Spirit Cloth

Wednesday Words

Pear. Pears. A Pair of Pears. At woods edge.

A Pair is a positive thing. In my mind. In any form. Because it represents the birth of a pattern. And pattern is a form of natural order. And natural order takes a while to play out.

I keep making these. Pairs. Pair-ings.

Pare. Trim. Pared down, putting patchwork into the simplest perspective. 2 pieces. Connection. The beginning of bigger. But this simple balanced component, that moved away from the ones, then threes I usually work with, takes me away from 9.

Why am I saying this? Because I notice it. Perhaps as an evolution on form and the sense of a change in center. A new balance.

And then. Just one pair a day. How hard is that? One small connection. Maybe not just black and white, just dark and light. Like night and day. Maybe just a record. A way to document, use what is here.  12 days:Surely it might be a blanket by winter. Or next winter. A nest of days.

So piecing. It just goes like that. Small Cloth+ Just Going. I don't work Fast. Just Steady. Even if it can be 10 minutes a day. I don't do it to prove anything. It is simply reassuring. Piece-making. I know it will grow. I will name it for how many days I keep at it. And enjoy using it. 

The other one, on the basement wall. I am going to dye it before continuing. Reduce its harshness.

 

For the Piecemakers...

 

A Magic Feather Cloth Story.

The cloth lives and gives through the thoughts of all who cared to imagine healing. And now through those who know it.

Way back in 2011(oh my how time flies) I said to myself...

one little thing can bring focus to chaos. bring the present into the past or the other way around. making things whole. connecting the dots has more than one dimension.

This is Sophia, working with Our Cloth(s).

"both Hazel and Jude helped me to link my thinking with my dance, so I understand at the same time I don't. My body cannot dance if I don't think as well.. everyone in the dance world says get out of your head. but I tell them you need both. So I now get to pull through Jude’s ideas …and there are so many in this Magic Feather Cloth that even if I need to come back when I am forty, there will still be room for me entering the thought process and learning….”

Her words brought me back. Once upon a time, when I was a bit lost,so lost actually. My Dad pulled me aside and said. "jude...use your head..."

I could say so much here, about thought, thought catching, creativity, and sharing what moves through you with conscious intention vs mindlessness. Spirit. But I've said so much already.

Thank you then to Sophia for her gift here. For saying. Dancing. Letting us in.

I captured these photos from some videos that Wendy sent. I could not convert them  to full screen format, but here is Sophia in Motion...

 

video link if you see no player

 

Also shown here, a small cloth from Hazel.

And the dress, by India.

Link to the Magic Feather Project here, if you are not familiar.

 

Dance, when you're broken open. Dance, if you've torn the bandage off. Dance in the middle of the fighting. Dance in your blood. Dance when you're perfectly free. Rumi.

Three Wishings

For Wendy.

Most of you piece-makers know her from the Magic Feather Project.

She had a little health scare and a little surgery, and she is home resting.  I wish her well here, for all of us.  With a little wishing star that has a path through... woven right in.

We hold you.

With softness.

And offer a full spectrum of healing thoughts.

Rolling and Unrolling

 

I like to curl up like this.

And then s t r  e  t  c  h  out.

It's good exercise.

These ribbons of feathers will  act as ties for the large cloth we call Home.  And then who knows? I've enjoyed this final process.  Making strings of feathers.  Dreaming into them. Imagining them as representing the PieceMakers, hand to hand, reaching from here to there. Standing for hope and kindness. Ties that bind.  Strong and useful. And then light as dreams. Blowing in the wind.

I have spoken to Wendy. I will send the cloth on Solstice. She will wait for it. Welcome it. It was a warm talk, this one. Filled with knowing each other better. She brings out the love in me which sometimes gets clouded by all the crap that makes up a life.

But I guess that is just what she is good at.

Her gift.

I've been working hard to pull the story of this cloth together in some cohesive way. No small task, this was one big journey. Tangled up in a life.

 

You can read more about Wendy's work

in the sidebar under HEAL.

 

Green October

It is unusually green here for October.  The season waits for my own turning. It feels like that.

So I have begun the other wing of color.  Today it is green.

The hoop has become like a temporary basket, to hold my intent and let me stay a while in each circle of holding, gathering.  As I work, it as if these gifts from the Piece-makers have flown in again and again, landing here in my lap.  It has to be everyday now, this cloth,  in my hands.  Every day.  To build  the spirit of a cloth it has to be right there. With you.  Today I send love and reassurance to Wendy's kids  who wait patiently for  the Magic Feather Cloth I call Home. 

 

This is a Magic Feather Project post.

Continued from here.

Home again

I am back home again for a few days.  Life is a blur at the moment.  Trying to catch up on email, paperwork, chores etc.  I have settled into stitch  now  on the Magic Feather Cloth I call HOME.   It is time to  to secure everything   and stitch the detail  and let the story play out as it may.   And try to  imagine in it finished enough to give away. There is way more stitch  necessary than I imagined on this one, so time to ramp that up.  As always another layer of thought emerges during this process.   I so enjoy it.  Look at that Eye shaped stone.  This cloth is a comfort cloth.  I can rest in it.  It is even big enough to be wrapped in and still stitch on it. 

Thanks to all the Piece-Makers, I have enough leftover feathers and stones  to make another cloth and I think I will begin dreaming about that too.  

The shop will reopen soon,  and  I am trying to regain calm as I adjust to my new schedule with Mom.  Just Going with a new pace.   

(Read about the magic feather project  by clicking the menu bar tab up top,  the winged thing in the sidebar or the category HOME and Magic Feather Project)

In case you missed the note in the left sidebar, comment moderation is on because of spam.  I will publish valid comment a few times a day.

How it might seem

The magic feather cloth  gets stitched on in the evenings, now that the days are filled with gardening.   And I have noticed how much this cloth seems like a nest  when it is at rest  on a chair or a couch.   How much fun it is to see all the feathers in my lap as I stitch.  Each way it falls  seems like a new  gathering.

 

I have begun to pin the remaining feathers up on the wall today.   And there are many.   Just as I begin, I think to myself how there seems to be an endless supply of them.   The basket never seems empty.  As if they have continued to fly in while I sleep.  Maybe there are Magic Feather Elves.  Thank you all you Piece Makers.

This post refers to the Magic Feather Project, you can read more up top or in the sidebar.

Stones after a storm

So yes, they are still coming.

Thank you to these Piecemakers... Ann,  Coby,  and Cindy....  Sorry it took so long to post these.  I have really lost ground since the storm.   I didn't realize how much it has all frazzled my brain.    I am going to put a bit of a gap in the collecting process here.   I will begin gathering feathers and stones again with the New Year.  I need to catch my breath.  Like a thought, it often goes unnoticed.

You can read about the Magic Feather project here.

The Puzzle

So...
what is it?

With all that is going on in the world.  And even what is going on here in the US.   Or here in my community or yours.   I think about this Magic Feather Project as a different kind of story cloth.   One that is not so much about just me.   But my role as  a mender.  And then all of us as piece-makers.  Here I sit with all the pieces.    And a puzzle it is.   To put them all together.  Without forgetting about the importance of any of them.   And I am thinking that they are pieces of the same cloth, they belong together. And that you have trusted me to do that. To put them BACK Together.  With no other agenda other than to tell the children the truth.

I am putting together a Contributor (the Piece-Makers)  list. For the website. I am asking any of you who have contributed a feather or a stone, or cloth  to confirm to me, by email, how and if you would like to be listed on the public site.  First name, full name?  Location.  A link if you have one and want to be listed. No rush. I will launch the site in January. If the world doesn't end before that.