Close up

I chose to remain nearsighted when I signed up for cataract surgery. Having been that way since I was eight years old, I couldn’t imagine giving it up.

So the past week of close stitching has been a poignant meditation on the lives of Ruth Bader Ginsburg …

and Michelle Slater …

It’s not quite right to call such work joy-full, even as much as I marveled at my ability to see clearly again, so I’ll leave it at heart-felt. Likewise, I don’t think they are necessarily “done” nor do I know what final form they might take.

It was enough to want to create them and be able to.

“Make your own bible”

Always I am learning from Kindred Spirits. First reading about tonglen on Windthread, not understanding and so finding my way to learning more …

Then reading a quote by Gregory Orr on Bee Creative and finding my way from there to a podcast On Being. And those of you who know me, will understand when I say it is hard for me to comprehend the spoken word, and yet I listened not once, but twice.

I heard words that touched my heart and stitched them.

“Turn me into song …

sing me awake” …

The trace of them holding the back of my heart’s compass …

as it becomes more …

Thinking I might take the advice of Emerson conveyed by Gregory Orr, to make my own bible by seeking out words that echo my heart’s truth.

And while it is all too easy to find righteous words …

befitting these troubled times …

still I dare to hope that we the people will find our way to words and just ways within which to find peace.

All over the place

So much-ness … dyeing with windfall lichen gathered with our Austin grandkids …

playing with miniature bookmaking (and no, this is NOT the way to do it, but it photographed beautifully) …

this is more like it …

Inspired by Annick, I played with letters, names …

wondering how they might find their way onto cloth.

Meanwhile, the yard is slowly becoming, so different from the Hill Country, but yet …

echoes of that time continue.

And of course, there is stitching …

and learning, how linen and flannel may not nestle as well as one might hope …

but well enough …

And last is best, as stitching down this tiny bit of cloth …

the naming of the larger bed cloth came to me …

my heart’s compass.