Ecoprinting, Natural Dyeing, and the Love of Leaves

Been gone so long I won’t try to backtrack.  Just enough to say I’ve turned into an ecoprinting maniac…

My last post–August 10–captured an experiment.  There have been many in the interim.  Many flops and  enough success to keep me hooked.  But I’m better at turning the uglies into o.k. images.

Too much has happened in six weeks.  Too much to say. Too much to blather on about. Better to just let the pictures reveal the moments, for now.

But just one thing–thank you to Cynthia–and Marti.  Grace.  And Liz.

My head has been in the trees.  And I have been in the forest.

    

Natural Dye Workshop

with Dede Styles (in blue)–an amazing, amazing woman

Yellows from fall asters, broom sedge and black oak bark.

Celebrating Logan’s 9th birth

and a pic he took yesterday

Mostly close-ups of some ecoprints on silk

    

And on Sept. 19th we had an amazing collaborative fiber/tea sale–with

…Sumitra–purveyor of fine teas–

…Sister Jennifer the Weaver.

…Heather from Scotland…a fine, fine artist…with some of her t’s.

…my first born…Emily with some of her many creations

…and me…holding blue

Finally– today’s sky…

with last week’s indigo.

If you’ve taken the time to gaze here, thank you.  A big, big thank you.  Sorry some of the images won’t open larger–and there seem to be some crossed wires embedded in this posting itself…but the cauldron calls….

The One Thing

I  look at this picture and my heart swells with love.  Love that literally flows and moves through my body.  I look around.  Bowls, baskets, partially finished cloth–and yes, what I see I like very much.  But nothing else opens the door of my heart like this.  It is a physical sensation.  A sensation that allows breath and energy to enter through the crown of my head, complete a full circuit and dispel again into  the wild blue beyond.  I’m posting it here so I can come and see and experience this opening– often.  Otherwise, it will become buried in picture files and desktop garble and all of the other places I put things that I want to recall–but always have trouble finding again.

When I lived in an ashram, pictures of our guru served this same heart-opening experience for many.  I have a dear friend who is a devotee of Amma.  Amma’s pictures adorn her environment.  Function as reminder and heart opener for her.  There are many ways we do this in our lives–we place objects of importance around to remind us of the wonders, mystery and glory of existence.  To remind us.  To encourage heart opening.

So.  Because this blog chronicles for me what I need to remember, here.  This.  The One thing.

Live, Love, Leap–a Mantra

Maybe I’ll do a series of these. They could be mantras. Reminders. Maps of how we can go. Portable. Easily moved from place to place. Following the day. And I’m thinking $25 because there are holes in the household economy’s bucket.

live love leap

Here. I’m talking to myself. This morning I was on hands and knees– picking scraps up from the floor. Tossing them up overhead to land on my work table. Not watching, not planning, not in-my-head. And this figure is pretty much what happened.  A few tweaks but not much. And no, I don’t know what the red dot is–I usually see my figures as feminine.  So this one?  I just don’t know.  But I might do a few more of these  “blind” cloths  because–because–it was liberating.  NO MIND at all.  And it was fast.  But it asked me to express words– words that hold important direction.  Directions.  A map for going.  A 6″ square map for going.

Post #75 or #3–However you want to see it

I have a new camera.  Gifted.  A lovely generous gift  And it’s giving me fits.  Not only is operating it presenting a challenge, but downloading to my computer and then to Picassa.  Computer simply not recognizing the files.  Downloaded a driver.  Yes.  Did that.  Did all sorts of things.  Tried the wi-fi route.  Did the hard wire usb from camera to computer.  Nothing was working.  No thing worked.  Posted on forums. Reloaded Picassa.  Contacted Sony.  Amazed myself at both the depth of frustration I succumbed to, as well as my detachment  from it all on some other level.  “F*%^ it ” expressed several–no, many–times.  Watching self acting out.  Thinking “isn’t this something?”  And yesterday I have no idea what I did but suddenly I had current pics in Picassa.  Solved.  Issue solved.  Right?  No.  Same problem this morning but somehow the magical combination of plugging, unplugging, doing this and that, resulted in a download.  My palms were getting sweaty and I was sensing a slow boil mounting, but it didn’t.  Something worked.  So now, having said this, I’m wondering, “was that just a necessary distraction?”

And I think it was, and seeing this now, I realize how perfect the universe functions.  I might elaborate on that later.  But right now I’m looking at what the techno problem distracted me from.  And it was this–it distracted me from the sense of feeling totally and completely adrift. Questioning.  Everything.  Why am I doing this–this cloth stuff?  Why am I drawn to it?  Why can’t I seem to put it down? What’s going on here?  And not just questioning the “whys and whats” but also judging.  Thoughts like “geeze, another little pile of cast-off rags  occupied my focus and concentration for hours, days even.”  How crazy is that?  And who is asking the questions?

It’s cleared for me now.   I’m seeing that more importantly,  cloth is  the medium.  The medium that supports an inner journey.  An armature for holding thoughts and beliefs as they arise.  A solid foundation providing context allowing me to examine my world view.  My spiritual path.  My what?  My existence I suppose–and how each individual existence relates to the all of everything.  And I really don’t have to be in my head to do this.  In fact, the process doesn’t happen as an intellectual, cognitive exercise.  It only happens when I’m open to receiving whatever wants to arise.

Will I remember this the next time I feel stuck?  I don’t know, but please feel free to remind me.  Remind me that I’m stuck because I’m resisting.  And I think I resist because often what’s arising has an edge.  Could be viewed as painful.  Unpalatable.  Not fit for dinner table conversation.  All right.  Here’s an example.

I have been distraught over what’s is happening to marine life as a result of Fukishima.  Starfish trying to pull their arms off.  Fish and wildlife piling up, trying to get as far away from the radiation as possible.  Creating scenarios that have old-timers saying “Well, we’ve never seen this before.”  No doubt.  But this isn’t a very warm and fuzzy topic, is it?  And wouldn’t we all just rather ignore it?   But there it was.  There it is.  Arising, arising.  Asking at least just to be acknowledged.  The starfish.  The fish.  The mammals.

Yesterday I looked for a  little sketch I’d done.  Not thinking specifically of making a cloth–just a way of saying, “I hear you.  I’m so, so sorry.  And I wish I could make it right.”

Then the trunk show, GivingThanks, the camera fiasco. Adrift. But wrestling with question of how does one express certain things? Certain unpleasant things. Like sadness, despair, frustration and even loss of real hope for this entity we call “civilization?” Is it met head on? No, I don’t think so. It has to be dissected to arrive at the reason for these feelings. And the reason always comes back to this. Love. Care. Concern. The flip side. This is what can be expressed.

I had no intention of going here this morning. And at any point now I’ll probably just bale. So just a bit more. The starfish would not back away from my consciousness. Nor would the feeling of being adrift. And out of that, without knowing it, this background cloth grew:

and now I’m thinking about it as safe haven. A place where starfish might be safe. I don’t know yet what will come forth, but it might look something like this:

Adrift with Starfish.

And there is another cloth that is trying to morph into being. A notion of winter. A recognition of winter solstice. Another holding place. A fulcrum between two opposite sets of perception and/or reality. Impossible to determine that one side is “better than” the other. Is this what is called “acceptance?” Or is it simply acknowledging what is?

I want to end this on a lighter note. This reminder that love flows through life constantly without obstruction. Building bubble mountains in the snow. Life. Beautiful, fragile and temporary.

Recurring Patterns

After this week, a week of five 10-hour daily shifts with Grand Son, I will return to cloth. This week I’m doing other things. He is six. And busy. Right now he’s engaged with mini legos creating a “light reflect-dometer.” It tracks the rays of the sun. I’m just learning to pronounce it correctly. “Light ree flect dom a ter.”

Some of our interests intersect at various points. Yesterday, black walnut gathering and some dyeing experiments. And there’s a butterfly bush right outside the window where he works and I’m receiving moment by moment updates. Called to check it out after almost every sentence I type here. A butterfly with a torn wing that still can fly. It’s o.k. he tells me. I’ve placed a small CD player next to him with mellow flute music playing. The effect is marginal.

And just as I was going to post a picture of the beginning of my “Jude-like Shirt Project” I’m called off to another investigation of sorts. The idea was to do a joint post. Identify circles and spheres. Circle-type objects.  Objects he especially resonates with.  To take their pictures then post them. Here goes.

and this. Surely my favorite. A lovely felted centering facilitator by Sumitra. Renaissance woman. Conjurer of magic.   Artist.  And so much more.

And right now a handy man is patching holes in the roof–the new roof I would add–and Grand Son is outside with him. Monitoring the job. So I’m finishing up here. And though this all sounds playful and fun–as it is, really…

usually he’s hanging out the window trying to spot kids in this neighborhood he can play with. They’re several years older than he is, and at this age, one’s “age number” seems critical. It’s sweet and funny–but more than anything–poignant. Watching a six year old trying to be cool enough to play with a 10 year old. I cringe. Don’t intervene. Letting it play its way out as it will. I may not be a huge fan of the culture he’s stepping into, but I cannot protect him from the lessons he came in with. And as I write this I see I’m letting go of a life pattern of my own–the attempt to protect my children from their lessons–watching it fall to the wayside. Yesterday I told a friend that it’s long over due–the need to sit out this cosmic dance. It’s time. And it has nothing to do with LOVE. Or maybe, actually, it has every thing to do with LOVE. Gotta go. It’s too quiet out there.