I am a maker of pretty things mostly. They bring me joy and brighten the day. After having searched in myself for some pretty idea, I usually feel better in any situation.

Sometimes, though, there is only ugliness and pain. Or it seems this way, which, in any case, means I am stuck and not creating. Yet at the same time I know that creating sets my pained self free.

One time last year I had hit a very hard crisis with my sweetie. I was ready to let our relationship go, because of all the pain and stuck. Needless to say the ugliness blocked my creative outlet. Fortunately I had a chance to be on a call with the lovely Melissa Dinwiddie that week and she encouraged me to just play with things I don’t usually play and see what happens.

You can see what happened at the top of this post. It is crocheted, wired, paper macheed, feathered and painted. All from things I had in the house. It is kind of ugly but it is free. And it took the weight from me and let me breathe more easily again. I figured out that I do fine on my own, that I do not depend on a romantic relationship and that I enjoy being on my own.

In the end my sweetie and I got back together, we are tighter than ever and have a relationship that I am happy to be a part of. Because I learned to be loved enough in myself, to not depend on approval from him, I get to chose to be with him each day anew. All because I played with something new and gave the ugly legitimacy.

Cross published on http://thenakedalpaca.com

“Hi”, I said to the sparkling creature in the tinkling river.
“Hi”, she said back.
“And you are Abundance?”
She responded with a tinkling laugh, stretching her full body in the eddies and recesses of the stream.
“Tell me about yourself”
“You already know everything you need to know about me.”
“Really?”
Again she laughed at me.
“Abundance is clarity, enough, joy, play, flow, safety, giving and receiving, strength, possibility, choice, delight.”
“Yes.”
“And it is everywhere, even though you are the Naiad of this stream that is also called Abundance.”
“Yes.”
“You are different from excess. Excess is suffocating and chaotic and depressing.”
“Abundance is in the blossoms that bloom this spring, in the rain, in the people that live in this city. All the things they own are excessive though. But sharing things is abundant.”
“Yes.”
“To live with Abundance, I need to let Abundance flow through me. I become a doorway, instead of a container.”
“Yes.”
“I’m not sure that I understand.”
Abundance sighs. “You are trying to understand with your head. The same head that has all these ideas about things that are necessary and crucial and about scarcity and guilt.”
“It’s not going to work, is it?”
“No.”
“I need to experience the ways that Abundance is already present in my life, in the world, in me. And look for the ways that I am a doorway.”
“Yes.”
“Thank you Abundance.”
“You are welcome. You are always welcome.”

When the frost has gone, the ground looks barren. Covered with the dead residue of plants once alive and green. But there in the recesses, sheltered by the old dead leaves, new sprouts appear. Tiny, almost unnoticeable. And from these sprouts something grand and green will grow. Because even if we sometimes have to shed all exterior signs of life, to shelter ourselves in the deep dark ground, we are not dead. New growth will spring from having drawn back into the deepness.

Remember this.

I was talking to Maria: “I go to a class every day unless something important gets in the way.” I was impressed by her dedication. I wanted that kind of dedication and mourned my lack of it, my failing to integrate a practice into my way too full schedule. I panicked at the thought of not doing enough, of not doing it right. For a moment I listened to the monster that tells me that I will never be a yogi. I also listened to the monster that tells me I need to be a yogi to arrive at happiness.

I went into shavasana, my focus forced into arriving with me in the present moment. I felt my body. The muscles that are always tense. The pointed pain in my hip. The strength ready to be deployed into warrior poses.

I remembered that the thing that I like best about Yoga, that it is just me, my Yoga, my Asana. As the teacher reminded the newcomers to listen to their bodies, I remembered that Yoga is many-pathed. Like a small sparkly quartz I remembered that Asana is only part of my way. I remembered that soul work and turning inward are steps on the eight-fold path of Yoga.

And then I forgot, I was present in the present moment. The teacher guided us into Ardha Matsyendrasana. When I turned, again remembering past and future, I was greeted by a woman with skin the color of midnight. Her feet grew roots into the belly of the world and her hair branched outward carrying the sky. In her arms she held a softly glowing body. Safe. Fully contained. Fearless. As I looked at the soft glowing face I saw myself. I looked up into the eyes of the midnight woman rooted in the world and carrying the sky and I saw myself.

I am both the one held and the one holding. I contain myself. I am enough.

As long as I remember I have been crafting and drawing. I have tried everything that happened to cross my way with never a fear of failure or thinking I might not understand how it works. Music was different, in fact there were many years that I insisted I was completely unmusical.

While my crafting endeavors often didn’t satisfy my aesthetic sensibilities, there were always family members, or friends, who loved what I had produced. I could learn what I wanted to learn and always had something to give away, or admire. Repetition was never boring, because it never repeated in exactly the same way. Intuitively I grasp how the visual elements go together and how these could be modified. Every drawing class I ever took gave me something unique, something my own. It might not have been pretty, but it was unique to my way of seeing the world.

The few times I tried learning to make music, I gave up before something acceptable was produced. I dreaded the “endless” rounds of scales and finger exercises, the repetition to get something just right (or anywhere near right). I would daydream away my practice time thinking about a time when maybe I could arrange elements, or notes in new ways to make something unique. But I lack that intrinsic understanding of tones and how they work together, so all my musical endeavors will always be imitation. I don’t do imitation well when I could be creating something new.

And one day I came to knitting. I struggled at first, because I did not understand it and had to follow the directions exactly. But once the muscle memory developed and I knew how to make different stitches I could deviate and, more importantly, understand what I was doing. Each pattern I bought and knit contained clues and elements to build my knitting library. I learned about three-dimensional construction from string. I learned about decorative elements, about form following function. I started experimenting with combinations of these elements and now I am at a point where, when inspiration strikes, I can just sit down and start knitting. There is still a lot I can/want/need to learn, beading for example and color work, but my knitting “vocabulary” is big enough to produce things that resemble my ideas and that cause joy in other people. And so I came to this thing that might be a business in disguise.

I am learning again. Like how small a part of the design process the actual idea and initial knit is. How different ideas about the easiness of a pattern can be, or what is considered cluttered. How different responses can be to one and the same object. I am learning about how perceived and actual value of a thing differ. Some of the learning hurts, some I accept with grace and some fills little gaps in my internal landscape so that suddenly seemingly unrelated things make sense. I strive to be in this process with love and play. I strive to not rush, but grow this thing slowly and gently instead. And as I learn things I can understand them and modify them and grow my own business culture of love and joy.

Cross-posted to The Naked Alpaca.

My new (maybe) designing/knitting thing (business, but we don’t call it that) has it’s own blog now. If you like yarn play and knitted monsters I would like it if you checked it out.

Ok, now go back to whatever you were doing and I’ll sulk in my embarrassment at putting the spotlight on something I’m doing ;)

I know what I need, most of the time. That is ruled by my experience-honed intuition. There are even some highly sensible rules in the Book of Paula about what I need. Wether I allow myself to do what I need depends on an entirely arbitrary set of rules. For example there is a rule about not being allowed to go to bed before nine. There is also a rule about always giving preference to productive activities.

Some rules about what to do look very similar to rules about what I need. There is the rule that I need to have a regular start to the day, with a set time for the alarm clock. But that is not the same as the doing-rule about having to get up at that time every day even when I know that sleeping another two or three hours is what I need. Need-rules are soft and nourishing. Doing-rules are hard and punishing.

Of course there is some need for discernment. Sometimes the childish/soft-animal part of me will mask my needs and I see a form that is not really there. Like, I might need to breathe fresh air, but that need is masked by my desire not to go out in the cold. Yes, staying warm is a need, but there are several solutions to that, not just staying inside. So I must learn to separate the need/the essence from the form that my mind suggests.