“All you need is love.”

- John Lennon

Iris Shoots, February 2, 2012

I look forward to winter for many reasons. And one of the main things I look forward to is the opportunity to have everything stop for a while. And even though I recognize that this is a total illusion, I pretend anyway. Winter seems to give me more time to still my busy mind, to spend lovely days at home, listening to the rain and the wind, letting the beautiful gray tones of the Northwest sky wash over me. In this stillness, I feel that my creativity and my spirituality are being renewed. And in anticipation of this special time, I decided to make a Stillness mandala as my next project. To commemorate the coming around of this wonderful time of year.

But something is going terribly wrong this year. True we had a little snow two weeks ago. But where are the wonderful winter rain storms? Where is the intensity, the opportunity for cleansing, the chance to stay at home, and to snuggle up inside and be warm. To read books, to make soup, to work on mandalas.

Aside from the huge implications for Global Climate Change, how can I be still when the sun is shining?  How can I pretend that things will stop long enough for me to have my winter experience when I go outside my door and see things like the photo I took this morning.  On February 2nd, no less.

this pic may have to be my inspirational jumping off place…

But now that I make baskets and hang around with all these beautiful women in the San Juan County Textile Guild, I see them knitting all the time – at meetings, on the ferry, at social gatherings, while watching TV.  Their hands are always busy, and it has made my hands start to twitch with eagerness to be doing something similar.  A friend of mine was knitting a scarf like this, and she said that it was really easy to do, and that I could do it.  She was right.  I can, and I am doing it.  Just like riding a bike, it all came back to me.

So this is why I am liking this process so much.  I can take it anywhere.  It is a really good way to focus and to concentrate.  For this scarf, it is 8-8-6-6-4-4-20. I need to pay attention, but at the same time it is very relaxing.  When I am nervous about anything, it is very soothing.  I breathe better. Knitting is a good way to hold me in the present moment.  I lose myself in the repetition of doing one stitch after another.  And I join in the archetypal process of all those knitters who came before me.

Best of all, by the time the Superbowl is over, I will have a fun and whimsical new scarf to wear.

“Times are changing for the better. Continue on the path of trust and obedience. Be open to the new.”

I am taking Polychrome Jasper along for this ride. Here are its healing properties:

Polychrome Jasper

Use it for:

• Stability
• Balance
• Grounding

All jaspers help balance the emotional energy in the body.

And here is the necklace I made to help me remember (for sale soon, but in the meantime visit my shop):

My birth color is Lion – Pantone 17-1330.

Unusual. Complex. Innovative.

What’s yours?

Click here to find out: www.colorstrology.com

When Winter-chilled rain
Taps it’s icy fingers on
Window panes,
It does not soothe nor
Reassure.

Originally, I left all the spokes at the top uncut and they completely obscured the opening. I thought of it as mysterious and liked it as a design element without quite knowing why. Then I got a critique from another wonderful basket maker Marilyn Moore who juried a show I entered the basket in. She thought that the top didn’t fit the rest of the basket which was more refined and almost classical. I did see that clearly and resolved to trim all the spokes to a uniform length. But something kept stopping me.

Then last night it finally came to me.  I started clipping random spokes at less than uniform length and only clipped the ones that seemed not to fit, or stuck out too much, or were too twisted, or just “asked” to be cut.  Here is the result of that.  It may not be finished yet.  As I looked at the photo, I could see a few more things that I wanted to do.  But it is getting close to where I want it to be.  Still a bit wild and unruly.  But with some light getting into the belly of the basket, the sense of mystery has really only increased.  As you go around the perimeter, some spaces are more open, some are more dense.  There is no regularity, and that is what I am liking about it.

What made me really happy about this process was that it was one of the first times I felt that I was able to make artistic decisions about a basket in much the same way I would about a painting.  Whether it works or not, whether I like it as much in a week as I do today, whether anyone else likes it, none of that matters.  I had fun with the process.  Taking thirty minutes to clip fifteen spokes.  Time well spent, I say!

What if we all simply “outed” our mistakes and laughed at ourselves? Whether it be a big thing like hurting someone’s feelings by sticking the proverbial foot in the mouth, or using the wrong word in a sentence, or, _____________.

I’ll start with a small one from my own day (after all ,incrementality is the only way to get anywhere)!

I woke up this morning so excited. I remembered that it was Martin Luther King, Jr. Day and that I had just taken a picture of a jewelry piece that had a partial quote of his hand-stamped on it. The whole time I was getting ready for the day, walking the dog, eating breakfast, I was thinking about how I could do a blog post today and honor him and myself in the process! (self-promotion is not a bad thing, a hard thing, but not a bad thing.)

I downloaded my photos, picked the best one, and sat down to write what was going to be a simple two sentence blog post.

Suddenly it was not Martin Luther King, Jr.’s face that I saw but rather it was Gandhi’s face. So, here is where laughing at myself really comes in handy. They are clearly not the same person, do not physically resemble each other, and did not live in the same country. I was about to proudly post the quote, “BE THE CHANGE YOU WISH TO SEE IN THE WORLD”, alongside the picture of my jewelry piece, and a link to Martin Luther King Jr.

I could have just let this go, after all, you would have never known about it. I caught it in time. This time. What about all the other times that I don’t? Laughing at myself and telling you about my mistakes makes me ask these questions? Do you  feel a bit better knowing that “you” are not alone in your mistakes? Do I feel a bit better knowing that you will still like me even though I mixed up two great but very different men? And will this put a big smile on your face right now and cause you to giggle or laugh at me, yourself, and the ways that we are all so unbelievably beautiful in our humanness?

PS. Is there a Gandhi Day? If not, I declare this day the day to “have a dream of being the change you wish to see in the world.”