Persevering through February

The nice thing about writing a blog is that I can re read it myself, even if no one else does! I can revisit previous years and remind myself of past scenes and insights, so often still relevant. This February seems to have been very gloomy, our weather, and local and world wide events as well as my mood. Looking back over previous years I realise that February can often feel that way for me.

This time last year I was exploring Wendel Berry’s poem which starts “When despair for the world grows in me…” even though at that point we did not know what lay ahead, (probably just as well!) But reading it again today reminds me of his answer to “come into the peace of wild things”. Some of our daily walks recently have been wet, muddy and slippery, but we have encountered some wonderful natural beauty in spite of the gloom, and felt some of the freedom Wendell Berry writes about.

When despair for the world grows in me
and I wake in the night at the least sound
in fear of what my life and my children’s lives may be,
I go and lie down where the wood drake
rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.
I come into the peace of wild things
who do not tax their lives with forethought
of grief. I come into the presence of still water.
And I feel above me the day-blind stars
waiting with their light. For a time
I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.

During the grey days I have also been glad of my continuing participation in an online Stitch Club. The most recent workshop by Jude Kingshott included a stitched fabric book made from scraps and recycled cotton lawn. I found hand stitching on very thin almost translucent fabric quite a challenge. It felt so insubstantial and unstable. Flimsy was the word. It felt like my hopes for the immediate months ahead, unpredictable and uncertain. But stitch by stitch I plodded on and I have now finished a little booklet of bright cheerful flowers, albeit flimsy.

The cover…

And pages…

“Perseverance” is the name of the space craft which has finally reached Mars this week. I have not achieved anything quite so remarkable, but it is a familiar theme. Even my art journaling echoed it.

Perseverance seems the order of the moment, so let’s keep keeping on, stitch by stitch, step by step, flower by flower, and we will get through the February mud and gloom to more solid ground and clearer skies.

Writing gifts

It was a special moment for me when the postman delivered an envelope the other day which was handwritten. So many of our letters these days are printed, but this was not only written by hand, but I knew whose hand had written it. A five year old, whose every letter is painstakingly and beautifully formed. He writes with such care, the process of addressing the envelope becomes an act of love. The writer is our grandson, who has made us an advent calendar this year, complete with numbered flaps and little surprises to discover each day. What a wonderful way to show his love, it will be treasured and enjoyed by us every day.

My grandson’s handwriting is much better than mine was at age five, and, dare I say it, more legible than mine often is today! There is something magical about handwriting, the action and feel of the pen on paper, the slight resilience to the smooth flow, the shape of the pen in our fingers. And handwriting is in some way unique to each of us, an expression of ourselves, and can be a gift to the reader.

I have also been enjoying a different kind of writing gift from Beth Kempton, author of Calm Christmas and a Happy New Year. Her Winter Writing Sanctuary course, which she offered free, has been a gentle way to remind ourselves of what’s important in this season, and in this particularly difficult year.

Writing doesn’t have to be hand writing, or even on paper, as Beth says in her Winter Writing Sanctuary. “To write is to pay attention to your life and to open up the channel for magic and mystery to flow out. Writing is about so much more than putting words on paper with a pen or typing into a laptop. It’s about listening. It’s about opening. And it’s about spilling so that your ink becomes stories and lessons for yourself and for other people. “

Recently I received a birthday gift of writing in the shape of a book. The writer is someone whose listening, observing and spilling not only helped her through deep depression but is an encouragement to others. The Wild Remedy by Emma Mitchell is an expression of her feelings and insights, as she takes up her pen and pencil after her walks in nature. It is a joy to read, and has encouraged me to make walking, looking and listening (and writing about it) a part of my daily routine.

Whether the words come from a five year old grandson carefully writing an address on an envelope, or a published author who is a stranger to me, the act of writing is a gift, and can be a source of great healing and joy, both to the writer and the readers. Keep writing everybody!

Deep down we knew
there were better ways
to show our love
than spending more money
on more stuff
that would get lost under a bed
or sit in landfill
for fifty thousand years. Beth Kempton

Re-read, re-root

A journaling course I am following recently suggested that at a time of crisis it is good to return to favourite books and re-read them. Sometimes the predictable and familiar can be a comfort when things are uncertain. The first book I selected from my book case was The Scent of Water by Elizabeth Goudge. My copy is old and battered, and the story of a successful business woman who leaves her London life to live in a house left to her by a cousin she met once, never fails to remind me of unchanging truths. It is not modern in its content or language, but the theme of the book is that the past can often be the key to the present.

In the front of the book are these words….
For there is hope for a tree,
If it is cut down, that it will sprout again,
And that its tender shoots will not cease.
Though its root may grow old in the earth,
And its stump may die in the ground,
Yet at the scent of water it will bud
And bring forth branches like a plant.
Job 14 v 7-9

This image was made very real when the weather broke this weekend and we had some heavy rain. I ventured into the garden and the scent of water was everywhere, the damp earth releasing pungent aromas, full of living promise. The plants seemed to be responding by drinking deeply and standing tall, their roots reaching deep and strong.

And then I pulled another old favourite off my bookcase. Journal of a Solitude by May Sarton. It starts, “Begin here. It is raining”, and as I opened it further at random I found more words about trees and roots.

“ I think of the trees and how simply they let go…and go deep into their roots for renewal and sleep…. Imitate the trees. Learn to lose in order to recover and remember that nothing stays the same for long,not even pain, psychic pain. Sit it out. Let it all pass. Let it go. “

It was the words about sitting it out and letting it pass which spoke to me at this time. We have been told lock down restrictions because of the deadly coronavirus will continue for at least three more weeks. This process cannot be hurried, horrible and painful though it is.

On the same page May Sarton quotes words from another old book I have on my bookcase T.S. Eliot’s Collected Poems. The words she quotes are from his poem Ash Wednesday. On paper yellow with age, they were underlined by me probably four decades ago. I don’t know what was in my mind back then, but the words “teach us to sit still” spoke to me powerfully when I re-read them today.

Sit still, let go, return to the deep places, and re-root to find peace. That seems to be what my old books are saying to me this week. Easier to read than to actually do, as always! But I am trying to hold these old truths in my mind as I walk my garden circuits, and pick posies of flowers and buds fed by the scented rain.

What matters most?

As many of you know since I retired I have worked at my local volunteer run Community Library. I love libraries and the amazing access they provide to ideas, and learning. I often order myself books which I have seen recommended. A few weeks ago a book arrived at the library for me. I recognised the title but I couldn’t remember why I had ordered it, or who had recommended it. Once I started reading it I found myself frequently wanting to underline bits, or make notes in the margin, there were so many references I wanted to stop and look up. I knew this was a book I needed to buy! Sadly our Community Library is closed at the moment, because of the Coronavirus pandemic, but I now have my own copy of “What matters most” by James Hollis, for which I am grateful. (Although I still don’t know who it was who recommended it to me…. Let me know if it was you!)

The Coronavirus pandemic is not just closing libraries. It is killing many, many thousands around the world, and causing deep fear and suffering to those who are ill and those who care for them, as well as those of us who are well at the moment. I found it very startling and pertinent then that the first chapter of this book is headed by this quote.

“It is a bewildering thing in human life that the thing that causes the greatest fear is the source of the greatest wisdom” C.G. Jung

How can this terrifying thing which is happening on a global scale be a source of wisdom? I would be both presumptuous and arrogant if I said I knew the answers to that. But I can say that the enforced “stay at home” is helping me live a more “considered” life.

I find myself having to pay attention when I react with annoyance to another member of my household. I am forced to notice my feelings when I watch the news (or decide to turn it off). I am compelled to structure in positive and meaningful activities for myself, to fill the time I would not normally have been on my own. I am having to consider what are the things that matter most to me in my life, and what is most important for a healthy community? So many things which often get pushed aside in everyday normal life.

While I am “staying at home” I am not only reflecting on my priorities, and my inner journey, but I am also using my art journal to reflect on the process. This is a recent scribble/doodle page working with colour on a dark background. It was only afterwards I realised it expressed just how important my home is to me, the flowers in the garden and the cacophony of birdsong I have been noticing now the traffic noise has gone.

In the U.K. we are only at the start of this “stay at home” journey. We have many more weeks ahead to explore the inner world of being “at home” with ourselves. It will not be easy at times, but perhaps we will indeed find that it can be a source of wisdom and re prioritising for us all. Stay well everyone, and stay at home.

The peace of wild things?

Yesterday was a calm and sunny day, and I enjoyed the early spring flowers in the garden and picked some colourful crops from the allotment, amazed as always at the way nature grows quietly and with purpose through the winter, without much intervention on our part.

Then last night I was woken by the sound of the wind in the trees around our house, and rain lashing the window. The storm was expected, amber warnings issued, but still disturbing. Today the outside world feels unfriendly, noisy and buffeting when I venture out to pick up a dustbin lid which has blown across the lawn. A different, destructive side to the nature of wild things is revealed in the greenhouse panels strewn across the path.

A favourite poem of mine is Wendell Berry’s “The Peace of Wild Things.”

When despair for the world grows in me
and I wake in the night at the least sound
in fear of what my life and my children’s lives may be,
I go and lie down where the wood drake
rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.
I come into the peace of wild things
who do not tax their lives with forethought
of grief. I come into the presence of still water.
And I feel above me the day-blind stars
waiting with their light. For a time
I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.

Today I am aware of the paradox in that title. He is woken in the poem by despair and fear at what is happening in the world, and finds solace in the peace of wild nature.

And yes, there is much to disturb us on the news this weekend, but where is the peace in the wild storm today? Some times the wild is far from peaceful. Where is comfort in wild things today?

My consolation is the sight through the window of a pigeon sitting quietly in a tree, in spite of the tossing branch. And the snowdrops and crocus, faces closed and heads bowed, but still standing in the rain, do not listen to the weather forecast, or take heed of amber warnings. They “do not tax their lives with forethought of grief”.

Perhaps this where I can find peace even when the wild is a storm.

On this day – January 25th

Today I have been reminded of the time when I made the blue patchwork cushion on the writing chair where I sit each day. On this day four years ago I did not know what my pieced together shapes would become. I did not know they would become an object which has supported me through many days of ups and downs, and hours of reading and writing.

Perhaps the lesson I can draw today is that it doesn’t really matter if we don’t know what it’s for, the important thing is just to get on with the business of creating from whatever we have to hand. Its purpose will be revealed later, maybe years later, and maybe not even to us.

January 25th 2015

Cutting up bits and pieces
Into carefully measured
Smaller pieces.
Then joining up the little pieces
Into carefully arranged
Bigger pieces. 

Now what do I do with it?

This is the product of my cutting up my “blue Monday” fabrics, and piecing them together at an Embroiderer’s Guild workshop, using shaded four patch blocks. Quite a satisfying (although fiddly) process but I don’t know what to do with it now!

The story of our lives, perhaps?

https://weaversjournal.wordpress.com/2015/01/25/bits-and-pieces-small-stone-25/

On this day – January 24th

I didn’t go back far today in my browse through my January small stones. Two years ago I sketched the same chair I am sitting in this morning, and it certainly isn’t beautiful! I notice I have added another cushion since I drew it two years ago, crocheted from a colourful ball of wool in my stash. But what a mish mash, and how muddled it looks! And the piles of books and papers around it appear equally disorganised.

But this eclectic hotchpotch of a chair has supported and inspired me through many creative endeavours. So I will just accept it that way, and be grateful for somewhere to sit and dream.

January 24th 2017

A rather weird drawing experience this morning. On impulse I got out of the chair I was sitting in, and looked at it, and  decided to sketch it. This is where I have spent many, many hours writing my journal and my blog. This is the chair I have sat on while reading, researching and writing for my Masters in Creative Writing. And this month I have done most of my sketches sitting here. 

An old second hand tub chair draped in a huge Indian shawl throw, given to me by a friend, I have it padded out with two mismatched cushions. One cushion is a patchwork of some of my favourite blue Kaffe Fassett fabrics, which I cut and peiced together with great care. Most days I don’t look at the cushion at all, I just sit on it and squash it out of shape, completely disregarding the time and effort I spent in making it. 

But today I have looked with new eyes at the chair and the cushions which have been supporting me throughout those hours. I noticed the soft folds and subtle shapes of the throw and thought of the friend who gave it to me. I remembered the precision with which I cut the patchwork shapes for the back cushion, and recollected that the seat cushion was a sale bargain from Laura Ashley over thirty years ago. The chair itself was an eBay buy, with a previous life. This incongruous hotchpotch of things from the past, so often unacknowledged and unappreciated, is the trusty place which holds me secure as I sit and contemplate the day. It is far from empty…

https://weaversjournal.wordpress.com/2017/01/24/empty-chair-small-stone-24/#comments

Seed drop

Two months without a post on here. And I have not written much online for the whole of this year so far. But conversely my personal journal notebook, which usually lasts me a whole year quite easily, is nearly full with still a couple of months left to write! It’s just a different kind of writing.

Recently I attended a workshop on the ancient contemplative practice of Lectio Divina, and the transformative power of words, especially from sacred texts. As part of a suggested exercise I meditated on these words written by the Old Testament prophet Isaiah; “As seeds to the sower, and bread to the hungry, so shall my word be… it shall not return to me empty”

The images of words as seeds and bread are powerful ones with lots of layers. At this time of year I love the the colours of the falling leaves, but also the profusion of seeds being released into the unknown. This is a season of endings, but also a promise of beginnings. On our kitchen windowsill are squash seeds being dried for next year and mustard seeds sprouting now. I have a whole basket of flower seeds, some already scattered, some waiting for the spring.

My musing on seeds was further stimulated by a stall at Wimborne Green Festival this weekend. Rapanui are a company sowing seeds of sustainable fashion and clothes manufacture methods and I encourage you to check out their website. But it was a slogan on one of their t shirts which drew my attention.

It’s not just the seeds sown in my garden which make a difference, Carol Ann Duffy’s newly commissioned poem for the centenary of Armistice Day is a powerful word seed. Read it here.

The challenge to us all is what kind of seeds are we sowing, in words and action. The seeds we drop today will be the harvest we reap.

Entwined threads

No posts recently from me because I have been feeling very tired and not 100% well. A virus? Or related to a long term condition I have had for many years I’m not sure, but some blood tests soon will hopefully give some clues.

I find it hard not to feel miserable when I feel ill, and the wider news – local, national and international is not encouraging either.  Physical and mental are so closely connected for me, entwined even. This morning I was reading Deborah Alma’s “The Emergency Poet” ( a great poetry anthology for “down” moments) and happened upon this little extract from William Blake.

“Man was made for joy and woe;

And when this we rightly know,

Through the world we safely go.

Joy and woe are woven fine,

A clothing for the soul divine,

Under every grief and pine

Runs a joy with silken twine.”       From Auguries of Innocence

Weaving, cloth, thread and fabric are metaphors I can understand and relate to strongly, as the name I chose for my blog indicates. And then I found myself reading from Beverly Gordon “Textiles the Whole Story”, (a wonderful book about the meaning and significance of textiles in our lives). She describes so many rich metaphors about threads, but what stood out for me today was her description of how entwining and weaving provides beauty, strength and durability to the cords and cloths which hold us.

So perhaps I can gain courage today that the paradox of joy and woe entwined is ultimately a source of strength. And, just like the surprising toughness of natural silk, we can be reassured of joy, even when it’s hidden, running along the twisted threads of our lives.

Just as I was thinking this the postman delivered some Kaffe Fassett fabric remnants I’d bought from EBay. Not silk, but the colours are certainly joyous! Enjoy…

 

Generalising July

Listening to “meet the author” on the Today programme radio four this morning, I was amused at the comment. “you can’t just write about real life, it would be too boring”. It’s true of course, the novels we read are shaped and edited, time is speeded and slowed, the focus is narrowed and widened, but repetitive routines of life are missed out to focus on action and plot.

Today in my real life the rain has fallen nearly all day, and the tomatoes I picked in the rain were muddy and wet. Not much action there.

An online course on reading novels I have been dipping into was suggesting how sometimes these routines and rhythms of life can still be described even in the best plot time line. A moment when the essence of a season, or regular event, can be captured. The description is not of a particular summer, but all summers, not just one family breakfast time, but all…

Generalising and condensing recurring moments into one description can provide the underlying rhythm of story.

So rather than try and invent some action I looked back on my July posts and photos since I started writing this online journal, to find the general themes

July skies, grey, heavy rain,

widening to cloudless blue,

July roads, stone walled in Yorkshire dales,

high mountain views in British Columbia.

July books for holiday reading,

pen meets paper healing through writing,

July fruits, red, ripe for jamming,

stirring creativity, stitching textiles.

Coast