Pisces. New Socks. Happy. End of Discussion.
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Author Archives: octobia
Feelin’ Smug
Just finished my very last obligation for the spring semester. I do believe I have aced everything and am feeling very pleased with myself.
Would you believe I can solve this:
To those in school, or out, enjoy the beautiful spring weather, and whatever breaks you can take or make for yourselves.
Commitment
What a loaded word!
Do I need to commit? Or be committed? Or is it a singular thing,once accomplished and then done.
I am using this space today to announce my re-commitment to myself: my health, my energy, creativity, ability to move, and change and keep my being whole and happy.
I am recommitting to the image of myself at 19, full of joi de vivre, energetic and at ease.
Let’s see what happens next.
Eternal truths aren’t always solemn
Gee, I feel like heading to Ft. Lauderdale… Oh wait, it’s only Spring Break!!!!!
I’m done. Finished. On time. Every single assignment. All week ahead, with nothing but time to knit, read books, knit, get some laundry done, knit, meet friends for a drink, knit.
……After this week, we come back for only another month (something a little screwy with that schedule, isn’t there?). Then it’s time to start the planning and deciding and juggling schedules, funding, priorities for another semester.
Actually, I love it all. Even the deadline pressures, the moments of “what the heck does that professor want!” or “that can’t be right!”
I’m going to recommend going back to college in your later years as a comical, self-deprecating Fountain of Youth. You’re buoyant with excitement, with the newness of the challenges, the changing semesters, and humbled by the energy of the young, the certitude, and the sweet, sweet callowness.
knitting = connecting threads
“Knitting is a method by which thread or yarn may be turned into cloth or other fine crafts. Knitted fabric consists of consecutive rows of loops, called stitches. As each row progresses, a new loop is pulled through an existing loop. The active stitches are held on a needle until another loop can be passed through them. This process eventually results in a final product, often a garment.” (Wikipedia, 2012).
I’ve been knitting — a lot. For years I’ve knit with large needles and gorgeous, worsted to bulky yarns of all descriptions. I’ve made scarves, shawls, shrugs, hats galore, afghans, even leg warmers. I’ve felted handbags and coasters, christmas ornaments and hats.
What I’ve never done before is lace knitting. I’m on my third project, still a tender beginner at this but I realized a small but important connection beyond the magical interlocking of yarn: I’m finally knitting like my mother did.
I remember baby blankets and sacques, reindeer pullovers and fancy shawls, Barbie sweaters and even a delicate white angora shrug. All done in tiny exquisite stitches. Even, meticulous and delightful to touch. I always thought it was just too slow and painstaking. I was a speed knitting. A hat in 2 hours, a scarf overnight. A baby blanket for next week’s shower — plenty of time!
This year suddenly I wanted to, not conquer, but join in with lace.
It started from the yarn (doesn’t it always start there?) I had fallen in love with the magnificent variety of fingering weight merino being hand- and kettle-dyed. There’s some seriously gorgeous yarn out there these days. I found myself buying smaller and smaller needles to do the fine yarns justice. First I blended with a strand of equally gorgeous mohair/silk blends (the pouf let me keep the needles larger). But they were too loose and didn’t have enough definition. So I stuck with hats of worsted weight merino and browsed endless lace patterns on Ravelry.
Now I’m addicted, and I see my mother’s hands as I knit.
Here are pictures of my first couple of projects. The purple shawlette, in Malabrigo sock 100% merino, was the first. The middle one is waiting to block and I’m not sure where it’s hiding. But number 3 is the lime green Malabrigo laceweight merino. I bought the yarn ages ago, couldn’t think why when I got the color home, but it’s exactly the weight I wanted to experiment with and it’s working up more beautifully than I expected.
The pattern is a travelling one, where each repeat springs out of the last, magically, I think. This is what made me see my mother’s hands. She loved this kind of lace knitting, vines, leaves, ferns, complex (way more than this) and graceful. She would have totally gone coo-coo over today’s luscious yarns with their saturated colors.
Hey Mom, socks are next!
Just Another Tarot Tuesday
Joyful Participation in the Sorrows of the World
Wow! The tarot does it again. I’ve been very closeted and cocooned the past months (as you can see from the lack of blog posts). Not depressed, but detached, floating a little, extremely internal in my focus.
Today I made the choice to try opening more to my own experience, and letting in connection and engagement. ”Easy,” I thought. “I’ll just start with a Tarot Tuesday. No sweat, a simple way to reconnect….” Yeah, right.
Participation is the card I drew, first shot. That’s telling me. This is a beautiful card, with a great deal of power imbued in the graphic of the double dorje. The directness of the commentary appeals to me, and the sense of focus and intensity of the card itself. It doesn’t just speak of participation, it launches you into it, willy-nilly….
From the Osho Zen Tarot:
Have you ever seen night going? Very few people even become aware of things which are happening every day. Have you ever seen the evening coming? The midnight and its song? The sunrise and its beauty?
We are behaving almost like blind people. In such a beautiful world we are living in small ponds of our own misery. It is familiar, so even if somebody wants to pull you out, you struggle. You don’t want to be pulled out of your misery, of your suffering. Otherwise there is so much joy all around, you have just to be aware of it and to become a participant, not a spectator.aaa
The mandala has a quality like that of the energy field that forms around a buddha, where all the individuals taking part in the circle make a unique contribution to create a unified and vital whole. It is like a flower, whose wholeness is even more beautiful than the sum of its parts, at the same time enhancing the beauty of each individual petal. You have an opportunity to participate with others now to make your contribution to creating something greater and more beautiful than each of you could manage alone. Your participation will not only nourish you, but will also contribute something precious to the whole.
War on Women
Lest anyone still wonder what the point of all this controversy over contraception coverage is really about, just listen to some of Rush Limbaugh’s screeds from this week, now joined by the infamous Bill O’Reilly.
Since the 2010 election, the rabid right has been gearing up toward this goal: attempting to undo the last 100 years of progress for American women. We’ll all be barefoot, pregnant, silent, and dead at forty from bearing too many children.
It all makes me depressed, angry, saddened and discouraged.
Ahhh, Bliss
I just got home from the most wonderfully self-indulgent hour at the 24/7 gym. Swimming, followed by hot tub, followed by long, slow shower.
Walking back to the car in the mild December evening with the stars emerging as the clouds dispersed, a haloed moon and no hurry or stress at all.
What a blessing!
First One Down
Well, I finished my first semester at College yesterday. It was interesting (at least most of the time) and I feel a pretty good sense of accomplishment.
I’m now the proud possessor of 19 new college credits to go with the old 24 from the past. AND a 4.0 average!
Yes, I’m proud — even though I minimize it to myself because it was all easy stuff, first semester, things I already know, blah, blah, blah….
But still, 19 credits represented a good workload for someone getting into the groove 40 years after high school.
What does it say about me, though, that the thing I’ve been gnawing on most of the day is the fact that I totally tanked my Algebra final — I mean totally — with a 66. I knew I was having an off day from the minute I sat down, and I completely misjudged what to spend my review time covering. My lousy showing wasn’t enough to undo the consistent high A from the other tests and grades, but still…. I feel a bit ashamed. For Pete’s sake, I have a 4.0 average, so why doesn’t that outweigh the sense of failure at blowing one solitary exam?
Human nature continues to fascinate, doesn’t it?
