are in my life and share themselves with me: two footed, four footed and even eight footed.

Sanctuaries in Faith

2008-10-25T08:51:00.000-07:00

One of the places we visited on our three week long excursion was the Santuario at Chimayo. This isn't the first time I have visited the Santuario, but it is a place that moves me deeply and I am drawn to return there. The first time I visited, I cried. Not that nice gentle, picturesque tears glinting on my cheeks sort of crying, but a deep sobbing that seemed to come from the earth itself. I just couldn't stop no matter what I did, and so I finally surrendered to it and was at last able to realize that it was the deep Faith present in this place that brought my tears.

The Santuario is a place of pilgrimage and healing. It is believed that the ground itself is healing and there is a place in the side chapel where you can get down on your knees, bend low and scoop a bit of the dirt to carry with you. Leading to this place on the one side is the chapel, but directly in front of it is a narrow room filled with prayer requests pinned on the walls, the curtains, anywhere they can be pinned. The requests are surrounded by cast off crutches, photos of loved ones, homemade shrines - it is a place where making is praying.

I'm thinking of this place because today I get to participate in a healing. One of my ministers has asked me to assist her in a double wedding. That in and of itself is wonderful, but that these marriages can occur is somewhat of a miracle, because these couples are gay. The absolute joy of these four people who today are allowed to declare their love for one another in a lifelong commitment, through sickness and health, for better or for worse - their joy is enough to carry me for days and remind me, once again, how truly miraculous Life is. I get to remember today that Spirit's Love is true sanctuary and that in that Love, each of these couples will create their shared sanctuary.

Thank you, God, for this opportunity and privilege. For inviting me to participate in this Love filled time, and for reminding me, once again, of how great Life is.

Standing Cows and Being Home

2008-10-24T16:19:00.000-07:00

Actually, I've been home for a little over a week now. I have no idea why, but it takes me a pretty long time to readjust when I get home from a trip. There's a strange feeling of needing to now integrate that person who I was before I left, and what I was working on, with the person who did and saw and experienced all of that stuff out on the road, into this person who is now home. It's like standing in a time warp. I have no idea if any of that makes any sense to any of you, but the point is, I'm home.

So much to share and tell. So over the next few days, I'll share some pictures of treasures and end with a Road Story.

This is my basic treasure trove of knitting goodies, most of it from the Taos Wool Festival. It's laid out on top of the front and back of Ms PurpleSweater and topped by the socks based on the Julia Shawl Pattern. More on projects in a later post. Right now, let's concentrate on the goodies.

The two Elizabeth Zimmerman books in the front were bought by my husband, Doug, at a garage sale. There's more books, some knitting, some not. That man is a genius at treasure hunting at garage sales.

There is gorgeous lace weight handpainted yarn by Jan Seltman that I bought at Village Wools in Albuquerque, NM, on the far left. It's actually a much deeper color. I'm thinking a shawl with this.
Next to that is three skeins of handpainted yarns by Plain & Fancy Sheep and Wool Co from Henderson, TX. Maybe a modular vest? Then the pink in front is a 2 ply Cotswald/Silk. Drats! It doesn't have a label, but I do have her card somewhere. I'll post the info when I find it. And, in the back on the right, 2 bundles of handpainted kid mohair roving from Kai Mohair.I have no idea what I'm going to do with this: I just had to have it. And nestled in the middle is a skein of absolutely exquisite Suri/merino from Grand Slam Llama and Alpaca Fiber. The very friendly person at this booth assured me that I could wear a scarf or vest from this in Southern California. Obviously, she has never experienced Southern California - it's in the upper 80s today. Where she lives, in CO, they are having snow.

Lastly - a Road Story.

We left Taos and headed north towards Chama. The Aspens were turning and contrasted against the greens of the pines, well, it was mesmerizing. Every now and then there would be a clearing, with a ranch house and black and white or brown and white spotted cattle grazing. Very idyllic. So different from where I live.

As we came down into a small valley, there was a gathering of cows on either side of the road. Strange thing was, on the left, all of the cows were white and on the right, all of the cows were black. Well, we said, segregated cows. No, we decided, after further discussion. It's just that the cows on the left, the white ones, hadn't got their dark spots yet and the cows on the right, the black ones, well, their black spots had just taken over. Yes, I know, both Doug and I have a very odd sense of humor. But, hey, it's part of the reason the marriage has lasted. Anyway, we continued this conversation on the Way of Spotted Cows, when, up ahead, we see, surprise, surprise, a cow. A black cow. Not in an idyllic pastureland, but straight across our lane. Perfect right angle to the road. Doug stops, of course. The cow, occupying the entire width of the lane, slowly turns her head to look at us. Yes. There they are. More tourists. Head moves back to original position. No other movement. Just standing there. Doug edges the Jeep towards her. Nothing. Changing tactics, he backs the Jeep up a bit and begins to pass her on the left. She turns her head, staring through the window at me. Every other part immobile. Inching past her, her very large nostrils now revealing much more about cows than I really care to know, she continues to stare as we pass her and move back into the lane. We watch her in the rear view mirror, and just a few moments later, see the whole thing repeated with a little red car.

Doug said that he considered honking at her, but wasn't sure how she would take it. Better to let standing cows stand.

A Quick Update

2008-10-05T16:36:00.000-07:00

We're in Taos right now. Been to the Taos Wool Festival. Oh. My. I was actually pretty good. Did not buy absolutely everything that I drooled over. Did add two new drop spindles to my collection, some hand painted kid mohair roving, alpaca 2 ply and a 2 ply Cotswold/Silk blend. I promise pictures when I get home. Unless I can figure out how to transfer photos from my camera to my phone. Then I could email them to Flickr and upload them that way. But, probably not. I'm much too busy spinning, knitting, and most importantly, absolutely sinking into this scenery.

A note on Ms. PurpleSweater. She misses all of you and is a bit put out that she doesn't get her picture on the Internet almost daily. However, she is finding this to be a growth experience. She now has the front and 2/3 of the back of her done.

Uhhhhh, blog temporarily interrupted

2008-09-27T08:55:00.000-07:00

I had plans. I had great plans. I had plans to share my three week adventure, complete with knitting, with all of you. Seems my computer had other plans. It has gone on its own vacation. So, for now, posts will be limited to when I can get online at a hotel or other spot. Hmmm, wonder if maybe God had other plans - like, take a vacation, Linda, don't worry about blogging? But it's so much fun to blog - oh, well. Rest assured I'm well and safe, just the computer having a slight hiccup. Maybe it's the altitude?

To the Grand Canyon

2008-09-25T20:17:00.000-07:00

We are staying in the great little town of Williams, Az. It seems that Williams' claim to fame is that it is the gateway to the Grand Canyon. So, we decided to go to the Grand Canyon. We went via the Grand Canyon Railway, a 2 hour plus ride at the "blistering speed," according to our guide, of 45 mph or less. The trip took us through open flatland and conifer forests, and along the way we saw a few deer, three elk and quite a few wildflowers for this late in the season. Ms PurpleSweater seemed to enjoy the ride, looking out the window. She was especially pleased when a fellow traveler asked about her, saying how pretty she was.

The train takes you right to the rim of the Canyon. There is a paved easy trail with spectacular views that give a great sense of the sheer immensity of the thing. It seemed a bit hazy, so the colors were muted, but it's still impressive. An overheard conversation: "Well, I guess when God got done making all the other stuff, He decided to play." Wow. Some playground.

The Canyon made Ms PurpleSweater dizzy, although she did think that she and the Canyon were a nice compliment, colorwise.

The train departs the Canyon at 4 in the afternoon, meaning we got back to Williams a little after six, had some dinner and returned to our hotel, the Grand Canyon Hotel. It's supposedly the oldest hotel in Arizona, built in 1891. If you're a fan of the HBO series,
Deadwood, well, all I can say is that I wouldn't be surprised to see Al peering over the banister.

On Vacation with Ms PurpleSweater

2008-09-24T17:50:00.000-07:00

Doug and I are on vacation! We're headed towards the Taos Wool Festival in Taos, New Mexico, but that's not for another ten days, so we have plenty of time to, as my dad used to say, just mosey. Of course, it's not just Doug and I. I have brought along projects.

Number one is the purple sweater I posted about earlier, with a picture of her relaxing in the lawn chair in the new garden. Well, when it came time to leave and I was gathering up the obligatory traveling sock project, Ms PurpleSweater spoke up. "Why," she pouted, "is it that socks get to travel so much? Sweaters are much more important. You can always go barefooted, but just try going barebreasted in polite society." I saw her point immediately, and while I have also brought along a sock project to get started, (shhhh, don't tell her yet), MS Purple Sweater is getting first look at our vacation spots.

First stop was Harrah's Resort and Casino in Laughlin, Nevada, on the Colorado River. Ms PurpleSweater was not impressed. Peaking quickly over the railing of the deck, she wondered just why it was that her knitter had brought her, a wool sweater, to a place filled with sand, water and - worst of all - a temperature of 104! That's right - it's almost October, other parts of the country are beginning to think about frost on the pumpkin and here we are in a place that's 104 degrees F. However, turning quickly, she began to see possibilities in this place after all.

Air conditioning, glamour, action! Casino! I'm sorry to say that I can't show you pictures of Ms PurpleSweater once she got through those doors. The casino doesn't allow photography.

The Dancing Stick

2008-09-20T16:11:00.000-07:00

I walked out into my garden this morning, new camera in one hand and cup of coffee in the other, and discovered this:

What could it be? Halloween is still several weeks away. Maybe the goblins are visiting early? Nope. Closer inspection showed a thin transparent thread that, if followed up its extensive length, led to this elegant web. Grandmother Spider, welcome again.

Orb weaver spiders, like all weavers, must establish a warp, threads to be woven on, before they can weave their web. One way that they do this is by confidently jumping into space, releasing a thread as they float down. When they encounter something solid, they attach this thread, return to the web and repeat the action until the required number of warps are ready. Only then do they begin the spiral weave out from the center of their webs.

Evidently, this Orb Weaver, touched down on the newly scattered wood chips that we have used in the garden. Attaching her web to one, she returned to her web. But the wood chip was light enough that it came away from the ground, still weighting her web, but not attached to Terra Firma. This spider is not the first weaver to use this technique in weaving. Looms called, appropriately enough, warp weighted looms, were used in Ancient Greece and Rome. Ovid's description of the weaving duel between Athena and Arachne describes a warp weighted loom, and drawings on vases of Penelope weaving and reweaving while she waits for Odysseus, confirm their use. This is a drawing I did from a photograph of a vase in one of Elizabeth Barber's wonderful textile history books.

So much happening in my garden!

And for those of you who have let me know that you do not share my fascination with spiders, here's another visitor in the garden. But, sssssshhh. He's not just sleeping; he's also hiding. Don't let TobyCat know that you can see him - he's a very skittish cat.

"Oh, my, my," said the spider to the . . . beetle?

2008-09-13T17:27:00.000-07:00

My garden is filled with Orb Weaver Spiders, their spiral webs, and one less iridescent beetle.

Grandmother Spider, I am honored by your presence. And so it is.

It Ate the Pot or Do you remember Audrey?

2008-09-12T14:34:00.000-07:00

Okay. Time to start on this corner of the Meditation Garden. I remember when this was just a tiny thing, in a nice terra cotta pot. Wonder what happened to that pot?

Oops.

I remember . . .

2008-09-11T13:25:00.000-07:00

Like each of you, I remember where I was seven years ago today. And I remember how I got through it. I knit lace. I had forgotten that until just this morning while knitting on my Julia shawl. I knit lace. Not a project, just a little sample. I had never even attempted to knit lace, but knew I wanted to. I remember finding a chart, easily from the books on my bookshelves, because I had been collecting knitted lace books for years. And I knitted a little sample. It took me days, knitting, ripping, reknitting. Trying to understand those little Os, solid squares, slanted lines and other squiggles. I just kept knitting on that little sample. And somehow I, and that little sample, got through the next few days.

I have no idea where that sample is now. I wish I did. I'd like to have it now to remind me. I remember putting it aside, because I was in school, the second year of what would become a six year journey, and I knew I couldn't get sidetracked. But I remember promising that little piece of knitted lace that I'd be back. And, now, here I am, seven years later, knitting lace. I'm glad I kept that promise.

Moving right along . . .

2008-09-10T18:43:00.000-07:00

The Meditation Garden is beginning to look like my garden again. All of the orchids and bromeliads have been repotted and arranged in their special space under the Orange tree. The gnomes and other critters are beginning to join them. And, I'm pleased that there is room to add in more plants, although sad for those that didn't survive my post graduate work. But, I love collecting plants as much as I love collecting yarn and books, so will be fun to add more.

Next, the cacti and succulents are being arranged and repotted. Doug is painting two of the plant stands while I repot. This little guy just couldn't wait, I guess, for his new home. He's celebrating already. Do you believe these flowers? They are a little more than an inch across. And looks like there are plenty of buds getting ready, too. I don't know their names; I'm just not that kind of a gardener. Oh, I have names for most of them, just not what you'd find in the Sunset Western Gardening Book. I think, though, that these are originally from South Africa.

And, finally, SarahCat surveys her domain. Must be ever vigilant. Keep those gnomes in line.

Swallowtails and Rue

2008-09-08T15:32:00.000-07:00

I am really enjoying working in my garden. I'm glad to have that connection with the earth and her critters again. While possums, rats (ugh!), birds and stray cats are fairly obvious inhabitants, I find many more when I garden.

In redoing the Meditation Garden, we moved the Rue plant and I was sorry to see that it promptly turned brown and looked dead. Hmmm, I thought, maybe if I just cut it back, it'll be able to recoup its energy and come back. So, snippers in hand, I set out to cut it back. But first, I found this beautiful iridescent blue-green little guy in the photo above. I really have no idea what its name is, but it seemed rather rude to interrupt its dinner or frighten it, so I decided to come back when it had finished. Odd, you may say, that I
am willing to let a bug eat my plants? Well, it can be disconcerting, but I know that the ebb and flow of Life is a rule of nature, and I have discovered that over the years, that flow has also allowed unexpected sustenance to me. So, off I went to other garden chores.

Then, when I came back, I was rewarded. One of my favorite things about the Rue plant, is that every year it is decimated (but rebounds) by the caterpillars of the Yellow Swallowtail butterfly. Those caterpillars are some of the strangest things I've ever seen, and I really was convinced that given the condition of the Rue plant, they wouldn't use it as their autumn feast. But, there it was, a tiny Swallowtail caterpillar. Yup, that's it in the picture, about an inch long and looking for all the world like bird poop, and munching away on some of the few remaining green leaves. The caterpillars get up to about 3 or 4 inches and later in the afternoon, I spotted one inching its way up the wall of the house. That evening, I found this strange outer-space-looking-creature. This is a chrysalis, about two inches long, or at least one of the first stages of the chrysalis. I've also found some other chrysalises that seem to be further along. I found a great website here that tells a lot more about them. Meanwhile, there are still a few Swallowtails flitting around in the backyard. Ever try to get a photo of a butterfly in flight? So far, no luck, but I'll keep trying.

And I'll also keep gardening and watching for the wonders in my backyard.

Thank you, God, for the unimagined close at hand.

When slubbiness is a helpful thing

2008-09-02T17:49:00.000-07:00

I didn't work much on the Meditation Garden today. Got sidetracked by my Julia shawl. I was going along just great, knitting while talking on the phone this morning thanks to the wonder of Bluetooth, when, without warning, SarahCat jumped into my lap. Luckily, I was talking to my husband, so the language that followed was a little better accepted than maybe if it had been someone else. Also, he understood the seriousness of the situation and was totally willing to wait while I untangled me, cat and shawl. I couldn't even dare to look at it right then. I just carefully put the knitting aside and finished the conversation.

Then, this afternoon, I surveyed the damage. Not too bad, actually. Not if you're Alison, that is, who designed the shawl and understands what all those little loops of yarn actually do when they yo or sl1-K2tog-psso. For me, it was a bit more of a mystery. So, I said a little prayer and began.

First, the problem. I spread it out and, while the slubbiness of the yarn and the inelasticity of the cotton added to the problem of really seeing what was going on, by using the two vertical knit bars as a guide, realized that I had dropped two stitches out of the three st dec. So, I isolated those stitches using stitch holders. Then I said another prayer. Days like this make me glad that I have a working relationship with a Higher Power. Saying "thank you" in advance, I began to reknit those rows, trying to follow what I could see from the bordering correct areas (again, the slubbiness was not helpful) as well as just imagining as best I could do what should be going on. And, voila! I'm calling it a success. I don't think it's perfect, although it could be the uneven texture of the yarn. The areas on either side have a thick slub of yarn at that point. But, also, now is when that slubbiness helps - there just isn't the sharp definition that there would be if I was using an even yarn. So, hopefully, it all blends in and, as they say, no one on a galloping horse will be able to tell.

Who knows? Someday I might be a lace knitter. And along those lines, I wondered what this pattern looks like in an even, harder twist yarn. I'm also wondered if I could knit a pair of lace socks. So, I knit up a sample of how the Julia Shawl might look as socks. The yarn is a wonderful handpainted wool that I got on our Asilomar trip. The sample hasn't been blocked, just stretched around this cardboard cone for the photo. I'm liking it. Lace socks, here I come. That is, as soon as I find the ball of yarn. It's temporarily disappeared, so I can't even tell you it's maker. Probably all for the best - think I'd better finish the garden, the shawl and maybe even my sweater before I start something else. Or, maybe not. I'll see if that yarn turns up.

Slow but steady . . .

2008-08-29T15:01:00.000-07:00

Progress is being made on the Meditation and Dream Garden. The blocks are painted, arranged and the plants are being repotted and repositioned in the garden. There's actually more plants in place than in this photo, since I repotted most of the orchids this afternoon. Had a wave of guilt that I had neglected them so, but hopefully the spiffy new pots and fresh potting mixture will help them to forgive me.

I've also created a nice place for knitting and reading. You can see the painted block wall this side of the chaise, freshly planted with Desert Honeysuckle. As it fills in, it will hide some of my and Doug's work areas, to the left and unseen in the photo. Hummingbirds and butterflies like this plant, another reason why I chose it. The remaining holes in the top of the wall will be planted with bulbs for spring bloom and winter annuals, probably pansies. (yes, this is So Calif and we garden year round.)

And lest you think that painting, potting and rearranging has pushed aside knitting, nope, never. I have started this sweater for myself with some of the yarn that I bought on our Asilomar trip. I'll post details later, but don't you just love the angles of the garter ridges? I promised myself that this year I would focus on modular knitting and lace and I'm proud to say that I'm actually doing that. I'm still working on my blue Julia shawl, that has now become my take-with-me knitting. Never, ever did I think I could become adept enough at a lace pattern, however simple, that it would be my take along knitting.

And last, but certainly not least, some members of the family seem a little less willing to paint and pot, but plenty willing to enjoy the space.

Returning a favor

2008-08-20T18:49:00.000-07:00

Seven years ago, I entered the DreamTending program at Pacifica Graduate Institute near Santa Barbara, CA. Little did I know that that would lead me to graduate and post graduate work in Mythological Studies and Depth Psychology, but lead it did. During those six years of back-to-school-in-my-fifties time, my Meditation and Dream Garden, created from my work in DreamTending, sustained, guided and enriched me. It gave to me unconditionally and I soaked it up. In return, I generally neglected it in terms of basic things like re potting the orchids. So, this past week, Doug and I have been working on redesigning and reinvigorating the Garden.

It's a small space, so we started by moving all of the potted plants out of the area, leaving only those that had escaped, cracked open or otherwise ignored the bounds of a pot and rooted into the ground. Then, during several late nights watching the Olympics and knitting, I redesigned the area, giving special consideration to the orchids that live under the Orange tree, distracting the view of Doug's work area and my potting bench and creating a place to honor the Divine Feminine, whom I affectionately refer to as M'Lady.

Today we finished the bones of the whole thing. The cinder blocks form the basic structure. They're ready to be painted, planted and provide spaces for the potted plants and multitudes of Victorian style and contemporary rusty creatures, signs and oddments that seem to collect at our house. I even imagine some of the surfaces and pots to be covered in mosaics, but don't tell Doug. He gets nervous when I mention projects involving tiles and grout. Something about his dad and a home project involving a bathroom wall covered in hardened grout. My mom, on the other hand, worked in mosaics as part of her artwork. Part of my weekly chores was helping her grout them.

In among all of the chaos of rearrangement, Beauty continues. I think M'Lady is happy.

Expetition to Asilomar

2008-08-12T18:03:00.000-07:00

I just got home from a luscious more-than-a-week with my good friend, Joanie. The "excuse" for our expetition (that's what Pooh and Piglet would call it) was a church conference at Asilomar. We've decided we no longer need excuses - we intend to just go off on expetitions now.

Asilomar is a conference site on the coast in central California. That it is run by the state government, and run very well, gives me hope. The setting is amazing, and all week I was continually grateful and amazed at the beauty, diversity and imagination in nature.

What a perfect place to sit and knit with a friend. Thank you, God, for friends, oceans, flowers, bugs, birds, trees, oh, just, Life!

God's Imagination

2008-08-04T22:28:00.000-07:00

Anyone who thinks that God does not have a sense of humor or an incredible imagination, has not seen Elephant Seals. We stopped along Highway 1, just past San Simeon to see these. No, they are not dead or washed up from the ocean. They are Elephant Seals basking in the sun. Weighing in at around 2 1/2 tons (!), they understandably don't move around a lot. Every now and then, they raise a stubby flipper and delicately scratch themselves or toss a little sand around. Furthest I saw one move was about four feet.

However, once they are in the water, it is another story. These two were still going at one another when we left, having watched them for probably 20 minutes. It was hard to tell if they were playing or attacking. In addition to diving, biting, and rolling around, they make very loud sounds, sort of like a train pulling in. Believe me, once you've heard it, you'll remember it.

Why Elephant Seal? The helpful sign said it's because of their proboscis, that long "flap" of skin. I just thought it was because of their size.

Thank you, God, for amazing creations.

A Bag of Creativity

2008-08-01T07:06:00.000-07:00

Having recently lost, and now regained, my rhythm of creativity, I am even more aware of how precious it is to me. That's lesson number one that I already knew, but now know deeper. Lesson number two, that I also already knew but now know more deeply, is that while creativity can be depended on, it also must be nurtured.

I grew up in a house filled with creativity. My mom was an artist. She knitted, wove, beaded, and sewed. I shared at Prayer Shawl Ministry the other night that for my mom, using a pattern of any sort was, well, I can't even explain what a sin that was. Yes, sin. If not a sin, at least a serious character defect. Something you needed to work on overcoming. She was one of the first people, way back in the '60s, to use fiber as an artform. She taught, created and exhibited her fiberart across the United States. My childhood memories include waking up late at night and quietly slipping down the hall to watch my mom working in her studio. My dad was no slouch at creativity either. He was a house painter, way back in the days when a house was brushed, not sprayed, and paint was mixed by a human painter, not a computer. He worked for a small company in Los Angeles and was known to be able to match any color. I remember his stories of working at various homes in Beverly Hills and Belair. He'd tell about movie stars and other wealthy people, a world far removed from our stucco tract home surrounded by orange groves in then rural Orange County. He'd match the colors of designer fashions and work with interior designers to create just the right color for a wall. For me, I remember that I could have my bedroom any color that I wanted. And after my dad painted it, my mom would make the curtains, bedspreads - all of it in any color and design that I could imagine and then explain, whether verbally or by drawing. Creativity was important in our home.

So today, as I head off for a little more than a week of an "expetition," as Pooh and Piglet called it, I have packed my Bag of Creativity. It includes my laptop for writing, my knitting, of course, and a sketchbook/journal. I've included something new - some oil pastels and a little watercolor set. I hope to do some sketches using color, in addition to my usual line drawings and writing. I'm looking forward to a week of traveling and creativity.

Thank you, God, for Creativity and the tools that make it possible.

Creative Bursts With a Slight Bump

2008-07-29T18:33:00.001-07:00

I'm in one of those times when everything just flows. (Well, except for the 5.4 earthquake here in So Cal today. That was a little too bumpy to be called a flow.) I set up my time this last week so that I had no scheduled events, and with my husband out of town, it was clear sailing. I'm pleased to say that not only did I get a lot done, but I'm back in the rhythm of making.

On the knitting front, I am almost finished with a prayer shawl/blanket for a 6 year old girl at our church. Ran out of yarn for finishing the edging, but a friend emailed me today that she had found me a skein, so I'm set. It will be finished soon.

The Julia shawl from Ali s on Hyde's book, Wrapped in Comfort, is once again back on track. I had several inches done and realized there was a huge mistake in one of the repeats. It was one of those times when I ignore that prompting, or just common sense, that says something is wrong here, Linda. Nope. I just kept on going until I had to admit, this is not lookin' good. Anyway, I decided it was going to be nearly impossible for me to take it back to where I thought the mistake began, so I just slid it off the needles and ribbit! Now I've started again and I am really pleased with the results. The yarn is working up beautifully, I think, although it can be a little tricky. The skinny stitches want to climb over the fat ones and the fat ones want to either hide the skinny ones or split into two stitches. I understand the pattern well now (it's only six sts) and it's pretty much just zippin' along. I love working on it and I think it's the perfect pattern for showing off a slubby/uneven yarn.

And - I finished this little bag just yesterday. It's woven on a beadloom and I have plans for it. Suffice it to say, for now, that it involves these wonderful shiny objects that a friend and I found today after the earthquake and celebrating her birthday at a favorite Japanese restaurant. Stay tuned. This is a great project.

Creative Spurts

2008-07-26T08:35:00.000-07:00

A few weeks ago I was muttering, well, maybe complaining is a better word. Anyway, I was talking about clutter and creative bursts of energy. I've learned a lot about me and my creative process over the last few weeks, filling out and confirming my original observation that I tend to work in bursts that are nurtured by what others might call clutter. No sooner said than done, and nature, my number one check point for how things are done in the world, provided me with support for my theories.

This is the flower bed in the outdoor area of my studio. Usually, it is a wonderful little gathering of Elsie the cow, her friend the surfing rabbit next to her, a dancing Kokopelli, a Road Runner, a windmill, another Kokopelli - oh, just all sorts of wonderful creatures who have come my way. Gifts and acquisitions, they are all representative of bits and pieces of me, as well as wonderful in their own right. But, you say, there are no little creatures? You're right. No sooner had I written about creative bursts than this area burst forth with Four-o'clocks. That's the bush that looks as if it is about to pull Elsie in and her rabbit friend appears to be rearing in alarm at. Everything else has simply disappeared. Traces remain. Look closely and you can see the head and the humpback of a Kokopelli still playing his flute and dancing, although now mostly in the dark. There's also the hint of the windmill, one arm reaching up above the flowers as if to determine if there still is any sun left. Did I mention that I never planted Four o'clocks here, or anywhere else for that matter?

To me, this is magic. I love it that flowers and life appears unbidden. What's even better is that I know it is a part of a cycle. Once this creative burst is over, it will die back, go underground as seeds, waiting for it's next chance to grow and bloom. All of my familiars will reappear and we'll each continue in our own cycles. Who knows? Maybe even Kokopelli needs to retreat now and then.

A Year Ago . . .

2008-07-10T10:32:00.000-07:00

A year ago, my thoughts were far away from Las Vegas, conferences, clutter and other such happily frustrating conundrums such as have filled my last few posts. A year ago, some of my best friends had just returned from Peru and brought me this doll. They gave it to me at a Prayer Shawl Ministry meeting. I was, and am, so touched, that they thought of me while climbing Machu Pichu, rafting rapids and having other such exciting adventures. But they did and that matters a lot to me. Little did any of us know that within a few weeks, one of those friends just back from Peru, and another friend, would be gone.

I remember that Carol, friend-just-back-from-Peru, didn't come to Prayer Shawl Ministry that night because she was tired. I wasn't surprised- they had just gotten back and travel is wearing. I'm so grateful to Rosi that she came despite being tired enough to almost fall off her chair and brought, not only the doll, but textile treasures from the trip. We talked about those treasures and the trip that night and it became a gathering in of weavers and knitters from all over the world and we looked forward to hearing from Carol also. Then, the next day, it shifted. Instead of not attending Prayer Shawl Ministry laden with crocheted shawls, Carol was in the hospital and I was taking her a shawl. I remember wending my way to her room through the labyrinth of hallways, only to find that she wasn't there. She was having tests. I sat for awhile and knew it wasn't good. I couldn't find, couldn't "feel" Carol in that room. I left the shawl on her pillow.

At the same time, another friend, Ken, was in a different hospital. I remember spending 4th of July with his wife, Barb E, another good friend, peering from the 3rd floor window of the waiting room to see if we could see any fireworks. Ken was in surgery. (And, yes, they really were Barb E and Ken.)

I don't remember the details, not even any really specific scenes, of the next few days. Just the dull ache that wouldn't leave and couldn't quite believe that two of my friends had passed.

It was a time like no other I have ever experienced and as someone else said to me, almost pleadingly, "I don't want to go through this ever again." Both Carol and Ken were a part of my church community and church without them left a huge, gaping hole. Their absence was palpable. It also seemed unbelievable to lose both of them within just a few days of one another.

Today, in honor of Carol's passing and knowing that the anniversary of Ken's passing is only a few days away, I offer gratitude.

I am grateful to Carol for that evening several years ago when she asked me to "pray us out." I had never done this because usually only Practitioners, who are sort of like lay ministers, do this. But I trusted Carol and so I centered within, opened my mouth and something like words and a prayer came out. When I was done, she looked at me and said, "I hear a Practitioner." The last time I spent with her was right before that Peru trip. I was a brand new Practitioner and we had just had Practitioner Sunday at church. That's when the minister gets the day off and the Practitioners do the service. She smiled at me all the way through my part, gave me a thumbs up and later at lunch, as we all celebrated, she said, "You did good." Then she teased me, "You always manage to get weaving and knitting in there, don't you?" You see, I had spoken about the seamless garment.

I am grateful to Ken for teaching me to put stuff in the bag on the back of his wheelchair, not on his lap, for being patient with me as I "helped" him, and for sharing with me about his photography and time with Ansel Adams. Thank you, Ken, for teaching me patience and gratitude and allowing me to be with you in your last days on this planet. You changed my ideas about death in a very deep way.

I have my doll to remind me of Carol and Doug has a powerful pair of binoculars that belonged to Ken. Thank you, Ken and Carol, for creativity, curiosity, friendship and farsightedness.

And so it is. Amen.

Eaglets, Bears and Green Men (and don't forget the buffet)

2008-07-09T15:44:00.000-07:00

One of my thoughts during the conference weekend in Las Vegas was that here I was in the middle of a town that I really like, and I wasn't getting to see it. We checked with our Sahara oasis, rooms were available at our current good rate, and so our weekend stretched into 9 days. Boy, do I like being retired.

One of my favorite places in LV that we visited the day after the conference is the Bellagio. The Bellagio is a casino resort on the Strip. There are many wonderful and beautiful things about it, but in particular I love four: The Fountains, The Botanical Gardens, its opulent design and the Buffet. The fountains grace the front of the resort. From late afternoon on, every fifteen minutes or so, the fountains "perform" to the music of Frank Sinatra, Andre Boticelli and I can't remember who else. I know, I know. You've seen dancing waters. Not like this. They are amazing, not only in their choreography (can water be choreographed?) but in their sound. I've seen them who knows how many times and I'm still in awe. (And don't forget I grew up a half mile from Disneyland and still live close enough to hear the fireworks every night at 9:30, so I'm used to tourist stuff.)

The second must see is the Botanical Gardens. It changes every few months and this visit, seeing as how it was Fourth of July weekend, it was decorated with flags and a few other patriotic items in a Summer Garden Party theme.

Eaglets watched from a safe high perch, while Papa Bear and Junior headed out to go fishing. Across the way, a train steamed along. And around in the back, there was a miniature rendition of the Bellagio, complete with fountains (but no buffet.) Meanwhile, the Green Man smiled down on all of it, and us, benevolently.

Thank you, God, for creativity and imagination.

Oases, Canals and Miracles

2008-07-07T10:24:00.001-07:00

While in Las Vegas, we stayed at the Sahara Hotel. It's the one in the picture with those great, with those great what? I'm not sure what to call them. They're not really minarets or even exactly the onion domes of some churches. And yet, you know exactly what I'm talking about and are not confusing it with the high rise across the street. The palm trees are perfect, I think. The whole effect is one of a Western idea of an oasis in the Sahara desert - forgetting, of course, all of the surrounding sand and the heat. But, then, that too is perfect because Las Vegas itself tries to forget the surrounding sand and the almost always present heat. The other great thing about the Sahara Hotel is that it is one of the last standing old time resorts on the Strip. It was built in 1952 and boasts an honored history of The Rat Pack era. It's been updated several times, including a recent section dedicated to NASCAR racing heroes. It also has an indoor/outdoor roller coaster that we could watch, at a distance, from our window. Luckily, we couldn't hear it. Bloodcurdling screams as people hurtle through the air at great speeds UPSIDE DOWN - well, not my idea of a great sound. I did enjoy watching it, though.

So each morning of the conference, I made my way through this Saharan oasis and down a long hall to the Las Vegas monorail that services the Strip. The Sahara is the northernmost stop and the MGM Grand is the southernmost. (At the Grand, instead of desert oases, they're into Lions. Really, lions. Inside the casino is an enormous glass enclosure where you can watch lions sleep and occasionally play. Just normal cats, after all.) The monorail is a sleek silver snake that curls around the back of the casino/resorts. It runs every five minutes, is air conditioned and lets you see a part of the casinos not usually seen by tourists. Watching employees make their way across pedestrian bridges restricted to casino and hotel employees and seeing the continuous flow of delivery trucks loading and unloading made me realize just how much WORK it is to keep a fantasy in place.

I left the cocoon of the monorail at the Harrah's stop and made my way through that casino out to Las Vegas Blvd. Then it was past the vendors hawking tee shirts with strange sayings, a fortune teller machine, various small restaurants, offers of girls at any time, to finally arrive at the Venetian.

Now, if you have never been to the Venetian, well, how can I describe it? It is modeled after Renaissance Venice. (Right there should be a clue - Renaissance Venice/Las Vegas?) It is opulent to put it mildly. There are statues, there are Renaissance style paintings on the very high ceilings, there is gilt, and there is a very good art gallery. The first floor is the casino, but the second floor, oh, my, the second floor. This is where I chose to make my way to the Sands Expo, the site of the conference.

The second floor is the place of The Grande Canal Shoppes (note the spelling). It is a collection of upscale shops, set along winding paths that make it impossible most of the time to know where you are, covered by a painted sky ceiling that is eerily real in its total impossibility. If you've ever been to the Blue Bayou Restaurant at Disneyland in Anaheim, that's the idea, but the Shoppes' sky is much, much bigger. And, oh, don't forget St. Marks Square where the living statues are: real people dressed completely in whitewashed costumes of the Renaissance, faces painted white, who stand absolutely still while tourists wait for them to move. I'm one of those tourists. I can sit there forever, transfixed. And, then, so suddenly that it always makes me jump, they do move, either into a new position, or p simply gather up the money left at their feet and move on to their next gig.

Through the Shoppes I wandered - oh, wait! I forgot the best part - the Grande Canal. There is a canal through the shops complete with gondolas and singing gondoliers. For a price, you can be serenaded while you sit leisurely in a gondola, moving through serene blue waters of a canal on the second floor of a building in the middle of a desert.

So, back to my journey. Through the Shoppes I wandered every morning of the conference, never going the same way twice because of the meandering way of the "streets." But at last I would find the escalator and descend into the Sands Expo where the conference was held. How to explain? Yes, the Sands Expo is physically connected to the Venetian, but, no, it is not the Venetian. Or maybe it's just the contrast. The Sands Expo is a very nice convention center: thick carpets, ritzy restrooms with all of the new automatic conveniences, nice sideboards with elegant flower arrangements for piling all of your stuff while searching through it for the required name badge, and comfortable chairs. It's just that the contrast was so huge as I rode those stairs down into the Expo, or later in the day, up into the Venetian.

But that sense of calm was deceptive. The keynote addresses were in a vast windowless cement room with pipes and tubes and who knows what else running overhead. To get to the keynote address, it was necessary to walk through the vendors, an experience not unlike my short journey along Las Vegas Blvd, even down to tee shirts with strange sayings and fortune tellers. Once into the keynote area, the din of the vendors remained while the speaker encouraged us to a spiritual path. Later, workshops were available ranging from past life regressions to the latest science of the absence of empty space in matter.

After the initial Friday night keynote, when I really did think that I would not find my way back through the dense energy of the casinos and street to my personal desert oasis, I set an intention. At each keynote and each workshop that I attended, I asked the question, "What am I here to learn?" The answer was quite clear and completely unexpected. Every time I asked, within minutes I would hear the speaker say "Course in Miracles." More about this later.

Reservoirs, Rivers and Dams

2008-07-06T19:43:00.000-07:00

It's obvious to me that part of my homecoming whiney-overwhelm was due to the sheer intensity and amount of sensory and intellectual experiences crammed into our Las Vegas-based vacation. (Vacation? I thought vacations were relaxing.) The conference was a mere weekend - that leaves a lot of time in a 9 day period for going tilt. So I intend to share with you some of the things that I saw and experienced, knowing that writing is a way that I process and come to terms with my experiences and hoping that my own creative process will become even clearer to me. So, while things may seem to sort of jumble along for a few days, I have faith that at some point, some sort of meaning will work its way forward.

One of the things that Doug and I did was drive over to Hoover Dam. We'd been there before, but hadn't walked across the dam, only driven. Now there are a lot of things that can be said about this and all other dams. There is their effect on the environment, their efficiency as a power source, water rights (especially in a desert area like the Southwest) - the list goes on and on. I'm sure that a quick Google search will yield plenty of websites way more informed about those things than I am. But, for once in my life, I'm not going to be political. I'm just going to be an artist. And the aesthetics of the dam and the area where it resides are amazing.

The Ancient Greeks had a word, "aisthesis." It means that sharp intake of breath, that little involuntary "oh!" that happens when you see a sunset, hold a newborn, catch a glimpse of a color you can't quite describe. But it can also be present at much less pleasant moments: hearing the weekly role call on The Newshour of soldiers killed, watching an old and much loved tree topple, or learning a beloved neighbor is moving away. The Greeks believed that this particular breath meant that the gods were present. And following this line of thought, it meant that the gods were present in beauty as well as sorrow. It's the notion that something much bigger than me is happening. That's what Hoover dam makes me think of, in all of its complexities, both manmade and natural.

The sheer immensity of it overwhelms me, but in a wonderful, opening up sort of way. Not that whiney overwhelm that confronted me when I first came home. No. Hoover Dam and its companions, the Colorado River and Black Canyon, are just plain BIG. It's hard to get a grip on the sheer power of the area because everything seems so out of scale. It doesn't make sense in my everyday world. And that is precisely what I love about it.

We walked across the dam in 115 degrees heat and I kept trying to take pictures down the side of the dam. I had to lay across the wall that's there to keep you from doing just what I was doing. But it was just way too tempting.That's the dam on the right and way down below are electrical towers and all sorts of other human scale things, including a few cars.

And, then, in among the rock of the canyon is the visitor center and the parking lot, looking like something out of a sci-fi movie.

The parking lot, on closer inspection, rather than a sci-fi movie, reminds me of the BBC Hercule Poirot series.

Is it any wonder that I'm on overload? And that's only part of one day.

Creative Spurts and Less is More

2008-07-05T08:17:00.000-07:00

It's been a month since I've posted. A Month! How can that be? I have never had a good sense of linear time, and now, being retired, or just being older, I have even less. Time for me is measured by, what? I don't really know. I don't even wear a wristwatch anymore.

What I do know is that one of the best things from having spent almost 60 years on this planet in this particular form is that I have a history. And histories are very handy, in terms of looking back at and discerning trends and habits, or even what I might dare to call *my* way of doing things. And my way of creating seems to be to work in spurts.

I've read, over the years, many, many articles, even a few books, on creativity. And they all seem to suggest that it is necessary to establish a daily pattern of "doing it," whatever "it" happens to be. Funny thing is, I have been an artist for almost forty years, with the degrees, artwork, and resume to vouch for it, and I have never yet, in those almost forty years, worked on my artwork daily. I try to. I set goals. I have intentions. I even offer myself bribes. But it just doesn't happen. And now I haven't written for a month. Does that mean I'm not a writer? Not a blogger? Not an artist?

As loudly and emphatically as is possible, I shout, "NO." This an insight I've had lately, along with realizing that having a house filled to the brim with "stuff" does not make me less conscious, needing clarity or unable to make decisions, as some contemporary self-help authors and various HGTV and DIY shows would like me to believe.

I bring all of this up, because I attended a conference this past weekend where there were a lot of people intent on learning how to accomplish things, be in touch with their inner guidance and, in general, lead more happy and satisfied lives. These are all very good questions and worthy goals. Speakers spoke about such things, books for sale were available at the entrances to workshops and a vendor area sold everything from auric photographs to life-giving sea salt. The irony of this, for me, is that the conference espousing simplicity and a more singular focus was held in Las Vegas, NV. so that, literally just down the hall from the conference, people were trying other means including a lot of bling and noise to find self satisfaction and create some sort of meaning in their lives.

So, what do my creative spurts and cluttered house and New Thought conferences and the sensory experience of Las Vegas glitz have to do with one another? Mainly that I find myself in whiney overwhelm this morning dealing with the barrage of information gleaned from the conference, the excitement and super-stimulation of being in LV for a week with its over the top abundance and coming home to the reality of a cluttered house that doesn't match the less-is-more attitude of the conference and realizing I haven't written or made art in a month. And there it is - there's the key. My overwhelm is not about clutter, conferences or a town that never sleeps. I haven't made art in a month, and I include writing as art.

Conferences, Las Vegas, proper creative schedules and a current trend that seems to say a cluttered house is a house of cluttered consciousness, are some people's views of how life needs to be lived. While it comes in the guise of guidance, my suspicion is that it's more about those people working out their own stuff, just as I'm working out mine. And looking at my history, I know that I create best in a filled-to-the-brim house and studio in productive spurts. In between the doing, there's a whole lot of being going on. And that is my process. It's a benefit of being older to know my own process.

And, now, I sense that one of those creative spurts is coming on. There will probably be an update tomorrow. I think I'm on a roll. Stay tuned.

As One, It's Sufficient

2008-06-05T15:13:00.000-07:00

(note: This post is one in an ongoing series. If you haven't read the prior posts, you might want to scroll down to Sufficient. Or not - just jump in here.)

A year after my mother died, the Prayer Shawl Ministry that I facilitate was born. At the time, I was reading about the Panathenaea, a grand festival held in Ancient Greece honoring Athena, the patron deity of Athens. The festival was held after the harvest was in, when the people of Athens felt secure that their lives would continue for one more year. The central piece of the festival was a gift to Athena of a garment woven by her priestesses. The frieze on the Parthenon depicts not only the grand parade and gathering of the festival, but the moment after the garment has been presented. All of the Olympians are there, turning aside slightly as a priest and young child fold the garment. Reading about this use of textiles as a way of honoring the Divine, I wondered if and how we did that today.

A day later, my answer arrived via my computer screen. A post on the weaving-list demanded to know if anyone had heard of a prayer shawl ministry and why was it that the shawls were only knitted, not woven? Doesn't anyone know that there are weavers out here, the poster complained? Prayer shawl ministry? Following the link, I read the introduction and learned how the ministry was the work of Janet Bristow and Victoria Galo. After completing a program at the Hartford Seminary in Hartford, Conn., they wanted to put their faith into action and so the prayer shawl ministry came about. The shawls, they wrote, are used as a prayer practice and are used to wrap one another in love. My instant response: "We can do that" with "We" being new friends that I was making at a church I had been attending for about a year. I explained the idea to my closest friend, presented my proposal to the minister and there it was - a group of about seven women clustered around a table in the sunny room we called The Gathering Place.

We had sufficient that day: absolutely enough energy, enthusiasm, participants, ideas and love to start. And we had sufficient needles and materials to teach the newcomers how to knit because I had inherited my mother's stash. In so many ways, that tangled web of needles and yarn in those plastic garbage cans became the rich earth from which the seed of the Ministry grew. It wasn't just that we had ample yarn and needles, although that certainly helped. It was also that contained in that jumbled web of yarn and needles that was my inheritance, there was knowledge. Somehow, along the way of a tumultuous childhood and adulthood with a creative, passionate, opinionated, self-centered and downright neurotic-at-times mother, I learned to knit. And I developed an attitude about knitting. That attitude was my mother's. It goes something like, who needs a pattern? Just decide what you want to make and make it. What I didn't realize was how much I brought that attitude to the Prayer Shawl Ministry.

We make shawls, rectangular and triangular. There are a few basic ways we do that: CO enough for one edge and continue; CO 3 sts and increase as needed for a triangle; CO 3 sts, increase until one side is as long as you want your shawl to be wide, then dec on one side to create a rectangle and reverse directions at the other end. The stitch patterns used are just as simple: K3, P3 in an extended seed st or garter st. Sometimes we get a little fancier, but not often. We seem to follow that old adage of keeping it simple while basking in the delight of beautiful yarns. What matters is that the shawls are a prayer and they truly do wrap us, the makers, as well as the givers and receivers in Love.

The Prayer Shawl Ministry is a gift to me from my mother's dying and for that I am eternally grateful. You see, when my mother was alive, I didn't knit much. I wove and I did beadwork. But knitting belonged to my mom. She had told me as much and I honored that. But my inheritance changed that. All of that yarn,(knitting yarn, not weaving yarn), and all of those needles and notebooks, said, "Here, take this from me. I pass it along to you." Even my brother, with his tattered note, knew that this was mine.

And so, today, reflecting as I am on this fifth anniversary year of my mother's passing, I recognize something in my life. It's not new, really, rather a deeper and clearer understanding of the obvious. I do not need to separate any part of my creativity out from the rest. It's all One. As One, it is sufficient. In honor of that, I am closing out a separate blog that I had set up for Prayer Shawl Ministry. No more separation. It's all Creation. From now on, Prayer Shawls are right here with everything else I do because everything that I do, in its own way, is a prayer.

In honor of this, I am posting a picture from that blog of a prayer shawl that we gifted earlier this year. Not only do I love this particular photo and the prayer shawl, but particularly the woman holding it. Karen, you are in our hearts and wrapped in Love.

Sufficient, contd.

2008-06-05T07:48:00.000-07:00

My mom died five years ago this month. Her living had been tumultuous but her dying seemed to tie up some of those loose ends for her. In the final weeks of breathing, she became peaceful. Even my husband, Doug, said that he had never seen her so peaceful.

For my brother and I, it was a different story. The loose ends that she let go of seemed to still chase us, along with many others that had been unraveling for years. And in some cases, those unraveling and loose ends were literal.

My mother was an avid knitter. She always said that her dream was to own a knitting shop. One of the many stories told in my family was that when my brother woke up from surgery after being hit by a car on a rare rainy night in downtown Los Angeles, he asked the nurse if his mother was there. The nurse said that she wasn't sure, but that she would go and check in the waiting room. My brother told her, "She'll be the one knitting."

So knitting was big in our family's psyche. It was also big in our family's house. Several years before she passed, my brother came to Orange County, gathered up my mom and took her to Oregon to live with him. I think he must have forgotten about the knitting. When Doug and I visited my mom just a few weeks before she passed, my brother gave us the tour, almost as if he were still in disbelief. He pointed at her room, filled with yarn and a shed he had built specially, also filled with yarn, knitting needles, beads, books, notebooks - well, if you're a knitter or live with one, you may already know.

Doug and I had sworn that we were not going to take tons of stuff home with us, but under my brother's relentless prodding, indeed almost frantic plea of "Take it away!" we ended up with a car packed to the roof with yarn. Back at the hotel, we unpacked it, sorted and repacked. It's a good thing my husband is passionate about all things Volkswagen. He understands a bit about my need, and my mother's, to have yarn.

When my mother died, a few weeks later, I received a note from my brother. Handwritten on a piece of yellow paper unevenly torn from a pad, it was short: "Mom's stuff is stored here. I'm leaving town." Attached was the information about getting the key to the storage shed, which included paying the deposit and the rent.

It was September or October by now, I can't remember exactly when. What I do remember clearly is that if Doug and I were going to drive from Orange County, California to Oregon, we needed to do it now or wait until Spring. You see, there's a pass between here and there - Siskiyou Pass - with serious snow and the winter weather north and south of it also isn't my idea of great driving weather. And from the sound of this storage shed, it wasn't going to be leak proof in an Oregon winter. So off we went.

Sure enough, when we arrived at the shed, it was a makeshift unit of corrugated metal. The rain had already seeped through the roof in several places. Luckily, or unluckily, the yarn was safe. My brother had stored it in big plastic garbage cans. Doug packed it all in the van and we brought it home.

I've been working my way through it ever since.

Sufficient

2008-06-03T19:35:00.000-07:00

My mom liked to tell a story about "Sufficient." One time, she would start out as I pretended to not have already heard this story since I knew that interrupting her would only prolong the story. One time she was at a conference, or a museum, or a crafts fair; it all depended on her focus that day. Anyway, one time she was somewhere with a group of people watching a Navajo woman weave. Someone in the group asked the weaver how she knew how much yarn to break off for each of the sections in her weaving. The weaver sat and thought for awhile, looking at her weaving and at her yarn. Finally, to no one in particular, she said, "Sufficient."

This word, sufficient, was a sort of mantra to my mother. She didn't like specifics. She refused, loudly, to follow a pattern of any sort and if and when she ran out of yarn, her solution was, as she was also fond of saying, "Oh, just make a thing of it." She was, in her very own vivid way, a rebel, refusing to be hemmed in by anyone else's ideas and yet also struggling to be heard and acknowledged. Sufficient. I don't think she ever really knew what was sufficient.

I've struggled with a few of these same issues. When is enough? When is it reaching for the best that I can be and when is it just trying to live up to some imaginary, often cultural, ideal? Sufficient.

Some things that I know for sure right now: I'm happier now than I ever used to be when I thought I could save the world and I know now that seemingly little things matter. I'm beginning to think that little things are, truly, sufficient.

From Waiting to Blooming

2008-05-26T10:53:00.001-07:00

Look what has popped up in my garden! Long, long ago, if I really squinch my eyes and search my brain, I remember having an Amaryllis. I guess that it was put outside and then the Rue plant, sneaking in from the left to overgrow everything this summer in preparation for its decimation by caterpillars that become Swallowtail butterflies, just covered it up. But this year, maybe because of our strange weather of very hot days followed by rain, this red Beauty decided to announce that it's still here, quite healthy, and enjoying the overnight showers. Guess it's just been waiting.

Waiting - I like to think of that Amaryllis and I waiting together and now bursting out in Joy. Remember the dear friend I wrote about earlier? And waiting for the results of the biopsy? Well, that dear friend is my husband and his biopsy is negative. Never in all of my life did I think I would be happy that any part of my husband was negative. We usually focus on the positive around here. But I've learned: negative can be a very good thing when it is "No indication of dysplasia or malignancy." Thank you, God.

Waiting

2008-05-20T09:30:00.000-07:00

Have you ever had one of those times when all sorts of interesting thoughts run through your head, but for the life of you, not one will form into a coherent sentence, let alone a paragraph? That's the way it's been for me over the last week or so. Thoughts, thoughts, thoughts. I sit and watch them as they go by. But that's all I do. I sit.

Well, actually, that's not entirely true. Lene posted about what do you do when you are really, truly stressed and I think that's what I've been doing. What it looks like is that I shopped for and bought a new refrigerator, got rid of the old one, including tossing some things that the local middle school's science classes might have enjoyed; cleaned and rearranged the kitchen cupboards (hey, I'm getting a new refrigerator, after all); knit; read; sorted my recipes and left them pretty much as they were before; got rid of about 20 cookbooks; watered the plants; did laundry and who knows what else that I'm not even aware of. What prompted this behavior? I think it's the program running in the background.

You see, a few weeks ago, someone very dear to me had oral surgery and to quote the doctor, "There was a mass that I don't know what it is, so we'll do a biopsy." As another someone very dear to me said, those are two words you don't want to hear together - mass and biopsy. Two weeks later, at the appointment where we should have learned about the mass and biopsy, the nurse told me that because she had made a mistake in the labeling, the results weren't in yet. Okay. I breathed. Breathed again. And managed to not say some of the things I was thinking, for which I'm grateful. And if that nurse knew those thoughts, she'd be grateful also.

So now we are waiting. We have been waiting for about three weeks. The nurse said they would call as soon as they got the report. I wonder about that. What I don't wonder about is how I do. not. like. waiting. Waiting allows my imagination to fly.

At first I imagined how I could possibly live in this world without this friend. That slowly shifted to just an hourly pang of fear, then to a daily overwhelm to now I actually go for a full day, even more, without thinking about it at all. Meanwhile, life is good. Life is very, very good. Flowers are blooming, Beauty is all around me and I enjoy even more deeply the time with this friend and the treasure of almost 40 years of friendship, adventures and love that we have shared. I am looking forward to everything, and I do mean everything, that Life with this person has to still offer. It seems that I am, at times, even carefree. Most importantly, I notice that none of my emotion or thinking is from a diagnosis. It is all from the waiting and my imagination.

That combination of waiting and my imagination is the program running in the background. It's present even as I am happy. I notice a pain in my face from holding my jaw so tight. Walking across a parking lot yesterday, my lower back began to spasm. I wake up in the morning with my neck cramped. A large vanilla iced coffee from MacDonald's has become my favorite food and catching a glimpse in the mirror, I see my shoulders scrunched up so that they are even with my ears. Good, I tell myself, the better for that Guardian Angel that my mom said she put on my shoulder to be able to whisper in my ear that . . . that what?

That it really is true that there is Love and Beauty and Joy and sunsets and sunrises and flowers and cats and friends (oh, yes. Friends.) and so many things in this world. Including waiting, imagination and the program running in the background.

First Strawberry

2008-05-13T18:01:00.000-07:00

First strawberry of the season in our backyard garden. Yum. Sweet. I beat the opossums to it.

Happy Knitting Day, Mom!

2008-05-11T07:43:00.000-07:00

Mother's Day brings mixed emotions to me, few of them of the Hallmark variety. I got married just as birth control pills were becoming readily available. For this, I am eternally grateful. Those pills gave me time: time to get used to being married; time to discover that I wasn't really a history major, but an art major; time to be an art major and pull wonderful all-nighters working in the studio; time to travel to Washington, DC while my husband was in special training and spend all day at the Smithsonian and wander the countryside and just, oh, time to come to a glimmering of what it was I wanted to do in this world. Time to discover that, somehow, I hadn't been given that urge that so many of my friends had, to be a mother. And most precious of all, those pills gave me time to know that I couldn't do both - career and mother. Since the pull was overwhelming towards career and basically nonexistent to motherhood, the choice was easy. It's a choice I have never regretted.

What I have regretted are the innuendos, the asides, the questions, the mournful looks, and the accusations I have received over the years about my choice. It sounds so cliche; haven't we discussed this before? The whole idea that somehow a woman isn't complete unless she has a child. And yet, there it would be. My husband and I would do the obligatory taking-our-mothers-out-to-lunch on Mother's Day. A restaurant that we often went to gave mothers a beautiful chocolate covered strawberry at the end of the meal. They would place it in front of me and I would explain (despite my absolute adoration of chocolate covered strawberries) that I wasn't a mother.

A look of confusion from the server, "Are you sure?"

"Yes." (I think I would have noticed a child or two around the house.)

And then the kicker: "Well, I'm sure that you're a mother at heart." And, plunk, that strawberry was back in front of me.

My own mother died five years ago next month. I miss her. Our relationship was tumultuous, to put it poetically. One reason may be that she really didn't want to have children either. She, too, wanted a career. You see, every Mother's Day, my mom shared a secret with me. Each year, after the strawberry routine, my mother would lean over to me and say, "You made the right choice. Don't let them push you into it."

So, today, for the first time in many years, I celebrate my mom on Mother's Day. Not that mom whom I've spent who knows how much time and money coming to grips with in therapy, workshops, journals - the list goes on and on. Nope, today I celebrate Helen Winifred Richards, nee Beck. The woman who, before the easy availability of birth control, had two children, my brother and myself. My brother, fifteen years older than me, is a whole different story. But for myself, I celebrate that woman who taught me to knit. I celebrate that woman who, when she died, left me not money nor a piece of property, but, instead, she left me boxes and boxes and boxes of yarn, knitting needles, yarn needles, knitting gizmos that I'm still figuring out what they are and beads. Hundreds and hundreds of beads - enough to make me take a metals class and learn to saw, rivet, lots of ways to use those beads. And so much yarn that even I, with my own sizeable stash, go into overwhelm with it all.

In honor of that woman, Helen Winifred Richards, my mother and an artist, I am starting a shawl today using yarn from her stash.

The shawl is Julia from Alison Hyde's book, Wrapped in Comfort. The yarn is Chispa, cotton and acrylic, one of my mom's favorite fiber combinations. I swatched it and I think the Julia shawl will show off the slubby yarn nicely.

Happy Knitting Day, Mom!

The Curse Is Lifted

2008-05-09T15:48:00.000-07:00

She did it. She lifted the curse. This past weekend in a gray, windowless, fluorescent lit room in downtown Phoenix, Arizona, the curse was lifted. Tracy Stanley taught me to saw.

It all began many, many years ago when I was an undergraduate in art school. I was in the Fibers Arts program of the Crafts Dept and required to take a general Crafts class. I wasn't interested. I was a weaver. Weaver. I wove. That's why I had come to this particular school, the weaving program, not the jewelry or metal program. But, needing the class to finish my degree, I reluctantly enrolled. The instructor was a well-known classical silversmith, immaculate and precise, known for his beautifully chased teapots done in the classical Japanese style of his heritage. Did I mention that I was a weaver? That it was the early 70s? Think sandals, Levis, peasant blouses, long hair, VW bus and an anything-goes attitude about weaving - there, now you've got the picture of me. Place that next to Immaculate Silversmith Man - there, see what I mean?

Bottom line was, I fell in love with metal. Not so much with immaculate silver as with copper, brass, found metal, funky metal and silver when it's combined with the likes of turquoise, coral and shell. I treasure river rocks and odd garage sale objects combined with metal. I incessantly pet, like a cat, hammered bowls with the hammer marks prominent. This is metal, and life, with what I poetically refer to as the lasting mark of the material and the maker. And from my love of the mark, and The Silversmith's passion for perfection, the curse was born.

If you have never sawed the lightweight metal used in jewelry, you should know that first, it is done with saw blades the size of a hair on the back of a large dog. The sawing must be done just so or snap! There goes the blade. Not to fear. Just use the longer part of the blade, reinserted and readjusted into your saw frame. Snap! Snap. Snap. Snap. Snap and reinsert was the rhythm of my day.

The silversmith scowled, intimated I would not graduate as a Crafts major unless I learned to saw. Snap. Somehow, I did graduate, but I never learned to saw. Metal was left behind.

This is not to say that I lost my love for metal. I filled drawers full of it. I collected odd unidentifiable metal things. I dreamed of pins and brooches for woven and knitted scarves and shawls; metal sculptural armatures for my beading; metal and beaded necklaces and, on a larger scale, whimsical characters for my garden. But the curse of sawing kept my metal in the drawer, not out dancing in the yard or adorning my work in fibers. Snap.

Then I saw the ads for Bead Expo this last weekend in Phoenix, AZ and I bravely signed up for (snap) metal classes. My first class, on Thursday, was the now infamous Frame It class with Tracy. I arrived early and warned her about the curse, but she just laughed. (Tracy laughs at a lot of things. I know now that the curse was completely unimportant in "Tracy's World.") When it came time to saw, Tracy said an amazing thing. She said that, the most important thing in sawing was to "go to your happy place." Happy Place? I know that place. That's what happens when I weave or knit. I call it praying. It's a happy place. That centered place where the action, the motion comes from deep inside in alignment with the All. Now, maybe that's overstating it for Tracy, or even for you reading this, but the point is, I know that place. I breathed. I sawed. I relaxed. I breathed. I sawed. Shoulders dropped. I kept on moving that saw up and down, up and down, holding it lightly by only thumb and first finger, and pretty soon, there was a not-too-out-of-square hole inside my piece of copper. And peering out of that hole of new possibilities, I put a hummingbird with a nest - just like that one I photographed earlier this Spring.

I was happy. I am happy. I can saw.

The Sunrise Shawl

2008-04-27T16:07:00.000-07:00

It's way too hot today to do much of anything, even think of something to write about. Our backyard thermometer registered 97. How did we go from Spring to August? But I did get one thing done today. I blocked the cotton/rayon boucle triangular shawl which I am calling the Sunrise Shawl in honor of the beautiful sunrises I can see from our front porch.

Instead of pinning, I used the knitting wire method. And instead of knitting wires, I used some thin welding rods that I already had. They worked great. This is the first time I have used this method and I would definitely do it again. It was easy to weave the shawl onto the rod and very easy to put it into shape. Because it's knit on a bias, bringing it into shape is a bit like the proverbial chore of herding cats. But the wires stabilized the edges, making it easy.

Now I just need to weave in a few ends and it's done. But first, I'm hoping for cooler weather.

Trees and Teeth

2008-04-24T11:32:00.001-07:00

Not that long ago, I sat by this tree at Casa de Maria, a retreat center near Santa Barbara, California. It's a Peace Tree, an ancient eucalyptus. The small tree you see the trunk of is an offshoot. The large brown area behind it is part of the root ball of the ancient tree. People offer their prayers to it. I prayed that day for peace, for health and for grace for all beings. I was grateful for trees, and people and the wind blowing - oh, just for the sheer beauty of it all.

Once again, today, I am grateful. Doug, my husband, had the first of 2 oral surgeries yesterday. There was more than the doctor had expected when he got in there, but it went well. Doug woke up this morning saying he could pretty much tolerate anything after yesterday's grinding, scraping and pulling. He even laughed that at one point the doctor said, "let's try the drag-scraper." And drag and scrape they did. It was so wonderful just to hear that man talk. Yesterday was a pained mumble. And when I got home from errands this morning, he wanted to know what was for lunch. Not much, I'm afraid. His palate is rejecting his usual favorite spicy foods. Lunch was bland noodles, cooled per doctor's instructions.

Today I'm enjoying being here, with my husband, in our home, the diva SarahCat curled on his lap. I'm not even complaining about his choice of TV shows. I'm just knitting and being grateful.

Thank you, God, for quiet moments.

The Diva and the Red Shawl

2008-04-22T17:48:00.000-07:00

Encouraged by my lace-y endeavors, I've started a red shawl that I've been thinking about for quite some time. It's 100% cotton and the perfect red, not too orange, not too blue, just right. The pattern I'm using is in Cheryl Oberle's book of shawls. I can't think of the exact title right now and I don't have it at hand.

This is one repeat of the basic motif. It's pretty easy, actually. Mostly it's what I think is called faggoting and stripes of stockinette. There's really only one panel of 26 stitches that changes and that section is repeated twice to form the pattern. Easy enough to still carry on a conversation, but enough going on to keep me interested.

And I'm not the only one interested, it seems. My helper, the resident queen and diva, Miss SarahCat, was ready immediately to assist with the photographs. Her opinion so far seems to be that this thing is not nearly large enough to be useful.

And, really, aren't you all much more interested in her than a silly shawl?

And Now There's . . . Lace!

2008-04-20T18:01:00.001-07:00

The lace scarf is blocked and freed of its pins and I am really pleased. Granted, it's not that exquisite cobwebby lace, but, still, it's lace-y, with YOs and decs making wonderful motifs. I'm encouraged. Now, next step in my learning lace journey - block that HUGE cotton/rayon triangular scarf with all of it's little pointy motifs. Tomorrow. Tomorrow. Right now, I'm going to go sit, knit, sip tea and look at my scarf.

Oh, almost forgot - it's from a pattern called "Double Eyelet Rib Scarf" from The Little box of Scarves by Melissa Matthay and Sehryl Thies. I added one more vertical row of eyelets and looking at the pattern now, I see that I stretched it wider which flattened it out more than in the picture. Oops. Oh, well. I still really like it. The yarn is Sport Weight Nature Spun by Brown Sheep, 100% wool. I used two skeins because that's what I had. And that's why this is a very long scarf - 94"!

Lace Wannabe

2008-04-19T14:44:00.000-07:00

In what now seems like another time and another place, I taught myself the rudiments of knitting lace. As I sat curled up in my favorite chair, trying to come to grips with the whole idea of airplanes deliberately crashing into the World Trade Center and wondering where a dear friend of mine who had worked there was, the demands of YOs and decs, in ways that I did not understand, kept me focused and somehow provided a feeling that at least part of the world was sane and beauty did still exist. I knitted and ripped, knitted and ripped until finally I had one small sample of what truly did look like lace.

I don't know where that sample is today, although I'm very glad to say that I do know where my friend is, alive and well. But in those days of that knitting and ripping, I came to realize that I was a lace knitter wannabe. I had to put that sample aside since I was in the second year of what would turn out to be a six year project culminating with a PhD in Mythological Studies that left little time for anything other than reading and writing.

Last year the urge to knit lace reappeared and so I gave it a try. I began a scarf with a simple lace pattern using some wool yarn from my stash. I tried a simple triangle shawl with a knit on lace edging using a handpainted cotton/rayon boucle. I was enthralled. I realized that YOs make holes and decs, in addition to compensating for the YO in the st count, also make wonderful lines and surfaces in and of themselves. I finished those two projects, waited for the grand crescendo and, well, they were less than spectacular. Then I read on the KnitList and some blogs that lace often looks less than spectacular until it is blocked. Okay, I said, greatly encouraged. Now the question became, how do I block them? In the past when I've blocked my knitting, it was rather casual. Lace seemed to need a bit more than casual.

Dampening and pinning them to the carpet, as suggested by many knitters, wouldn't work because we don't have carpet, but rather tile floors that stood up to large dogs and a husband whose passion is vintage cars. Using a bed is nixed because we don't have an extra bed and the look on Doug's face told me he wasn't interested in going to a hotel so that I could block my knitting. The ironing board is too small. Then someone on the Knitlist mentioned using interlocking tiles, often used in children's playrooms. Now that I could imagine. So off I went to Home Depot and bought these tiles. They're sort of spongy, yet sturdy. I laid them out on the only tables that I have that are long enough, which are the tables in my outdoor work area. It took a little rearranging, but I finally got the right configuration to lay out enough tiles for this extra-long scarf. Then I covered the tiles with a commercial paper tablecloth since I'm not sure if the tiles are colorfast.

I washed the scarf gently by hand and squeezed the water out of it. I laid it out on a long towel and rolled it up to absorb some of the excess moisture. After about 15 minutes, I laid the scarf out on the covered tiles and began to pin.

I finished pinning it out just as the sun was setting. It was a nice experience to do it outdoors. I could enjoy the hawks across the street, ducks flying overhead and the changing shadows of the setting sun. Since it is outdoors, I covered the pinned out scarf with a towel, tucking it in for the night. Tomorrow morning I'll uncover it, see how it's doing. Until then,"Good night, Scarf."

Patterns, Patterns, Everywhere

2008-04-18T10:08:00.000-07:00

As a weaver and a knitter, I'm keenly aware of pattern. Not the kind that tell you how to make something, although I definitely enjoy those. No, I'm talking about the kind that are, according to Webster's Ninth New Collegiate Dictionary, a "frequent or widespread incidence."

It is this "frequent or widespread incidence" that interests me about pattern and how that moves from the tangible world of knitting, weaving and my kitchen across a continuum to the less tangible patterns of numerical sequences and metaphor. What also matters is that pattern is everywhere and that the more aware of it that I become, the more it truly is everywhere.

This morning I was cooking some barley to make a barley and artichoke salad for lunch. When I removed the lid to check the water level, there it was: pattern. Can you see it? Rows of holes with the barley obligingly arranged at angles around them. I see a honeycomb or network pattern. I see a beaded net where the barley grains are the beads arranged in a pattern that outlines the holes, like those big beaded collars made by several traditional peoples or the beaded covering over gourds used in ceremony.

All of which brings me to the Meandering Shawl, which absolutely refused to stay within the bounds of the traditional K3, P3 pattern of a prayer shawl. Prayer shawls around the world are knit in this pattern. Visit the Shawl Ministry and you'll see that immediately. But this shawl, the Meandering Shawl, broke out of the pattern. Instead of K3,P3 there is a left diagonal.

There is also a vertical bar,

a soft left diagonal,

and what may be my favorite, an irregular right diagonal that reminds me a lot of patterns in the wet sand after the tide goes out at the ocean or the momentary rush of water has gone by in the desert. The first three of these patterns all come from that basic K3, P3. The differences come from where those two units are placed relative to one another. The last one, if I remember correctly, was a 3:7.

The amazing thing about pattern is its ability to shift from this tangible product of combinations of stitches to metaphor. If you recall, this shawl was begun at a meeting that was unexpectedly contentious. The emotions that resulted from that meeting, like this shawl, have followed a meandering route, with different paths and different outcomes for different people. And yet, I know that, like this shawl, there is a pattern in those conversations and interactions that while they may seem to be going in strangely odd directions, are all a part of a Whole.

Ernest Holmes wrote in the SOM textbook that "God and man are one, yet God is greater than man. The Whole is greater than the parts." This shawl has wonderful parts; parts that have allowed me to envision possible patterns for new shawls and inspired me in my making of the shawls. But the whole that this shawl is a part of is a pattern far greater than the individual patterns of the sections of this shawl. It is a pattern of patience, focus, trust and faith that allows me to continue making the shawl even when it seems that its pattern is out of line and praying even when the results may not be clear.

Thank you, Prayer Shawl, for once again teaching and leading me to a greater understanding.

One More Poppy Post . . .

2008-04-17T07:48:00.001-07:00

Just one more. I promise. A wrapping up of my Poppy infatuation.

I want to mention just where it is that I found all of this orangeness. It's the Antelope Valley California Poppy Reserve. It encompasses 1800 acres as a State Reserve and is 15 miles west of Lancaster, CA., where a Poppy Festival is scheduled this coming weekend. The brochure I picked up at the Reserve says that when the California Poppy was named the State Flower in 1903, "great fields" of Poppies were found throughout California. They still grow in many areas (I've seen them scattered along desert roadsides) but today the only large fields are in the western Antelope Valley.

The Spanish named the Poppies La Sabanilla de San Pasqual, which translates into English as The Altar-cloth of St Pascal. St. Pascal, evidently, was a shepherd saint who "tended his flock far from church and village and knelt in fields of wildflowers to commune with God." And I hadn't even read this when I wrote yesterday's post! Another name for the Poppies is Dormidera. This means the "sleepy one," referring to the Poppies' penchant for closing up at night, or when it is cloudy, or when the wind blows. In my experience it must have to blow pretty hard, because the day we were there, I could feel the wind pushing at me as I balanced in awkward positions to get the perfect picture while not stepping off the path and into the Poppies. The flags were straight out and this little green fellow would inch along maybe a quarter of an inch and suddenly, whoosh! A wind gust would roll him over several times. Undeterred, he continued on his path.

The Poppies demanded creativity and recognition. Every second visitor had camera in hand, some with more equipment than others and each with a unique way of carrying it. I opted for a fairly simple point and shoot slung around my neck, actually the only digital camera I own other than my cellphone. Others were more creative, or at least had more stuff, including this vintage little red wagon.

Speaking of creative - being immersed in Poppies seems to have spurred my own creativity along. The knitting of the Meandering Shawl finished itself up that evening after visiting the Poppies. I'll decide tonight if it needs an edging or not and post about it tomorrow. A very interesting piece about Forgiveness has started on the 4 shaft LeClerc loom. On the Big Mac, a rug about fields of color (!) is calling to be completed and a brick red fabric for a favorite rocking chair used up the end of the Priestly Stole warp left on the Gilmore. The bright pink shawl for a little girl is moving right along and I'm getting brave enough to pin together an almost finished black sweater for me and see if it actually fits - making a sweater that actually fits is one of my goals for 2008.

Thank you, Poppies, for inspiration and awe.

Standing in the middle of Go(o)d

2008-04-16T09:07:00.000-07:00

I stood in the middle of all of those poppies, all of that orange, punctuated by the gray-green Rabbit Brush, purple clover, blue lupines, yellow fiddlenecks and white and golden I-don't-know-whats, and knew without a doubt that I was immersed in God, Life, Spirit, Universal Life Force, First Cause - whatever or however it is that that something way bigger than us is described. Surrounded by, filled with and overflowing, as a friend of mine likes to say. I stop and think about this: For the majority of the year, the desert is a mixture of browns, grays, greens, with a hint of yellows and pinks, maybe, and all of this so subtle that the majority of people whizzing by on the Interstate claim that there is nothing there. Nothing. Not a thing. Not a living thing.

Now, I disagree heartily with this assessment. I love the desert. I think the desert is a veritable bounty of activity, colors and life. But you have to pay attention. Close attention. And that is part of what I like about the desert - it doesn't give up its beauty easily. It doesn't smack you in the face with it; it reveals itself only on its terms. Hot. Cold. Wind. A friend's dad who lives not far from the poppies once told me, "We have two seasons out here. Hot and windy. Cold and windy."

And yet, there are those poppies. A precise combination of water, heat, downslopes - who knows what conspired to bring them about? Yet there they are. Beauty that just smacks you in the face. And here are my two favorite parts: I didn't do anything to make it so, except maybe know deep down inside that it's possible. But I didn't plant any seeds, water them daily, watch expectantly and keep the bugs away. Nope. Not me. All of those things came together whether I was aware of them or not. Wasn't mine to do. They are here without any direct effort of mine. And my second favorite part? The poppies, all of that orange, are only here for a very, very short time, all on their own timetable. In a few weeks, quite possibly only one or two, the orange will be gone. If you look closely, you'll be able to find the remains of a few petals and the long cylindrical seed pods. But all of that orange painted across the hills will be gone. Just a memory.

Thank you, God, for beauty that disappears and lingers in memory.

Poppies

2008-04-15T19:05:00.000-07:00

I don't even know where to start today. I'm still high on poppies. Big, beautiful, abundant, incredibly ORANGE poppies, in the Mojave desert, about 70 miles or so from where I live.

I was stunned, overwhelmed, ecstatic, awed. Yes, maybe that's the word - awed and so, so very happy. I'm still under their spell. Tomorrow I'll write. This evening I'm still looking at the pictures, smiling and remembering.

Good News

2008-04-11T09:31:00.000-07:00

This morning in my local newspaper, the Orange County Register, there is a beautiful story about one woman following her inner urge to do something. The story is about a florist in Brea, CA, Harry Echternach. Harry and his wife bought a rundown florist shop many, many years ago and built it up. Years passed and his wife became ill and then Harry had a stroke. On his first day back to the shop, a woman passing by noticed how frail he seemed, as if "he was about to climb a mountain" and he wasn't sure that he could make it. She started to walk on, but instead listened to that inner urging and asked if there was anything she could do. The first day, she helped him make bows for the floral arrangements. She later became the shop manager and recently arranged a celebration of the florist's 80th birthday.

I realized, reading this story, how much I believe in Good: good deeds; good thoughts; good moments; the basic goodness of people and life. I believe that doing good and focusing on good makes a difference. Because I believe that simply focusing on Good tends to bring it about, I try to situate my life to experience as much Good as possible.

AlisonH's blog, SpinDyeKnit, is one of those places where I go to experience Good. My morning ritual of coffee, cat perched on my lap and reading has expanded to include her blog. I agree with Alison that seemingly small deeds matter. She inspires me with her thinking and her words while her quiet creativity encourages my own daily practices of weaving, knitting, writing and photography.

Writing this this morning, I realize how much all of us need these touchstones of Good News. It's easy to get bogged down in the front page doomsayers of the popular media. I'm not denying the horrific things reported in the press, but what I am saying is that I have a choice in how I live my life, in how I hold that front page news and what else I choose to read.

Based on this, I intend to include references and links to Good News stories from newspapers, individuals, blogs - whenever and wherever I find them - in my postings. This can be my way of spreading the Good News and helping to balance out the Front Page News.

Have a great day today and remember to watch for the Good! There might be more of it than you imagine.

And now outside my window . . .

2008-04-08T10:33:00.000-07:00

. . . there's a hawk. Look close. I know it's not the clearest or greatest photo I've ever taken, but it's there. I'm saying "it" because I'm not sure if it's the momma or the dad. What I do know is that yesterday, I was looking out that window, the very same window with The Pole, and I saw an unusual movement in the eucalyptus trees across the street. Keep looking, keep looking - two objects and one flew forcefully into the air - a hawk. Binoculars, where are you when I need you? I kept watching and sure enough, it was two hawks chasing off the crows who also like to nest in those trees.

So, of course, this morning, I watched again. Didn't see the pair, but saw this one sitting atop this cut-off trunk. (This is the city of Westminster's idea of pruning.) I had to go outside to get the photos, so none of those window shots I'm so fond of. Instead, I went outside and stood in front of the window; a window-shot without the window. Here's the view including The Pole.

Thank you, God, again, for wild things in suburbia, be they spiders or hawks.

"Oh, my, my," said the Spider to the Fly.

2008-04-07T21:08:00.000-07:00

I have a passion for spiders and spider webs. I know, I know. That's probably a little strange. Most people are more like Lene when she commented that the problem with spiderwebs is, well, spiders. But, other than the Black Widows who like to lurk in the folds of the covers on my husband's vintage VWs, I watch them up close and constantly try to catch the beauty of their webs through photography.

Maybe it's because before I was a knitter or a bead worker, I was a weaver. And in the mythology of weaving, there is always Spider. The ancient Greeks and Romans tell that spiders came to be out of a young girl's challenge to the goddess Athena, a mighty warrior, protector of the city and women and a weaver. The Hopis and Navajo honor Grandmother Spider who led the People to this world and taught them to weave. I wrote about these deities just a couple of years ago when I did my doctoral work at Pacifica Graduate Institute. Something is telling me that it might be time to revisit them.

When a Shawl Has Its Way

2008-04-06T17:42:00.000-07:00

Awhile back, I wrote about this shawl on my other blog. It's been an unusual shawl. Rather than following a nice, easygoing, easy knitting, pattern, it wanders around. I usually have no problem keeping track of where I am in a pattern, especially one this simple, and the count turns out right at the end of the row. I have come to honestly believe that this shawl has come with its own dose of knitting imps. They're not mean or anything. No, they just delight in making stitches appear, disappear, reappear or maybe it's just that, with this shawl, I can't count. As far as I can tell, there are no dropped stitches. I can't even find any increases or decreases. And yet, what starts out as a simple K3, P3 sometimes ends up as a simple K3, P3, but more often ends up as a K3, P2 or vice versa only to come out correct on the next row. Although, at this point, I'm not sure what "correct" even is. I have given into the whims of this shawl. There is no consistency in it, no discernible pattern. And it really doesn't seem to matter. It just goes along its merry way. It reminds me of the strata in the hills in the desert. Pushed up out of the sand, they then settle into a meander somewhat parallel to the earth, only to have some ancient geological event send them soaring skyward again. That's the way this shawl has been.

A lot has happened during the making of it, and there's still a way to go. As you may recall, it began its erratic behavior in church one Sunday and that behavior accelerated during a subsequent meeting. The issues raised during that meeting, coming straight up out of the normally placid ground of the group, have settled a bit, paralleling, but not touching, where we've been before. It's a new path, but there still might be reason to soar even higher.

So many prayer shawls made with K3, P3. This shawl said, "No, I think we'll do it a little differently." Funny thing is, it has continued being based on the balance of knits and purls. Maybe that's what it's about - balance. But not a stagnant balance, rather an evolving balance. Just enough knits to purls so that the shawl lies flat, works well as a shawl. And just enough out-of-balance to keep me moving along, re-examing choices and decisions.

There's another one of those meetings at the end of this week and I suspect the shawl will finish up about then. Or maybe not, given the meanderings of this shawl.

The Quilt Project

2008-04-02T11:01:00.000-07:00

I spent time last night with an amazing group of people. They are a part of The Quilt Project at Pathways Volunteer Hospice. The Quilt Project was visioned by Donna Baranyay, a minister at my church, OCCSR. It's purpose, as imagined by Donna, is to show that it takes us all to lead quality lives.

The squares of the quilt, which aren't really squares but octagons, are being made by staff, the board, volunteers, clients, participants in the various groups - everyone. There are only a few rules. One is that each piece is an octagon. This shape was chosen because when it is pieced with the other octagons, the resulting image is like a beehive or an interlocking web. Next, each octagon has a hand. It can be a tracing of your hand, a drawing - whatever appeals to the maker. Within the hand, being held as it were, are mementos. In mine, pictured above, I used a heart, a button from my mother's button box and a turtle, an animal that I just really love. Then around the outside, the maker is asked to write something. And lastly, they are to be signed and dated. When we finish the octagons, we'll piece them together, with words like Beauty, Joy and Love printed on the square spaces where four octagons join, back it and create a quilt to hang in the Training Room. A reminder that it truly does take us all to live high quality lives.

Beauty not yet used . . .

2008-03-31T17:41:00.000-07:00

When I began this blog, the title, "When Making is Praying," was an easy choice. I've used that to describe what I do when I knit,weave and bead for quite awhile now. But as I write, and notice what I write, I have begun to wonder what that title really means. A few mornings ago, I woke up with the description, " musings and rumblings about art as process and product in everyday life." Following my habit of respecting the intelligence of those early morning messages, I added it to the header.

And now I REALLY wonder about making and praying. But then, it seems, this is what I'm learning. So here's what I did today, in my everyday life.

What I didn't do is my normal morning spiritual practice. No inspirational reading, meditation or prayers. Instead, I talked to my husband, who is out of town right now, for a very long time on the phone. I went out for breakfast, and on my way out of my driveway, admired how well the new traffic light seems to be working in shepherding the kids safely across the street. I bought a fuchsia for my garden right outside my front porch and puttered with those flowers for awhile. I emailed a friend about knitting a prayer shawl for a child whom she had brought to church on Sunday, found out the young girl's favorite color is pink (isn't every young girls' these days?), bought the yarn and am looking forward to starting it this evening.

And then I got down on my knees. No, I wasn't praying, at least not in the traditional sense. But actually, I think I was. And for me, this is when making and praying in everyday life start to come together. On my knees, I raked the fallen and spent leaves and flowers from under the camellias. I gathered them up, noticing the intricate color patterns formed in the gathering together of the debris. My mother used to say, "Death is Beauty not yet used." And here it was: the death, the passing away of this season's camellia extravaganza. Beauty not yet used.

Thank you, God, for the ability to see Beauty in unexpected places.

Waking to rain

2008-03-30T13:56:00.000-07:00

It rained last night, early this morning actually. I realize that for most people this would not be enough for a blog topic. But I live in Orange County, California, about 30 miles south of Los Angeles. This is a semi-arid region, characterized by the ocean environment and chaparral. We get about 12 inches of rain annually, except that we are frequently in a drought situation, which always makes me wonder where that number comes from. Last few years have been a drought, this year we're just about at average. Point is, rain is a big deal here. We talk a lot about it and notice it when it happens.

So this morning when I woke to that cool air feeling and the sound of water dripping off the eaves of the house into the fountain, I was pleasantly surprised. The television weather people had said maybe some drizzle, but this was a bit more than that. I couldn't stay inside - had to go out and investigate - even before I got dressed. Here's a bit of what I found in my backyard.

Raindrops suspended on spiderwebs spanning an aloe plant.

Raindrop beads on a vintage Volkswagen roof rack.

Rain saturated color.

And a TobyCat sitting in a dry spot.

TobyCat is a cat of unknown origin and indiscriminate ownership. He arrived as a very small kitten in my next door neighbor's backyard almost two years ago. We could never figure out how he got there except that maybe her other cat brought him? Someone tossed him over the fence? My neighbor named him Moses, since he travels around a lot. I call him Toby, thinking that Moses is a lot of name for a cat. He just seems more of a Toby. Plus, I already have Sarah and figured that was enough of the Old Testament in my living room. Couldn't quite imagine shouting out for Moses and Sarah, stopping fights between Moses and Sarah, putting down separate bowls of kibble for Moses and Sarah and so on. So to me, he's Toby. He's skittish, sleeps in my studio most nights and eats freely in the kitchen. Doesn't want to be touched or petted, yet is not past strutting down the hall into the bedroom at early hours of the morning and announcing that he's hungry. In short, he's a cat. Semi-domesticated and a big part of my life.

Thank you, God, for semi-domesticated and wild things in the midst of suburbia.

From Grumpy to Grateful

2008-03-27T09:25:00.000-07:00

I've been a little grumpy of late. Well, probably if I'm really honest, it's been more than a "little." I haven't taken well to the new street and traffic light, the construction noises and what I imagine that it all portends. It was jolting when the street light was on for the first night and my entire front yard was lit up like Dodger stadium at a night game. I swear that I can now sit on my front porch, where I used to like to sit in the dark, and read a book by that light. My neighbors point out that it's good security, but in the thirty plus years we've lived here, we've never experienced a break in, although we have lost a couple of parts off the vintage Volkswagens. (I'll never forget the policeman's look when I explained that someone had stolen a fender off of a car that looked, well, less than valuable to the uninitiated.)

But today, I think, the finishing touches have been put in place. Crews arrived at 7:00 this morning to mount the new street signs. Peering tentatively out my window, I see that we now know when to stop and go, how to turn right and left, have bright lights to announce the intersection at night and signs that tell us where we are. It's time that I get over this. It's time to get back to art and reclaim my sanity.

This morning my Unity e-zine tells me: "Blessings abound as Divine Love expresses abundant good in my life." It goes on to say that, "The very act of expressing my gratitude for the abundant good in my life uplifts me." So, here goes, a mere 10 things that I am grateful for this morning. I say "mere" because I know how many, many more there are.

I'm grateful for my husband, who knows to just say "Ummmmm," lets me vent and doesn't try to fix it.

I'm grateful for my house, filled with creative things and with ample room for making things.

I'm grateful for my spiritual community. In all of my life as an artist, I have never, ever experienced this sort of support for my creative life.

I'm grateful for prayer, that ever-present connection with God, the All.

I'm grateful for Sarah, my cat, who loves me unconditionally, tolerates my tossing and turning in bed at night, moving from place to place in the day and just keeps being there.

I'm grateful for what's outside my windows - birds, trees, sky, clouds, people and a system of lights and poles to keep people safe on the street.

I'm grateful for being able to weave, knit, bead, cook, garden, all of the myriad of things that I do on a daily basis that remind me that I am a child of God.

I'm grateful for this blog and the Internet, the opportunity to connect and create.

I'm grateful for friends who listen patiently, tell me when I'm great and let me know when I'm off track.

And, of course, I'm grateful to God. Thank you, God, for being God. And so it is. Amen.

Outside my window . . .

2008-03-22T14:59:00.000-07:00

The new traffic lights are making me more aware of what's outside my windows. Outside my studio window, the one with the upcoming traffic light, there are men in bright orange vests.

Turn around 180 degrees, there's a man up a palm tree, chainsaw swinging, cutting palm fronds. That seems quite appropriate, given the season.

But outside my bedroom window is the greatest sight of all. This mama hummingbird has two hungry babies. She's eyeing me suspiciously as I peek through the blinds we keep lowered so as not to disturb her. Guess I'd better honor that and go back to watching the men at the other windows. They don't seem to mind being stared at.

On the other hand . . .

2008-03-11T18:51:00.000-07:00

No, I haven't changed my mind about not wanting a traffic light right outside my studio. But, something did happen after I posted that photo and my rant about it. I came back to check that the post was okay and I realized, "Hey, that's a pretty nice photo." I really like the way the plants are silhouetted, how the orchid leaves echo the curve of the pole. Wait a minute! Did I just combine orchids and The Pole in one aesthetic moment? Hmmmm.

It's the gift of writing, I think, to allow me to see things differently. Orchids and The Pole. So, I played with the photo a bit, took out the power lines, reformatted it (compare with the photo below) and then, I began to think beadwork. I haven't done a beaded piece in quite awhile. Fact is, I bought a fancy program to help me graph my loomwork but had too much other stuff going on at the time to learn the program. But here it was, a possible piece of beaded loomwork. Where is that program?

So, for the last few days, when I could have been blogging or weaving or any other of a multitude of things/projects that I already have started and know how to do, I was learning my beading program. It's looking pretty good. Give me a couple of days. I'll finish up the amulet bag on the loom and who knows? I may be making art from The Pole.

Change

2008-03-08T14:36:00.001-08:00

Things are changing in my neighborhood. Used to be, I gazed out this window in my studio, past the African Violets and orchids, and saw the eucalyptus trees dancing in the breeze, the crows perching precariously on the swaying top branches and the reflections of the sunset. Oh, I can still see all of that, but now there's something more - a pole heralding a soon-to-appear traffic light.

The Pole is reaching right into my studio. I can't ignore it - it's right there - and the noise of its installation (imagine jackhammers, concrete pouring, men shouting directions at one another, the insistent clinging of the trucks backing up) has filled my studio, off and on, for several days now.

I'm trying to be calm about this. I'm trying to be mature. Change happens. I know that. But this is a change that I don't want. A traffic light right outside my studio, my home, my place of refuge. There's always been the sound of traffic, but I've adapted. We've talked of moving - so much stuff and so many memories. And, where? I like my house, my studio, my garden. I just don't like The Pole and what it seems to portend.

The Rhythm of Making

2008-03-03T20:02:00.000-08:00

This weekend I was in Phoenix, Arizona. In Papago Park, at the Desert Botanical Garden, there are wonderful pathways filled with flower buds ready to welcome spring in a painterly splash of color. But what I found the most intriguing were two installations made by artists in conjunction with the earth.

One consists of large structures, made of willow branches woven together into spheres by Patrick Dougherty. Habitats, hiding places, unspoken languages?

The other is a spiral right inside the entrance to the Garden. Surrounded by cacti and bushes, the spiral seems to follow some unseen path down into the earth. Or is it coming up to us from the earth? Hmmm, mysteries.

Just north of town, another spiral, this one scratched onto the rock by the Ancients and now enfolded into the Deer Valley Rock Art Park.

While back in the center of town, at the Heard Museum's Annual Indian Market, a young Native American boy danced spirals and spheres in a promise of a life unfolding on a pounded-solid red dirt arena.

Somehow, in all of this movement, this rhythm, this making of something in partnership with the earth, I am reassured. I remember the ongoingness of Life, of God in whatever form He, She or It appears for each of us and see, once again, that Making is Praying because it is a celebration of the rhythms of Life.

Trying to Divide

2008-02-29T07:26:00.000-08:00

I'm not sure that dividing my creativity works in the same way that dividing flower bulbs in the fall brings more blooms in the spring. I started out this blogging adventure with two blogs, this one and one titled Prayer Knitting. The Prayer Knitting blog is supposed to be about my work in the Prayer Shawl Ministry, while this one is about all of my other artwork. It's not that I have ever really thought that knitting prayer shawls and studio work are two different things, I just thought that the prayer shawls deserved a place of their own. Now I'm torn.

It's plain to me that I can't separate the two in terms of my creativity. Why would I even want to? And yet, I really like the layout of the other blog, I like the title and the subtitle. Oh, so many things to seduce me.

Long, long ago when I was a small child, my mother, who was an artist, was working on an elaborate free form embroidery that in those days was called, to differentiate it from traditional embroidery, a "stitchery." She showed me a small area, an exquisite meandering of threads that looked to me like those imagined under-the-ocean places. Then she showed me a thin piece of irregulary shaped, barely green, piece of net. Placing the net over the ocean place, she explained that sometimes, to make the whole work, small areas had to be sacrificed.

I've always remembered that, both as an artist and as an adult. Sometimes, small areas, for the greater good, must be released. Released. I prefer that to sacrifice, even though I am aware that we are in that time of year when sacrifice is "in the air." Release. And in this release, the Greater is created. Release. Sacrifice. The beautiful flowers of last summer have sacrificed/released their own beauty so that the seed can be planted. Release. And from this release, at this time of the year, hints of what is to come. Buds appearing, flowers unfurling, the birds are nesting. Even the areas ravaged by wildfires are now promising wildflowers. Release.

I ask myself today, what do I need to release to allow my fullest creativity to bloom?

Writing on White Boards

2008-02-28T07:44:00.000-08:00

I've been reminded the last few weeks how handy a white board is to the creative process. I have two in my studio: a large one that hangs on the wall next to my looms and a smaller one that I can carry around.

The things I really enjoy about them are that, first, you can draw in color on them, unlike their vintage blackboard ancestors and two, they are easily erased. For awhile, this second asset was a problem: once erased, it was gone. Gone. All of my brilliant thoughts, possibilities, insights (or at least I think of them as brilliant in that moment), gone. Just like that, poof! But now, with my digital camera, I just take a picture of the meanderings, and presto, it's stored in my computer along with a whole lot of other stuff that I think is really important at that moment. And now the white board is once again clear, waiting for my next inspiration.

But lately, I've come to see that instant erasure and not storing it in my computer, as a positive. This was so in this moment, but now that moment has passed. No need to hang on, it can all be erased, making way for the new. And the new will come - I depend on that, have faith that creation is ongoing, not limited by space and time. Without that letting go, that erasure, where would the new appear? The board is full - no room. But a simple swipe of the hand, a mere flick of the wrist, and the way is clear. New thoughts, new ideas are on their way.

The Priestly Stole

2008-02-27T10:47:00.000-08:00

There are times, many times actually, that something comes off my loom or my needles, I stand back, look at it and wonder, "Where did that wonderful thing come from?" I know I made it, but I also know it didn't really, truly, truly, really, come from me. That is how I feel about the Priestly Stole.

It was begun several weeks ago at the request of my classmates at Pacifica Graduate Institute. You see, we have been together for almost 8 years now, through a grueling and wonderful MA and, for some, PhD, program in Mythological Studies. It's the sort of thing that picks you up, shakes you, spins you around and sets you back down in a place that while it looks vaguely familiar, well, it's just not Kansas anymore. As each of us defends our dissertation, we, the classmates, present a gift to that person. The gifts have ranged from photos to shawls, but each is very, very specific to that person from us.

This last weekend, Jim defended his dissertation on ritual and it was indeed special. In addition to getting to once again gather together, this was an acknowledgement of all that Jim is. You see, Jim is a priest and he came to Pacifica incognito. Wearing shorts and polo shirts, he appeared no different from the rest of us, and that was the way he wanted it. But, of course, over time, his *secret* became known - how could it not be in a program dedicated to the mythic course of life and our lives lived as a personal mythology? I believe that the opportunity for him to interact with others in a "non-priestly" way was special. I know that the opportunity for me, with my background with the Goddess and my current work as a Religious Science practitioner, to interact with a priest in a "non-priestly" way was a very special gift.

So, this time, in response to Jim and his work both as a priest and as we knew him at Pacifica, my classmates asked me if I would weave a stole for him. I was thrilled and intimidated. First, the time was short. Second, well, I had never woven a priest's stole. But I knew I would do it.

And do it I did. Using three threads on each shuttle and weaving with three bobbins, for a total of nine threads, the fabric appeared - a rainbow, symbol of God's covenant with the people. The black warp, the Dark Feminine, held the energies of the lights, the colors, each moving like the seasons, one into the other. Three threads times three shuttles, nine, woven in a pattern based on four, Jung's squaring the circle, completion, trinities . . . all of these wove their way into the finished fabric.

Hopefully, I can get a picture of Jim wearing the stole. In the meantime, here's my DH modeling it in our backyard.

Thank you, Spirit, for the honor of this weaving.

I'm not the only one . . .

2008-02-25T15:20:00.001-08:00

Looks to me like I'm not the only one having fits of giggling over Willow's sweater. Here's a picture of the namesake herself and she looks pretty happy, even if the sweater is too big. Oh, well, she'll grow into it. Who cares with a smile like that?

Being truly human . . .

2008-02-15T19:20:00.000-08:00

If you remember, when I last blogged about the priestly stole, before the Willow sweater, I said I felt like Goldilocks, trying one bed/porridge/weaving after another and finding each too soft, too hard, but never one quite right. I hoped that the Three Bears would soon show up so some resolution could be had. Well, show up they did, in the form of three threads. A simple shift of weft threads from one to three on the bobbin and presto! The colors began to sing, the texture was just right and I am a much happier weaver.

Armed with this solution, the work began for the weaving of the actual fabric and the tale began to shift from a wistful fairy tale to a more ancient tradition. The role of weaving and thread is apparent in the earliest mythologies. The Three Fates spin and weave the lives of men, and it must be assumed in these times, also women. Ariadne laid a trail to safety with a thread. Athena turned Arachne into a spider through weaving and Grandmother Spider Woman, after teaching them to weave, admonished the people that they must learn to be truly human and remember where they came from.

There is nothing in my experience that teaches me to be truly human while remembering where I come from like weaving and that learning continues in this weaving. Winding the warp, I realized that there are 360 ends in this weaving, the degrees of a circle, that Jungian symbol of wholeness. Taking the photo of the warp on the warping reel, I saw the spiral and as my husband wound the freshly dyed weft yarns into balls, I saw Ananke, Necessity, and her spindle whorl around which the earth spins.

Tonight I am weaving, watching the colors evolve, shift, slide and move one into another. Tonight I can see the moon, watch the stars revolve in the sky, and feel the rhythm of the earth. Tonight I am weaving, and like Circe or Calypso, I sing the magic of creation.

Fits of Giggling

2008-02-12T19:36:00.000-08:00

It's done! I finished the Willow sweater, just in time for it to go with the godparents tomorrow to Willow. When I finished sewing on those heart-buttons this afternoon, I held the sweater up for inspection. My instant reaction was a fit of giggling. I don't know why. Who can explain it? But there's just something about all those trying-to-be serious cables with the sensible shawl collar juxtaposed with the heart buttons and the fact that it's for a smiling, wide eyed child - why not giggle along with her at this wacky, amazing world?

My thanks to Britta Stolfus Rueschhoff, who designed this wonderful pattern that I found at http://www.knitty.com/ISSUEspring05/PATTtrellis.html. I substituted Plymouth Encore, a 75% acrylic, 25% wool worsted weight and used a size 7 needle. When the sweater was completely sewn together, I washed and dryed it on the knit cycle of the washer and dryer. It became much softer and a bit fluffier, maybe a tad smaller, but no appreciable shrinkage.

Meditating on Willow and Rainbows

2008-02-11T15:16:00.000-08:00

I've been meditating on Willow and rainbows. Oh, not the type of Willow that is a tree - a fairly rare sight here in southern California. But another type of Willow, a very special Willow. This Willow wriggles and jumps and smiles. She's about 8 months old and lives in Arizona. I haven't seen her for a couple of months and I miss her. I miss her whole family. Her godparents, two good friends of mine, are going to visit her and they're leaving this Wed. That's right - this Wed. To the left is the sweater I'm knitting for Willow. I found it at knitty.com and started it in a wonderful haze of love but right now, considering it needs to be done tomorrow, that haze had left to be replaced by a mild sense of "I really need to get this done."

Up until this morning, when I frogged the same four rows two times, I've had minimal problems with the knitting, even though I've never done cables before. I've learned about twisted stitches, cable needles that poke me and fall out of the stitches and how to remedy both of those situations and recalculated for the yarn change. The fact that the child is not in front of me and I'm not certain how big she is, well, that, too, I've learned to trust. But still, I need this by tomorrow.

Then, today when I got home, I had an email from one of the godparents. "Here's some videos of Willow," she wrote. "Her mom sent them." I sat back and watched Willow smile, Willow laugh, Willow have a bad hair morning, Willow and her mom and her brother and her dad just all having such a wonderful, incredible time being a family. And, oh, don't forget that big dog who seems to tolerate it all with a wonderful resigned sense of duty tinged with fun. You know what? If I have to pull an all-nighter, then so be it. This sweater is going to AZ on Wed. And the rainbows, you ask? What about the rainbows?

Well, that's the yarn sitting there patiently in my studio, just across from my loom, waiting for me to finish this Willow sweater and get back to the priestly stole. Somehow I don't think a priest would mind waiting for a child.

Waiting for the Three Bears . . .

2008-02-06T10:54:00.000-08:00

I've been playing Goldilocks since my last post, searching for that perfect fabric for the stole. I 've warped the loom, discovered an error, rewarped the loom, cheered as it wove perfectly and began the weaving search. I wove, washed, pressed, clipped the ends and analysed (much too fancy of a word for my process, but can't think of any other right now) the samples. The results?

This sample is too dark, but an interesting fabric for another purpose.

This sample is too stripey. Makes me think of bad levis from the 60s.

This sample feels like weak cardboard.

At this point, having only a scant yard or so left on my sample warp, I rethreaded the loom to a less dense sett. That means, fewer warp ends per inch. From this I eked out a small sample:

That bottom sample has possibilities! Now I know that Goldilocks never said, "Hmmm, this porridge has possibilities," but it's my story and so I am claiming that option.

Today's job? Put a couple of yards on the loom at this wider sett and play. Play with color, since that is really what this project is all about - color and the way it moves, plays and delights us all. Color, how it truly is energy made visible and so is, in a very real way, a connection with the Invisible, a covenant with that energy, no matter what I or you or anyone chooses to call that energy - God, Great Spirit, The One, The Invisible, Life Source, Goddess, Athena, Krishna, many names, one force.

And, oh, by the way, God, I'd really appreciate it if the Three Bears showed up and we could get some resolution on this.

You have to be warped . . .

2008-01-28T14:53:00.000-08:00

I'm starting a really exciting project today. I'm weaving a stole for a friend who is a Catholic priest.Today's job is to warp the loom for the samples. Have to find the right density for the fabric, sturdy yet a nice drape. The warp is black cotton and the weft will be a sequence of color from yellow at the back of the neck progressing through a rich rainbow of colors to end in purple. Not the usual sequence of a rainbow, but the right sequence for this stole.

The loom is almost warped. The black cotton warp is wound onto the back beam, the heddles are threaded in a basic 4 shaft twill and now I'm sleying the reed. Using a 12 dent reed, double in each dent. Not sure if that is close enough, but I'm allowing for some shrinkage in the cotton warp and weft. Samples, samples! I'll finish the warping this afternoon. Have a meeting tonight, but tomorrow I'll start to weave.

These socks are made for searching . . .

2008-01-26T13:57:00.001-08:00

Celebration! My first finished project of 2008 - socks for my husband. I used Trekking XXL yarn with 4 size 0 DPNs. The yarn splits a little, so had to be careful about that, but otherwise it was great to work with. I washed them in the washing machine, laid flat to dry and there was no size change or distortion at all. I definitely want a pair for myself.

My husband has never worn hand knit socks before. At first he said he'd save them for good, or for house socks, but I encouraged him to wear them with his boots or his running shoes. And he did and he liked them! They are my prayer for him to be safe and happy on his many excursions out looking for old VW parts. That's his passion - VWs. He's retired now and it's wonderful to see him happily puttering and muttering over strange pieces of metal that to him are just as wonderful as beautiful yarn is to me. Hooray!!! for diverse interests and passions and the places where we meet- like warm, comfy, hand knit socks.

Intentions

2008-01-18T14:15:00.000-08:00

The New Year brings new intentions and one of my intentions was to start a blog. So, at least I've got that accomplished. Now, what do I want to blog about?

I've decided to focus on what I've recently come to know as my path in life - one I've been following for over 50 years or so, but only recently have seen so clearly. I think this realization really began the first time I ever said, "I don't need religion. I have art." I really had no idea what I was saying. Now, many, many, many years after saying that, I have both, and am beginning to discover how much they are one another.

So this blog will be about how I use making things - mostly weaving, knitting, and beadwork - as prayer. I'll document what I'm working on and what I'm praying about. It'll help me stay clear and grounded while remembering that it's all God. Hopefully it will serve some of you in your lives also.