Expansion and Contraction

I've been doing both. Every breath, every step, every night and day, the cycles turn. Cycles of turning- my spinning wheel, swirling galaxies, atomic orbits, at every level the round and round preserves the illusion of persistence.

 

The last year for me is surely one of contraction, withdrawing into the dark cave of my own thoughts and experience. Here in the darkest moment of the solar and lunar cycle, I offer up the treasure I have found. No experience is without value, and the darker it is, the faster we may learn from it.

 

We can perceive as few as one single photon of light! And when is that photon the most meaningful? When we are most beset by darkness, of course.

 

So I shall not allude to specifics, such as particular foxes in particular henhouses, or orange elephants in the living room, or planets on fire, because specifics always change. The overall pattern is the cycles.

 

You are indestructible. You that you really are. The rest...good and bad...passes. Waiting is. Even this is not inaction or apathy necessarily. 

Sometimes merely standing. 

Firm. 

Is all we can do, now, just for now.

 

The strongest trees do this. They know that to reach way on up to the warm sun, they need to send strong roots deep down into the cool dark.

 

The cycles do tend to persist. The deepest magic is set, like a gemstone seed, curled up in a shell, waiting for the moment to wake up. The dark times are when we can see the tiny things, the single photons, the spring loaded DNA scrolls, the little loves everywhere.

 

 

There is a vacant lot across the street where they tore down an old school. Next year they plan to build a YMCA in that space. The weeds that have sprung up there are so lovely with frost crystals. I take their pictures. 

 

I find a Kincaid lupine, a threatened species of local  wildflower, the host plant of the Fenders blue butterfly, a local species thought for decades to have gone extinct, but recently rediscovered in areas with this flower.. There could be Fenders' eggs on it right now...cool!

 

I wonder if this plants' seeds sat for years under the old school building, only to sprout up now to help bring back the blue butterflies?

 

Silver and Spirit

"..The wind is blowing through the tree

Stars are tangled in the leaves

Clouds are gathering your dreams

They float away in silver streams..."

-Sunheart

 

(From the Omni Color Book files:)

There was a time when I was about four years old when silver and gold were my favorite colors. They were special to me, different from the others. Those crayons of silver, gold, even copper, were magical. Treasure colors. Kings and queens of the color box.

 

Silver is a riddle and a mystery. 

A paradox and a contradiction.

Silver is a color of inner reflection.

It is a color that's a non color. 

Silver is the color of darkness, raised to its lightest form, enhancing the light by rejecting so thereby reflecting it, thus increasing the light. 

 

Silver repels all light. Unlike gold or copper, silver is faithful to all of the colors. Having no identity of its' own, silver is happy to take on and mirror whatever colors and light that may be around.

The silver moon reflects the light of the sun. Like the ultimate negative stereotype of the self sacrificing woman, silver just wants to get along, even to the point of utter self negation. Silver, like black, is no thing, a mere concept bereft of existence. A symbol of emptiness.

(Spinning silver yarn:)

 

Silver is Switzerland, neutral to a fault, non interventionist to the point of slipperiness. You can hide in the blankness of silver. It is almost invisible! 

The only way to visually even convey the idea of silveryness, is to show some sort of variation in a gray surface using the lights around it to reflect some shape.

 

Gray is dim and disorganized light mixed with shadow. But silver is a form of black, only without an ego. Headlights shine from silver cups and form beams of light. Silver is the color of shadow, polished and purified, fully refined, exalted to its highest function, that of reflecting light, with mirror perfection, and so even redeeming itself by amplifying the light! 

 

Pure silver is the sword with two edges, a tool that can help or harm, depending on how it is used. Reflections are happy when the mirror shows the beautiful, but the ugly reflection may be a less welcome sight to behold. Silver throws you back on yourself.

You can hide in silver. Silver holds the shield of the power of invisible. Like eyes behind mirror sunglasses, like peering out of a two way mirror.

 Like spacefaring intrepidae. Or a tricky angel.

 

Like spirit hiding within the thick veil of appearance and form.

I wonder where my light will beam....

"Where your attention is, there you are" -Pearl Dorris 

On the Urge to Hunt and Gather

"I always say shopping is cheaper than a psychiatrist" -TF Baker

 

What is that thrill of shopping about? The deeply rooted habit of hunting and gathering, and the brain reward we get, when we find whatever we are looking for, is part of it. If we are going to a physical store, rather than ordering online, we may shop for the social reward of seeing and being seen, rubbing auras with others, and the little dab of respect you get when you belly up to the counter and bathe in a few moments of the clerks' polite attention to you. 

 

 Perhaps you may even be physically touched, ever so lightly, in the interaction, by the person who takes your money. If so you will feel better about the exchange later, even if you don't remember if you were touched. In today's public world, the fastest easiest way to get this attention and love, really, is to shop!

 

If we order online, we still get a buzz. The thrill peaks, it has been reported, after ordering but before the item arrives.

 

Then there is the sought after item itself, the ostensible object. Lately I have been noticing this is maybe not even the most important part. What if we already had everything we needed? 

 

Well then of course we could for example collect photos, or hunt for birds to add to the life list, or experiences of whatever kind we might seek, and so on.

 

But lately I have just been wanting to shop, and at the same time I've been wanting for nothing. At least not feeling the need for anything new, other than daily food. Just the bare desire to shop. With a side feeling of sufficientcy.

 

Feeling like you have enough is an interesting feeling. I understand this feeling is not a luxury everyone gets to have, nessesarily. Many people just don't have their needs being met. Others have much more worldly wealth than I, but ironically, it just doesn't feel like it is enough to them.

 

It is obviously about attitude once you have your basic needs being met. I have wandered around the world with gratitude and amazement for many years. Did this cause my feeling of having enough, or does feeling like I have sufficient means to meet my needs cause me to go around feeling amazed and grateful?

 

In any case, I still wander online and look for things that pleased me in the past, and fantasize about shopping. Even though I don't need more. I just remember the thrill of seeking and finding. 

 

...And then usually I just sit with it, my silly longing, and my gratitude for having enough already!

 

I wonder how this urge will express in a world where there really is enough for everyone, even in practice. My prediction is we will still want to do the trading game. We will seek novelty and experience in more elegant and human ways, like one to one sessions, handmade arts, and fresh made food. I think we will always collect something, if only memories. Generally we will seek interactions less involved with basic survival, and more about learning and helping and sharing in more individualized and personal ways.

 

(The photos are from a photo collection of the leaves I saw on the ground on my morning walk today.)

But Why Socks?

"Walking happens, but we're just rolling the world around with our feet"-Sunheart 

Let us consider the sock. Socks can easily be spit out of big factory machines far faster than anyone could ever hand knit them. And they can be made much finer by machine, with thin yarn, even thread, with subtle strengthening fibers like nylon, so they will last much longer, be stretchy and easier to wash, and be more comfortable. Finally they are way cheaper to make by factory.

So why in goddesses' heck do I want to make my own socks, I wonder.

It seems the lowest of low art. Here I am, making art to walk on, to deliberately destroy. To....use? Sure, right? What about the art of cooking, say, in which the product is consumed? Made to use up. Made to change, just like all things. Ah! The artist is making a statement about consumerism?

Maybe it's not even art anymore. 

Or maybe it is the deepest, realest, most relevant kind of art. 

I wonder if what is driving my effort is a desire to go all the way down and really ground my art in its roots. From fiber art to fiber optic. 

Now that the leaves of my art shimmer on electrons in my ipad art, do I now yearn to don my own wooly handmade socks and wiggle my rooty little toes in their physical ness? Is this how my art is coming around full circle?

"In the glare of your mind, be modest. And beholden to what is tactile, and thrilling."

-Mary Oliver

 

"The really wonderful task of humans is to bring cosmic love, all the way down to our toes. To ground it, not just intellectually, and not even to the heart level, but all the way down to our toes. To bring cosmic love to Earth, fully embodied."

-Elisabet Sahtouris

Socks

"A ball of yarn is the potential to make a dream you have come true"-Melanie Falk

 

Somehow I get curious about making socks. I don't know how make a sock, beyond making a tube and calling it a tube sock. I decide it give it a try.

The plan is to start from the very basics. 

I notice that I do not have a sheep. 

So I get a book about spinning wool, and a book about identifying different kinds of wool and which kinds are good for what. 

 

One thing I note is that some breeds of sheep, with names like "Polypay" are promoted for their good wool as extra side money benefits to the farmers who enslave the sheep primarily for the purpose of murdering them and eating them. This practice is ancient, but obsolete now because we don't need to eat meat to survive anymore. So I decide to avoid acquiring this kind of fleece. Instead I will look for breeds of connoisseur wool; ones good for spinning sock yarn, with the idea that no one would want to kill the provider of such great spinning wool.

 

I search the interwebs using words like organic and ethical. I study my fiber books. I visit my local sheep and fiber festival, looking at prize winning fleeces. I talk to neighbors with fiber animal pets.

 

After several months of research, I gaze upon an assortment of freshly shorn fleeces laid out all over the back deck. This sock adventure begins with dirty, greasy, raw fleeces. 

 

I trim the dirty ends off each lock, pick out the bits of field grass, and wash the locks in hot washing machine water (no agitation!) with liquid wool soap. 

 

These fleeces are just dripping with lanolin though. A second wash is needed. I wash the locks in smaller batches the second time with a little concentrated eco dish soap in a crock pot of nearly boiling water!

 

The summer wind and sun provide the drying, and soon I am spinning sample yarns. I pick a soft four ply Cormo/Merino yarn for the main body of the sock yarn, and a stronger four ply cable spun with a Romney/Corriedale fleece for the heel and toe. I spend days spinning very fine yarn. It takes five times longer to spin four ply as singles.

I dye the spun yarn with blue and green food coloring in the crock pot with some vinegar. By now my fine spun yarn looks pretty fat.

 I watch a utube on how to knit socks on your circle loom and follow along with it. I use a 31 peg loom, she uses a 24 peg, but it should not matter...

It does. I pull my creations off the loom with great anticipation and find socks big enough for a baby elephant! Soon I am un-knitting my precious yarn from the 95% finished socks!

The next day I start all over with recovered yarn balls and the 24 peg loom...

Finally...

Here is my very first pair of socks, made from scratch! Tah dah!

 

"I like making a piece of string into something I can wear"-unknown

I wonder how these socks will wear?

Juggling Games

“Start small.

Start now.

Start everything.

And don’t bother to finish any of it.” 

- Barbara Sher, Refuse to Choose!: Use All of Your Interests, Passions, and Hobbies to Create the Life and Career of Your Dreams

 

A year ago I wrote as I embarked upon a little juggling experiment: How many projects could I be working on concurrently before it began to be a problem? (Blog)

 

Now my little experiment is reporting some results. I have learned I can indeed start many projects. Sometimes I can look away from one and start another. I notice the one I look away from tugs on me a bit. This is an energetic minus, but the energetic plus is that while I'm gone from it, that tug actually is from me, working on it, in the back of my mind. I get new insights. The work deepens.

 

The buzz of excitement of starting a new project then, adds up to a positive on my energy ledger. So how long then, before I start so many projects that I simply spread it too thin? 

 

To find out, I put a loom project in every room, every corner, and carry a small one around with me too. 

 

The joy of creating is available everywhere. 

 

Having lots of balls in the air keeps any one of them from becoming too precious. This is good.  That overly precious attitude can suppress spontaneous urges to follow inspiration where it may lead. 

 

Preciousness can also cause me to hesitate to start.

  

Many projects tug at once, and still I start more! I fill the laundry room with dye projects. The cold water cotton dyes lead to being curious about heated wool dyes. This process leads me to dye roving and fleece, and to spinning the wool. Now I am making art yarn. Which leads to starting projects made out of art yarn....

 

  

 

And so on...

All these on top of the other things that need to be done such as daily chores, social and work obligations, that compete for time and energy, of course.

Eventually, I find a kind of saturation point. Not a point of not wanting to start even more new projects, oh no. I can always entertain a novel idea. But I am not the kind of person who is always starting but not finishing things.

 

I have two problems. First, I keep finishing things. I love the feeling of finishing things, so it is hard to not just stay right here with this one and just see what it will turn out like! 

 

The second problem is not finishing things! There will always be a point at which one simply makes no appreciable progress on anything because at this rate, working on each one a little at a time, this baby hat will be ready....about when the kid starts high school!

 

Feeding an active project is like taking care of a beloved kid or pet; you feed it with your attention. Except, unlike with living creatures, you can deprive it of attention for irregular periods of time, as long as you keep a thread going. 

 

Even so, like the dusty houseplant in the corner, if neglected too long, it may die. At least one of the projects I started may not ever find enough support from me to make it to completion. But maybe my diverse garden of projects is beneficial here too. The ones that don't make it get crowded out by the better ones, and I avoid wasting time on the duds.

 

I must admit that in the course of my experiment I don't do anything truly huge and awesome, just lots of little things, though some are still in progress. This could indicate being spread too thin. Perhaps I will now finish everything and see what happens. 

 

I wonder when (and if, you never know) I will start that 'tactile walkable plane of orbs' project I'm thinking of .....

..Oh! Just doing that now..

 

"One never notices what has been done; one can only see what remains to be done." 

-Marie Curie

A year ago I wrote