Raven and Sparrow

Imagine peace

Ever since Liz (imgoingtotexas.blogspot.com) sent me her two "imagine peace" pins I have been trying to do it. Imagine peace.

First I think of no more war and try to envision what that would be like....everyone lucky enough to have a life like mine, untouched by the devastation and horror of war. Wait a minute. Wasn't that my grade school class crouched under our desks practicing what to do when nuclear fire might rain down upon us? Okay, my life except for that. And what about that Adam Smith quote from his "Theory of Moral Sentiments" my brother included in his history of the local WWI fortresses scattered about our islands, Love and Forts?

"Instruments of war are agreeable, although their immediate effect may seem to be pain and suffering. But then it is the pain and suffering of our enemies, with whom we have no sympathies. With regard to us, they are immediately connected with the agreeable ideas of courage, victory, and honour."

Tim goes on to say:

"Weapons are an unfortunate necessity, and I am spellbound when I consider the terrible nature of war. Yet the male attraction to military arms and honor is a fact of our cultural development, part of our natures, and thus beyond any one national perspective."

So there is a part of us that thrills to a weapon and the danger and mayhem it represents.  Courage, strength and valor, those classic male qualities, are most clearly tested in combat. War is also an ultra experience. Veterans of wars have reported never again achieving the same pitch of awareness and the sense of being alive, or the same satisfaction and sense of belonging that fighting with their comrades gave them in spite of the horrors that they also witnessed as soldiers.

Where is the peace in this? Maybe we don't want to be peaceful. Maybe it is too boring. Nothing perks our interest like a little conflict. Yet the news brings us unending photos of dead Syrian children and those who might as well be dead while their grieving families wail. Other pictures of war, like mushroom clouds, settle like a toxic chill around my heart. Our shiny weapons, so evocative of power, can devastate millions of lives in an instant and the planet too. As Adam Smith says: if its our enemies its okay, but I don't think humans can afford their tribal affinities anymore. Its too awful and we are all bound so much more closely than we realized. 

What can we do if our urge to war is baked in? Creating as many outlets for the expression of courage, strength and valor as possible is the only thing I can think of. Sports, and maybe reality TV (yeah, ick, but...) Taking up a cause, as long as it isn't white supremacy. Standing up for someone who can't stand up for themselves. Litigation (not recommended). Devising and executing a large project that has meaning for everyone, like war, but constructive, beautiful and awe-inspiring. Bravely exposing the true self hiding behind the mask.

Here's another favorite poem of mine that is clamoring to be included now:

 

Ekla Chalore (Walk Alone) by Gurudev Rabindraneth Tagore:

 

If they answer not to thy call,

             Walk Alone.

If they tremble and cower mutely,

            Facing the Wall,

            O thou of evil luck,

Open thy mind and speak out alone.

 

If, when crossing the wilderness,

            They turn away and desert you,

            O thou of evil luck,

Trample the thorns under thy tread,

            And along the blood-strewn path,

            Walk Alone.

 

If when the night is troubled

            With storm,

They do not hold up the light,

            O thou of evil luck,

With the thunder flame of pain,

            Ignite thine own heart, 

            And let it burn alone.

Om.

 

Talk about courage and valor.

If world peace is hard to imagine, maybe inner peace is easier. Ah, but the inside is as conflict-ridden as the outside. I have been meditating for a while now, and find that I can calm my inner waters for a while, reaching for the still center that underlies all like Jude Hill"s "thing that runs through it" (spiritcloth.typepad.com), but holding that equibrium is dicey. As I consider inner peace I wonder how to maintain it in the face of life's sometimes brutal upheavals. One path that helps me is from Philip Shepherd's book, New Self, New World. He expounds on the concept of wild peace:

"...the present is always doing; the present is always just being. It is a perfect generative unity of male and female, the same generative unity that moves the Tao, the Logos, the artist, the mother and the hero. If we were to describe that dynamic unity, we might say that the precise nature of the present is that of a wild peace. Despite all our efforts to subdue the world's energy or harness it or impose order on its subtle chaos, the world remains wild because the present flows on unstoppably and unpredictably on every scale: from subatomic to galactic, it is a dance of burgeoning transformations of the utmost sensitivity, utterly beyond the reach of any structures of control- an improvised celebration that no one can tame, and to which we all belong. But similarly, and despite all our consternations about the unknown, the wild present is also completely at peace: the One Mind rests in perfect wholeness even as it moves through every trembling leaf, burning star and floating snowflake......The paradox of wild peace, then is the fundamental nature of the world in which we live. You cannot liberate yourself into the dynamic of wholeness-the present cannot live in you and through you- until you liberate yourself to its spirit of wild peace, such that you know that wild peace as a unity and ultimately discover that unity in yourself. To feel peace within is one thing; to feel wildness within is another; to feel your own spirit of wild peace within is to open your heart to the unity of self and world. And then you can celebrate the present in all you do."

Peace as a wild river sounds more like my life than peace as a tranquil pond, although I can go to the pond sometimes. Peace is not boring when we expand our definition to include wild peace. Receptivity to all that is is the key (here's to you Grace (windthread.typepad.com), and you, Michelle (mscomfortzone.blogspot.com)). Keeping my heart open no matter what happens feels like a true act of valor sometimes, but the present must be seen with all the attention we can muster so we will know where to train our work and love and save ourselves from conflict. I can imagine a world where everyone is valued, where children are safe, where work has meaning, and there are no enemies.

So, peace. If it can be imagined, it can be done.

 

Lucky me

Over the last couple of months I have been receiving wonderful things from my friends in blogland.  First, Liz Ackert from Texas sent me one of her embroidered "imagine peace" pins. Then, because I had fleetingly indicated a preference for pink, she sent me another. It is hard to articulate the satisfaction these little pins evoke in me....the beautiful colors of natural dyes, the delicate embroidery, the warm tactile quality of cloth in a tiny bit of "jewelry". Liz is an accomplished needlewoman and I love holding the results of her labors in my hands. 

The next surprise was a packet from Mo Orkiszewski in Australia. I had read on her blog that she is planning to show an art piece in a Sydney gallery including pennants made from a vintage wedding dress. She said she would be sending these satin scraps out to people that she knew to embellish as they saw fit according to the theme: " I dream of a world where love is the answer". It didn't even cross my mind that I would be included until the pennant appeared in the mail. I am so honored to be part of Mo's work. She too, is an amazingly gifted artist, needlewoman, illustrator and book maker. I am trying to decide what I will do with the pennant and will show my efforts as I go.

Then, to crown it all, another windfall through Liz from Australians Barry Smith and Fiona Dempster. In honor of International Peace Day (September 21) metalsmith Barry made over 200 silver leaves with the word "peace" stamped on them and distributed them to his friends around the world to give away to their friends and so on. His wife, Fiona the totally inspiring printer, bookmaker and artist, included a letterpress saying with his leaves...mine says "Let Peace Be A Daily Conversation". Liz, bless her heart, decided to give her leaves and letterpress pieces to the people who made blocks for Dee Mallon's Hearts for Charleston quilt in 2015 to commemorate the people killed in the church basement by that sad shell of a human being, so that put me on her list again. Please go to Dee's blog to see the finished quilt, (look under Hearts for Charleston on her topics list) it is something special. Liz also included a scrap of silk she had dyed with brazilwood to a gorgeous subtle red, reminding me of the incredible ability of silk to take color, and a part of one of my favorite poems...The Silken Tent by Robert Frost:

She is as in a field a silken tent

At midday when a sunny summer breeze

Has dried the dew and all its ropes relent,

So that in guys it gently sways at ease, 

And its supporting central cedar pole

That is its pinnacle to heavenward

And signifies the sureness of the soul,

Seems to owe naught to any single cord,

But strictly held by none, is loosely bound

By countless silken ties of love and thought

To everything on earth the compass round,

And only by one's going slightly taut

In the capriciousness of summer air

Is of the slightest bondage made aware.

 

This poem perfectly articulates the connections with which blogging has favored me. I have never met Liz, Mo, Barry or Fiona in person, but I treasure the glimpses of their work and thought that I see on their blogs and these actual items that have come from their hands increase the strength of the "countless silken ties of love and thought" binding me to "everything on earth the compass round". I worry about the effect of technology on human relationships, but must admit that in my case the blog has introduced me to people I never would have known otherwise. I am reminded daily that my tribe is much larger than I might have realized. It opens my heart to all the people I do not know who share our planet and the trials and joys of being human. Lucky me! Heartfelt thanks to Liz, Mo, Barry, Fiona and Dee.

Addendum:

Apparently none of my links are working. Here are the addresses of the blogs I have mentioned:

Liz: imgoingtotexas.blogspot.com

Mo: itscrowtime.wordpress.com

Barry: rustnstuff.blogspot.com

Fiona: paperponderings.blogspot.com

Dee: deemallon.wordpress.com

Still weaving

It has been weeks since I posted last and this is all the further I have come on Becky's Spring. First of all, choosing the pattern of colored strips was very time consuming. As I worked my way down the ladder, the wider strips got more and more bunched up and wrinkled so when I approached the end I took it all apart (keeping the chosen order intact) and made those strips a little more narrow. Weaving again, I measured the width and found that I lost an inch (an inch!!) from middle to end. I took it apart again. Now the strips were getting well handled and the turned edges unturned. I had to re-press each strip as I wove it. This time I measured across every time I added a strip and measured lengthwise to be sure the strips were at right angles to the long sides. Sometimes after I had pinned the strip I found on the next measurement that something had moved and the width again was shrinking. Now the width is uniformly 15 3/4 inches, although looking down the length shows little wobbles in the lengthwise strips. That is too bad. Basting this down is the next step. Hopefully I will be able to get it sewed together without too much distortion.

This is only half of the runner. I still have to repeat the process on the other end. Weaving such a long piece has turned out to be much harder than the 10" square I did for Dee's Hearts for Charleston (duh). It has allowed me to integrate the colors I want into a single entity, but whew...I hope it will be worth the effort.  

Weaving on my mind

I've been working on Becky's spring tablecloth pretty actively, if you count mental exertion as work. Having decided to use woven cloth strips to make a background, like we did for Dee's Hearts for Charleston quilt, I tried to imagine how I would adapt it for use on the table. I thought my HforC block with its turned edges was less free and fun than some of the blocks made by other people, but the need for easy washing and long wearing makes using raw edges uncomfortable for me. More than that, I fear starting out too freely, because most of my work seems to leap out of my control sooner or later anyway. This will be a long, skinny cloth...90 x 16 inches...using a technique I'm not very familiar with. As I contemplated how I would cut and manage the strips I kept thinking of wayward measurements and uneven edges which usually plague me under simpler circumstances. I referred to Jude's Feel Free videos (what a great resource) but finally decided to keep my strip widths uniform and turn my edges. When Grace suggested nests as an image I sidetracked for a while into adding curves to my cloth weaving, but that added a whole new set of technical issues, and when I actually sketched some layouts I decided it just wasn't worth it. The good news is that I have actually begun to cut the cloth into strips, using the drawn thread method to keep them as even as possible. It is comforting to lay hands to cloth at last.

Becky's table...taking stock

After months of distraction I am getting ready to tackle the last season for Becky's table...spring. Her dishes,(Keralia by Arabia) with their grayish ground and heavy black/brown banding, lend themselves more to autumn and winter than summer and spring. Plates with strong character often are difficult to adapt to various settings but my challenge is to represent all four seasons with the same dishes, so I must work with these. I was lucky in finding a kantha cloth with the right color background for summer and a wool scarf for fall. The winter cloth I made is documented here in the blog. (I never have had good luck linking to my own posts.)  For the spring cloth I settled on the robins egg blue cloth in the background, a change from the white cloth I usually start with. I thought I could discharge a pattern onto the blue but I have also been wondering if applique might work better. I need to keep the colors springy without compromising the relevance of the plates. Cleaning the studio yielded the dark brown print, a gift from my quilter sister-in-law Lynne. There isn't very much of it but both sides look good. Using it in the right proportions will be the trick. I have been making very short runners lately but this time I think I need a long one...90 inches. That means piecing even the blue, which reminded me of the woven square I did for Dee's Hearts for Charleston quilt. I am imagining woven insets in this long runner, which would allow me to ration the brown effectively. It will make a more graphic pattern than I had first envisioned, but it might be a good variation, given the other cloths I already have waiting. I am going to plan the woven pieces and then let the runner tell me where to go from there.

All done

The quilt block I have been making to contribute to Dee Mallon's Hearts for Charleston project is complete. I have been second guessing myself for a week, tearing out some stuff and adding others, but now I am to the point of not knowing what else to do, so I am calling it done. The red basting near the edges denotes a ten inch square, but I have left an inch and a half on each side to accomodate possible adjustments. Not that I would ever need such leeway...(ha ha I would need that and more!) The edges of this linen square tended to curl the longer I held it and embroidered it, so I stabilized the far outer boundaries with machine stitch. 

The back is a little chaotic, but not too bad. I usually weave my thread ends back into my embroidery, but this multi-layer embroidery didn't lend itself to that so there are knots. It just is what it is. I wish Dee well as she attempts to incorporate eight "other" pieces into her work. I hope this one won't be too hard to place.

I am grateful for the chance the Hearts for Charleston project gave me to express my deep and abiding sadness for the murders in Charleston and the stubborn, systemically entrenched hatred from which they sprang. Only when our hearts open to the intrinsic worth of every being can the long shadow of slavery and racism in America be softened. So often when atrocities occur it seems like there is nothing ordinary people can do, but this time for me there was, thanks to Dee's energy and strong sense of justice. Thank you, with all my heart. 

Laying down a base

It has taken a little while, but the base for my Hearts for Charleston quilt block has been basted and then heavily stitched. It has settled nicely into one whole, instead of a conglomeration of pieces. It is still much larger than the 10 inch piece requested, but all of the design falls within a 10 inch square.

It is still pretty regimented at this stage, but I have been thinking of it as background.

Here is the direction I plan to take it now. 

Weaving hearts

I've finally got my pieces woven together for the Hearts for Charleston block base. Getting everything sort of square and workable in ten inches was harder than I thought it would be. I was feeling all iffy about my fabrics, but now that I've got them together, they are going to have to do. I thought I had everything worked out for nine strips in both directions, but when I put the fabric down, the strips were way too wide. (When did I get so terrible at measuring and figuring?) After making thinner strips I got ten in one direction and nine in the other, and I am going with that. I had the words "open our hearts" on light and dark fabric, but the indigo ate the wax a lot more on the dark and the embroidery I used to bring them out was clumsy. However, when I tried both of them in the weaving, the dark strip had more life than the light one, so that's the winner anyway. I was going to weave the heart strip in, but then I thought it would be good to have nine hearts, so the piece will have to go on top. This is so different from my usual processes that I am proceeding slowly, but I think it is good for me to try something different. I have noticed that my weaving is much less free than Dee's or Mo's, but like I said...it will have to do. Now, basting.

Hearts for Charleston

I have never been an activist or even a group joiner, much, but I have admired Dee Mallon's sense of social justice for a while and her plan to make a quilt in honor of the shooting victims in Charleston struck a chord. Somewhat to my own surprise I volunteered to make a block.

She asked for a heart theme on a background of woven indigo strips a la Jude Hill. I know from reading Jude's blog that thinner fabrics work better for the kind of layering I envision, but I usually work with heavier stuff, so I don't have much of a stash to to draw from. I pawed through my fabrics looking for the cotton lawn I sometimes use to back my table runners. No lawn came forth, but I did find a very fine old linen curtain that I thought would work. I waxed the phrase "open our hearts" on it, with a line of hearts down the beautifully rendered little seam on the curtain. Then I did quick rubber band shibori to introduce some movement in the color and dipped it in indigo, half to a medium value and half much darker. The shibori didn't turn out to be hugely interesting and I think my woven background is going to be dull, but I'm not sure what to add right now. I'm going to make the weaving with what I have and see what occurs to me when I see it together.