How often do you have to knit to be a “knitter”? or how well? Is it the finished products that make a “knitter”? or the intention?
I propose that one can be a primitive knitter with only one stitch and qualify as a “knitter” on the grounds that creativity has found a medium for expression, With [...]
Knitting can be enormously complicated, but one can choose to focus on something very simple. The simplicity offers an opportunity to notice the early entrance of our resident evaluators. Sylvia Boorstein writes about keeping things simple in her book, Don’t Just Do Something, Sit There. “When we are able to watch our experience in detail, [...]
Perhaps yarn should be named. Seems more personal than accepting the name of the yarn and color that comes on the label. Working with the yarn, one gets to know it in a different way, and discovers its true name. Like Ursula LeGuin talks about in the Earthsea Trilogy. Only certain people speak someone’s true name [...]
I favor the surprise strategy. It’s a no-fail approach because there’s no picture with which to compare the outcome. I am genuinely curious what something will look like and enjoy wondering. The experience is an exercise in watching expectations arise and not holding on to them. Staying in the present and knowing that it just is [...]
As we leave childhood behind, we leave behind some of the comforts of the blankie. Some adults secretly have a blankie that travels with them and comforts them at home. Only a few intimate friends and family know. I don’t know any adult that is really open about their attachment to a blanket, or remaining [...]
I approach yarn like a photographer approaches a deer grazing in an open meadow. Respectfully, knowing who has the power, who’s in control.
I see the natural beauty in the yarn and fear that, whatever I do with it, will not honor its intrinsic nature. I am stuck with my intuition, operating a bit in the dark, without [...]
As I was talking with some women before a class I was doing for beginning knitters, I was touched by how articulate they were about why they were there. They each worked in places that were involved with frequent crisis in families with young children.
As we were talking about the ups and downs of [...]
Calm abiding (samatha) meditation is also known as single-pointed concentration. It is designed to “enhance the ability to hold one’s mind on a single object or topic with clarity and stability”. -Wikipedia
The first time I ever heard of calm abiding, I was driving and listening to an audio tape from the library. The Dalai Lama [...]