For today’s Wordless Wednesdays, some cryptic script from Main Street.

For Wordless Wednesday, I offer some early morning drummers high up in a Eucalyptus tree in the foothills of Santa Barbara. They drummed as I sat in meditation at Saint Mary’s Retreat House.

Photo of the back cover of the Photo Text, the basic text for T'ai Chi Chih

In November of 2010 I attended a T’ai Chi Chih Intensive in Albuquerque, New Mexico. We were blessed that day by a visit from Justin Stone, the originator of T’ai Chi Chih. He was celebrating his 94th birthday, and a party was scheduled, but as in previous years, it was not known if he would be able to attend since his health had deteriorated. Each year, I was told, everyone said that well, this may be the last year Justin can come to his party. And then he would appear, teach a bit, enjoy the music and the crowd and another year would unfold. That year, 2010, he appeared. This year, 2012,  he won’t be at his birthday party. Justin died last week, on March 28.

I am grateful that not only did he attend his birthday party the year I was in Albuquerque doing the Intensive, but he also came to our class for a brief visit. I had never met him, only heard the stories, the anecdotes, and read his books and articles in the Vital Force. I knew that many revered him, had participated in his weekly meditation sessions, enjoyed personal conversations with him, and had also been subjected to his unusual, sometimes seemingly unkind, teaching methods. There were others I had talked with who disagreed with him personally, but still respected and practiced T’ai Chi Chih. Then there were a whole lot more of us, like me, who knew Justin only at a distance. So, I was especially pleased that he came to our class.

When I saw him arrive, I saw a frail old man being helped from the car into his walker. He entered the room slowly, deliberately. Pam Towne, our instructor, sat next to him and spoke to him with respect and fondness. One by one, students approached, knelt in front of him to be eye level, thanked him for T’ai Chi Chih and told him stories of what it had meant to them. Justin listened, but seemed a bit impatient. Finally, he turned to Pam, and asked, “When are they going to move?” On cue, we lined up and did T’ai Chi Chih. He watched us intently; where had that frail old man with the walker gone? His eyes scanned the group; I hoped he would ignore me. One time, I felt his eyes and didn’t dare look his way. Focus in the soles of your feet, Linda.  Follow the t’an tienne.

Luckily, or maybe not, we were not subjected to any of the scathing remarks I had heard about.  Pam told us that Justin had said that we were a “mature” group. Maybe that was a reference to our age, but I think not. I’m choosing to see Justin’s comment as a compliment, that he could see that we had been practicing for a while. Maybe, even, that we possessed “teh,” the inner sincerity that Justin wrote about so often.

But all of this was not, for me, the highlight of Justin’s visit to our Intensive. That happened after he had said goodbye  and we had gone back to our class. I noticed out the window that Justin was in a rather animated conversation with the woman who had brought him. I could see the force of Justin’s intention and the uselessness of her resistance. Simultaneous with that thought, Justin came into the classroom, an impish grin replacing his walker. The woman followed, apologizing and trying to explain, but Justin, with way more energy than he had exhibited previously, trotted across the room, in front of Pam, through the class, and waving to us headed towards an adjoining room. Within seconds we knew the reason why as we heard the click of the bathroom door closing. A few minutes later, the door announced his departure and he ambled through our class, again smiling, waving, and it seemed to me, thoroughly enjoying himself and the interruption he caused.

Justin in that moment was the mischievous monk of Buddhist story, Coyote in broad daylight, Hermes walking backwards to trick Apollo. In all of the gravity of the awe and reverence surrounding Justin, here he was the Hermetic character who had brought T’ai Chi Chih to a Western culture too impatient for the 108 forms and 6-years-of-learning-before-results of other T’ai Chi forms. Like Hermes answering Apollo’s questions , he professed his innocence while knowing the gift and power of what he was doing. He offered the Hermetic lyre of T’ai Chi Chih, knowing it was a gift of the gods (although I doubt he would agree with my use of “gods”) and when asked “Why?” he answered by holding up his hand and saying, “Why do I have 5 fingers?”

I miss Justin, even though I didn’t know him personally. I never got to attend those weekly meditation sessions or ask him a question so that he could hold up his hand. I know him through story, but I also know him through my T’ai Chi Chih practice. When I practice, I can feel the presence of a living, evolving  Chi willing to come into a new form to serve a different population. When I don’t practice, I feel Justin saying “You can’t satisfy your hunger by reading the menu.” Or, even better, I imagine him saying to practice when I feel like it, and practice when I don’t.

So, thank you, Justin. Thank you for T’ai Chi Chih. Thank you for a life well lived. And thank you, Coyote, for trotting through the Intensive that day in Albuquerque, 2010.

for more information on T’ai Chi Chih, visit my T’ai Chi Chih page here.

Socks. We’re talking socks. But not just any old socks. Not the white socks worn in running shoes. Not the standard black or navy worn with suits. Not even those cute theme-oriented socks bought for holidays like Christmas and Hallowe’en. No,we’re talking SOCKS. Real socks. Handmade socks. Knit socks, specifically. But, again, not just any old handknit sock, if there even is such a thing. No, these are Sock Madness socks. These socks are the stuff of dreams. And nightmares.

This is the sixth year of Sock Madness. I wasn’t around for the first two, not having yet discovered that one can knit socks competitively. Yes, competitively. Sock Madness is a sock knitting competition. It’s also a group over on Ravelry, a knitter’s and crocheter’s version of down the rabbit hole. For approximately 9 months of the year, we talk socks, their construction, yarns, and needles with a good dose of humor, family, movies and books. Then, in March, just as March Madness possesses persons intent on throwing balls in hoops, we begin our own version of the madness. Using pointy sticks, we frantically loop yarn into right-angled tubes in every conceivable way and try to be the first one done. All of this is done with intensity, passion, fear, loathing, dread, excitement, insane laughter and an amazing degree of helpfulness. Yes, it may be a competition and we may be frustrated beyond belief by things like Afterthought Heels, Judy’s Magic Cast On, Jenny’s Surprisingly Stretchy Bind Off and cabling decided by a throw of the dice, but the ongoing thread (couldn’t help the obvious pun) is the friendship.

Like the other March Madness, players advance through Sock Madness in rounds, with only a certain number of players/knitters moving into the next one. Our version of winning is to finish the socks. The first round is a qualifying round. Everyone who finishes the socks within a specified two weeks qualifies. Then, our wonderful moderators, Julie and Tricia, divide us up into teams. This year there are 5 teams, each with about 40 knitters. I am on Team Fearless, and I aspire to be just that.  Each round a certain number of knitters from each team advances to the next round.  So, this round, round 2, 32 people from each team will advance into round 3. I’m pleased to be one of those advancing Team Fearless knitters, finishing somewhere around #10 in a group of about 40. So, here I present my socks from the first two rounds.

From Round 1, there are Dicey socks. Toe-up, Wollmeise yarn, 2.5 ndl, cables determined by a throw of the dice:

And for Round 2, Frick-n-Frack, Frick (in front of pic) is toe-up and Frack (in back of pic)  is cuff down, cables and k1p1 is mirrored,  Wollmeise, 2.5 needle:

Part of the madness of Sock Madness is that you must follow the pattern exactly, except if you want to make them bigger and, consequently, knit more and increase the time it takes to knit your socks. I choose to not do this, since I’m not a really fast knitter and adding time to my sock knitting seems counterproductive to my advancing to the next round. However, it can be really frustrating to not tweak the pattern or knit it to fit, knowing that only a bit of adjustment here and there, a different sort of heel, a gusset added in . . . But I don’t do it. I knit as directed. That is why Doug is modeling, and now owns, my Dicey socks which were way too long for my stubby toes and Frick-n- Frack are on vintage sock blockers with a ruler to show that they are adult size, because they won’t go on over my high instep.

Now to relax a bit, wait for and cheer on the other finishers, and prepare for Round 3. Think I’ll knit some socks.

Of course it’s not a leap of faith if I know exactly what’s going to happen. This seems so obvious that it’s rather embarrassing to admit how struck I was by it. And, yet, sometimes even with a pretty decent idea of what might happen, it still seems to call for a leap of faith.  Because the question really is how to know when to leap? Not the knowing that would make me secure in the conclusion, but the knowing that lets me know it’s time. This is no idle discussion for me; I’ve recently sensed a few things, had some urgings that seem pretty clear with some general idea of how it might go. Yet, they are still unsettling.

The uneasiness, for me, is not so much the not-knowing, as the knowing that if I leap, and once I leap, life will never be the same again and I’m pretty happy with life right now. Why would I want to change it? If life is good up here in the meadow, why leap into the abyss? It’s a valid question, I think, and not one for which I have a ready answer. Except for this: if I don’t leap, this life that I’m happy with right now stands a good chance of evaporating because I got to where I am now by leaps of faith in the past.

This is not my favorite part of life, this leaping. There is a part of me who would like to do what I already know how to do and enjoy the fruits of my labor, so to speak. I know people who do this. They stay put, enjoy what they already have. In fact, I’ve been accused by some of these people as never being satisfied. That’s not true, though. A leap of faith is not about satisfaction, it’s about life.

Truth is, I can’t imagine not taking those leaps, as much as I resist the urging and nudging. It’s almost as if the leap begins the moment I start to resist. Once I begin to actively resist, I start to watch for signs that show I am correct in my resistance. Frequently, those signs show that I am not correct, and eventually I surrender.

So, what are some of the signs in my current state of resistance? How about the fact that of all of the videos of Hillman speaking, the one about leaps of faith was shown at the memorial? How about the next day when I ventured into a new bookstore, The Curious Cup, in Carpinteria and there was a book by Pema Chödrön titled Taking the Leap and a workshop to accompany it? How about the owner of the bookstore saying to me, in referring to the workshop, “Are you here?” Am I? Am I paying attention or floating off somewhere ignoring these signs? How about my teacher, the wind, coming in off the ocean that afternoon with such sudden ferocity that I  struggled to get back to my car? So much so that I finally surrendered, laughed, and danced in the blowing sand because it was useless to resist?

At Hillman’s memorial, a California Live Oak tree was planted in his honor, the first tree of what will become a Grove of the Elders. I fussed at myself because I didn’t get a photograph for this blog. Then, in the wind at the beach, I saw The Tree. Again. A tree I have photographed over the last 10 years of my going to Carpinteria. A tree growing in sand, in the face of that fierce wind and salt spray, thriving where it seems a tree of its nature should not live, let alone thrive. Now, that’s a leap of faith.

A few months ago, my minister, Rev. Joshua Reeves at the Seal Beach Center for Spiritual Living, spoke to us over several Sundays about our spiritual story. For some reason, I, the storyteller, had problems with this. It wasn’t until the final Sunday of the series that I understood that my spiritual story is about Connections.

Way back when I was in high school, in the legendary ’60s, my experiences with drugs left me wondering, “Where do those pictures come from?”I sensed, even then, that they were more than a chemical reaction. It seemed that someone, or something, was sending those images to me, that they were “mine” in an organic sort of way. Luckily, I quickly discovered other means, such as visualisation, for accessing that realm, but still I wondered about the source of those images.  Several years later, now out of high school and in college, I was sitting in an art lecture class. I was drawing, my usual method of getting through these classes when the words “cat” and “universal symbol” traveled into my consciousness. I jerked to attention. Checking with a friend who had actually been paying attention to the lecture, I learned that Carl Jung had made this statement in reference to dreams and shamanic states.

The reference to a cat grabbed me because it connected me to others via a recurring image from those early years. This was the image of a little gray kitten with a huge pink bow. Yes, laugh. It is kind of funny. But, I always knew that if that little cat was present, I was safe. Through the years and through all of the various means I have used to access that realm, from visualisation and meditation to making art, cats have been my companions, accompanied by that sense that there is something much bigger than me but to which I am, nevertheless, connected.

Connect. Do T’ai Chi Chih.

 Connect. Draw the rock, up close, really close.

Connect. Each bead sewn in place, one by one.

 Connect. Wind the bobbin, sit at the loom, throw the shuttle.

Connect. A needle into the loop, catch a loop, pull it through.

 Connect. Breathe.

Connect. Live.

Connect. Life.

Like any good story, the connection moves. Like any good story, the connection shifts and changes. Like any good story, the connections flows, and grounds, sending roots deep into the ground, even as it draws nourishment from that same ground. Connect.

Now, over the years I have worked out a system for dealing with this uneven tension in my warps. It looks like this:

A Weighted Warp

My method is to hang heavy-ish objects on the loose warps. In this case, I’m using a pair of scissors and some weights that are used to balance tires. (It can be handy to have a husband who works on cars.)

However, loom manufacturers provide a much more elegant way to deal with this problem by providing some looms with two warp beams. Warp beams are the beams at the back of the loom that hold the warp. Usually, a loom has one. But, it is possible to have two and I have a loom with two. On my latest warp, I decided to use both because I know in advance that if I don’t, I’m going to have a lot of heavy objects hanging off the back of this loom. So, with a little trial and error, I have this:

A Beam for Each Warp

See how the dark threads are winding onto the bottom beam, the one with the nasty looking spikes? And the other warp, the light-colored one, is winding onto the  smooth beam above it? That’s it. Two warps that are going to weave one cloth, but have different take-up, each with their own beam. Here’s another view:

Nicely Separated

See how there’s even a special wooden piece that separates the warps at back beam? This is quite elegant, much nicer than my heavy object method. And, best of all? It’s true – an old weaver really can learn new tricks. Well, sort of. Some things don’t change. I’ll show you as soon as I rethread the loom. Grrrrrr.

I often suspect that cats don’t really sleep all day. Rather, they dream all day, traversing realities easily, a paw in each world, so to speak. I’m always interested in where they choose to sleep-dream. My cats seldom sleep in the beds or on the pillows that I carefully arrange for them. It seems to me that they often choose uncomfortable places. Today, Sarah is curled tightly on top of a small, slightly elevated,  fabric square.

Sleeping Dreaming

This fabric square is the beginning of a beaded story.

Sleeping Dreaming Beaded

It is a story that wants to be told about when my mother and brother came to California in the late 40s, after WWII. They left everything they knew in Illinois, and traveled by train to meet my father in Los Angeles at Union Station. When I drew the image, bits of my own dream floated in: an odd green suitcase and Mary Magdalene in a tailored red jacket.

Sleeping Dreaming Travel

I decided to try something different with this story. I would embroider with the beads rather than weaving them. The weaving would be in the various story parts coming together. Now  Sarah has added her dreaming to my dreaming of my mother and brother’s dream of California.

Sleeping Dreaming Marks

Sarah’s dreaming has removed all of the marks of my carefully drawn image. In its place, Sarah left marks of herself – white and gray fur and one white whisker.

Blessed be, Little One.

]]> http://blueheronweaving.com/2011/09/15/sleeping-dreaming/feed/ 5 weaverwomyn Sleeping Cat Sleeping-Cat2 Sleeping-Cat3 Sleeping-Cat4 http://blueheronweaving.com/2011/09/14/rothko-sunset/ http://blueheronweaving.com/2011/09/14/rothko-sunset/#comments Thu, 15 Sep 2011 01:00:21 +0000 weaverwomyn http://blueheronweaving.com/?p=134 ]]>

Rothko Sunset

For this week’s Wordless Wednesday, I offer a sunset that reminds me of a day, long ago, at the Rothko Chapel.