Darkness Visible

In the weeks before the solstice, full daylight gets increasingly rare.


4 p.m. Monday evening in Gillams.

Fire and Ice

Where do you place yourself? Are you pointed in the direction you want to go?

The current state of Lucy's Central Park Hoodie - the body is finished and I have started the first sleeve.

The shift between New York and Newfoundland is always coloured by whatever happens to be going on at the time. It is a big shift - between city and rural life, between two countries, which may be similar but really have many, many differences, and between communities of friends and neighbors. Usually I feel a giant sigh of relief when we dock in Port aux Basques - home at last. Although Newfoundland is my adopted home, there is something of it in my bones, real or imagined. My mother's family being from here gives me the feeling that I returning to something that makes sense on a DNA level.

And yet.

When blogless Janine learned that I had given away my Kundert spindle, she offered to go get me another one, Kundert being about 1/2 hr. from her house. How could I say no? The new one arrived on Friday last week and is as wonderful as the first one. Lovely, lovely, lovely!

And yet, this year the shift has been a little tough. I have a little knot in my stomach - a little longing for what I left behind. I don't think of leaving Dan behind, btw, because we do see him regularly and we talk nearly everyday at least once. So, what did I leave behind? I am missing my sangha and my routine of being at the Temple for zazen and for caretaking practice. I guess if I look closely it is a fear that I will somehow lose what I have...gained? Uh-oh, that word is a definite no-no in the Zen world. No wisdom and no gain - we say it everyday in the Heart Sutra.

So what part of my practice did I really leave behind?

This is how Janine packed the spindle - in some raw, Icelandic fleece. Isn't it beautiful? And it worked perfectly as packing peanuts. Plus I get to spin it later. Raw fleece: the gift that keeps on giving.

So, instead of a settled sense of relief, I have been unsettled. One moment is grand, the next feeling like I am scrambling for solid ground. I guess that is about right for where I am placed right now and the direction I pointed myself.

Fire and ice.

Thank you for indulging me in this bit of navel gazing.

Homeland Security

Now this is a feeling of security.

Our woodstove is our main source of heat and we have a small but efficient one that works beautifully. We had a fair amount of dry wood stored and ready but not enough to get us through the long, cold months of winter, so we have been loading in some new wood this week.


Wood pile maintenance - it is an art. It is an art I have been mastering these many years as I have shift this pile around the basement more times than my back cares to remember.


They say wood warms you three times: first when you cut it down, second when you stack it, and third when you burn it. I would venture to say that some of these logs, or junks as they are called locally, have warmed me about a dozen times. But look how beautiful they are. Precious, precious wood!

The last two times I moved the pile, it was so that we could have some work done in our basement. The basement was dug under our house after we bought it in 2002. The house was built without a foundation and, many decades later when we found it sitting empty, it was slowly but surely sinking into the ground and starting to rot. Given that state, and the state of the windows and the near total lack of insulation in the walls, I shudder to think what winters were like in this house in years past. Actually, having met and spoken with many people who spent winters in this house, I know what they were like. They were cold!

In any case, a basement was dug and a beauty it is. It sat, holding its potential like a pearl in an oyster for years. Finally, we had the money and the good luck to convince the best carpenter in Newfoundland to come out and frame out what will be a guest room and some clean storage space. He put up the drywall and installed flooring.


Now it's my turn to begin taping and plastering. Then a ceiling and doors will be installed and soon enough we will have a place for visitors to lay their heads.

Was that an invitation? I think it was.

Gratitude

A million years ago, I mean, two weeks ago, when I was embracing reality up at the Monastery, I came to the conclusion that I have an amazing life. Sure, I may not be able to conjure up ginormous chairs like Vimalakirti, but it is pretty damn amazing nonetheless.



Things may go up and down*, but here we are! Please don't forget this.

* Road sign photographed in Louisbourg, Nova Scotia.

Fire

Some quick pictures of the hat I made from my handspun leftovers.

Very Gaia, if you know what I mean.



But it hasn't been all Mother Earth and Woman of the Dawn. I managed to spin out this mega skein of two-ply merino.


Very pretty, no? It is nearly 800 yds, too. I just listed on etsy under the spirit name of Fireside.

There is something about Newfoundland that brings out the 1970s in me.

Home

After a week of not having internet service, I find I have little to say. Maybe that's a good thing.

We arrived just before winter, apparently. It has snowed, at least a little bit, everyday since we got here. And cold, yes, it has been cold.

The beautiful Blomidon Mountains from our front yard.

We immediately reviewed our wood fire skills and I had to quickly make myself a hat since I decided I wouldn't pack any on the assumption that I would have time before the real weather kicked in. Dan's response to this dilemma - physician heal thyself. Fortunately I had plenty of handspun scraps around and head gear was quickly created.

Here is one of the locals who was pleased to see us arrive.


And we, her.

So nice to be home.

Send Off

I stole this illustration from this interview with R. Crumb in the LA Times. I am not really a huge fan of his - too misogynist for me (and I know he does it intentionally and all that but still...). Yet, I think he pretty much captures what's happening for most people.

It feels about right for me this morning as I slowly recover from the trauma of reading three poems out loud in front of about 40 people last night as part of our fall ango art practice presentation. We are assigned a topic - this time it was about sickness and medicine and how all the world is sickness and medicine, taken largely from the Vimalakirti Sutra we studied. I won't bore you with too many details, but each person presented three items from their practice - some took up visual media, other musical, movement or words.

I force myself to get up and read whatever it is that I wrote because it is so utterly horrifying. I know for a fact that I was about 10 shades of red and my hands were shaking so much I could hardly read my words. On the plus side, perhaps another person in the audience who didn't present because of feeling too shy and fearful, saw my terror and thought, look if she is doing it, maybe I can too.

Yes, that's what I will tell myself as that cringing feeling slowly fades...

This isn't really what I planned write - it just came out. What I planned to write was that the next post will be sent from beautiful, cold, grey Newfoundland. See you then!

Last Chance!

As part of preparations for our trip northward, I will be packing up all the items in my etsy shop and sending them to Devon House, the Craft Council shop in St. John's. So, if there is something you had your eye on....now is your chance. If you buy something, mention this blog in your "Message to Seller" and I will refund you 20% of your total purchase. On Friday morning, I will be putting the shop on vacation mode and any and all orders will be mailed then.

Stayed tuned, however! I will be re-stocking with new items once we get the wood stove lit and get settled in. I seem to remember a substantial stash of fibre left in bins. I think I hear it calling.

Meanwhile, a couple of things have appeared, even at this late date.

The fabulous hat made with islandsweet wool (and a little bit of Malabrigo).


It was a delight to make - each stitch was like saying yum.



And this hefty skein of merino - I carded a hand painted roving that was just meh with some undyed merino (with help from the blogless Janine, who made a rare NYC appearance) and spun it thick and thin.



The result is quite lovely, I think. Much more subtle and less cloying than the original roving. Not to mention super soft.


If you are interested in either of these two items, let me know directly - I'll send you the details. I don't think I will list them on etsy, being all lazy, I mean, busy, like I am.

Some People Like Taking Their Time (Two Videos)

Two videos I recently stumbled across - very different but sharing a common sense of use of time to make something new.

Do you use time or does time use you?

Kim Rugg from Cool Hunting on Vimeo.

What is this thing called, Love?

Decisions were made, to misquote Ronald Reagan.

The workshop at WH was cancelled. I rescheduled our ferry reservations for an earlier date and we will be heading to Newfoundland very, very soon.

No problem, to quote Alf.

Instead I zipped up to Zen Mountain Monastery for an intensive retreat titled Embracing Reality, led by the two teachers there. It was run nearly like sesshin - early morning zazen and oryoki breakfast. With the exception of the workshop session, most of the day was spent in silence. This was a lovely surprise and one I deeply appreciated since I won't be spending time there until late spring, at the earliest.

After the activities of the weekend were over, one of the monastics pulled me aside and showed me a little bag she had been given containing a homemade spindle and some rather rough wool fleece. She saw the Spindle 7 video and remembered having this bag waiting for her attention - she wanted a spinning lesson. Naturally, she had to really convince me to drop everything and teach her because, if its one thing I hate, it is getting people to take up spinning. I know some people might suggest that my attitude towards sharing a love of spinning is closer to how a tobacco industry executive would feel if he were let loose in an elementary school classroom to discuss the merits of nicotine. But it isn't so. I let her finish her sentence and everything before agreeing.

We were a little frustrated by the equipment and the wool, which had become a bit felted during storage. Never one to jump the gun, I waited until this afternoon to send her a better spindle (my dear Kundert!) and some nice BFL fleece from Capistrano Fiber Arts. I mean, if you're gonna play, play.

Meanwhile, this other object was in the bag with the wool and spindle. This, she gave to me. What is it? Is it a spindle too? Do you know?







UPDATE: Finnian came up with answer! Somehow he knew that it was a Mexican chocolate whisk called a molinillo. But can you spin wool with it?

Mrs. Flux

That's what Dan called me yesterday.

It has been that way this fall. Plans all made to be broken. Going to Newfoundland in September? No. Maker Faire instead. Finnian applying to high school? No. The Dept. of Ed's bureaucratic mistakes that made it impossible (to the relief of all, I suspect). We will have another chance next year if Finnian wants it. Going to Newfoundland in late November? No. It appears that my dyeing/spinning workshop is not happening (enrollment was insufficient...as my wise friend said, people like free workshops). So, perhaps we will head north a little earlier than expected.

It is all ok. Staying on until now allowed me to participate fully in the Vimalakirti Sutra class, not to mention spend just about all my spare time at the Zen centre, soaking up the aliveness. Finn and Lucy got to participate in one of their favourite homeschool activities - a role playing adventure game in Central Park. We all got to attend the Rally to Restore Sanity and/or Fear.

No regrets. Please, just remind me of that when we are being dashed about by the 20 ft. waves in the Gulf of St. Lawrence....

In any case, today is the day Mrs. Flux makes all her decisions.

Two Poems for Fall

Theme in Yellow
by Carl Sandburg

I spot the hills
With yellow balls in autumn.
I light the prairie cornfields
Orange and tawny gold clusters
And I am called pumpkins.
On the last of October
When dusk is fallen
Children join hands
And circle round me
Singing ghost songs
And love to the harvest moon;
I am a jack-o'-lantern
With terrible teeth
And the children know
I am fooling.



This is Finnian's version of fooling the children last night. Actually, it was more like scaring the children - several smaller ones did not really want to come ring our bell. I wonder why?




Drench
by Anne Stevenson

You sleep with a dream of summer weather,
wake to the thrum of rain—roped down by rain.
Nothing out there but drop-heavy feathers of grass
and rainy air. The plastic table on the terrace
has shed three legs on its way to the garden fence.
The mountains have had the sense to disappear.
It's the Celtic temperament—wind, then torrents, then remorse.
Glory rising like a curtain over distant water.
Old stonehouse, having steered us through the dark,
docks in a pool of shadow all its own.
That widening crack in the gloom is like good luck.
Luck, which neither you nor tomorrow can depend on.

Mostly Sanity and A Little Fear

In a moment of madness, we decided to attend Jon Stewart's Rally to Restore Sanity. I actually don't fully agree with his message of moderation when it comes to political views but I am a huge fan of his in general. Plus we have been wanting to get back to Washington for several years. It was enough of an excuse to spend a weekend there together as a family.

Plus, it was fun to be part of something that was generally positive in a time of heavy negativity.


On the ride down on Friday, we realized we were not alone. Many cars also traveling on 95 South sported rallying cries, such as this one - "Sanity or Bust".


We joined the crowds at the Metro station - many with funny signs that I didn't photograph..."Give peace and quiet a chance" is the only one I remember at the moment. There was a definite feeling of festivity in the air. Plus, I got in a few rows on Lucy's sweater. It was all good.


The crowds just kept coming. We found a spot that, at first, seemed far from the action but within a half-hour, we realized we were deep in the centre of things. People were quiet and respectful, but it was a little scary. And more people were coming - as far as the eye could see up the side streets. At a certain point, Dan and I decided we needed to get out of there - it was just too scary, especially with Finn and Lucy. It took a good twenty minutes to get to the edge of the crowd.

We did see some good signs.





We decided to take the whole thing over the Smithsonian Museum of American History. It contains something that I have wanted to see for years - Julia Child's kitchen.


Lucy shares my love of Julia Child.


Talk about occupying the ground you stand on...Julia Child is such an inspiration to me. I got a little teary-eyed watching the videos.





And Finnian made sure we got to see Kermit.



We also took in the Vietnam War memorial for the first time and the Lincoln Memorial - both very affecting given our current national situation with two wars and a highly divisive culture that splits, in large part, along racial and economic lines.

Washington DC has such a different feeling from, say, Ottawa. Several of the signs we saw yesterday said things about "taking it down a notch". I think it is safe to say that we will be seriously taking it down a notch in a couple of weeks as we head for our northern home. There is a lot of sanity in Canada. And that is why we love it so. Yet, it was good to experience all the craziness that is the USA too. Seeing all those thousands and thousands of people, all rallying around the cause of being reasonable...well...it was very reassuring.

Ebb and Flow

Our house has been abuzz with art making. Finnian has been working on creating a portfolio of 10-15 works that he can show to the two high schools where he is interested in applying. Although he has many drawings and part of a graphic novel he started, they want to see a diversity of media as well as examples of working from life and from imagination.

We have added watercolour and acrylic painting to our repertoire. Everyone has been getting in on the act.


It has been very fun to talk with Finnian (and Lucy) about ideas and techniques in art making. And fascinating to see how he absorbs what he hears and looks at and analyzes. Unfortunately, I may have botched up his chance to find out if he really wants to go to high school by missing an important deadline. We may be able to work around it and I do hope we can. As I mentioned, I am not especially interested in Finnian going to high school but I am especially interested in him making that choice himself. My lack of awareness of bureaucratic deadlines is definitely NOT a good reason to keep homeschooling.

So we proceed as if all is going ahead as we might wish it.

Say, with this, for example.


This is the icelandic lamb/baby alpaca fleece I purchased at Rhinebeck. A subtle, beautiful skein that is actually quite soft. I spun it two-ply, mostly lace weight.


See? (I always wanted to include one of these look-at-how-thin-I-can-spin shots.) This might be a gift but I need to do a little more inquiring of the recipient to be sure it will be a useful gift and not a pointless gift.

And there is this:


Lucy's sweater, such as I was able to knit on two subway rides yesterday. The pattern calls for 4" of ribbing. Seriously? I am a great proponent of Elizabeth Zimmerman's rule of knitting ribbing for as long as you can stand it. Four inches is about 1.5" longer than I can stand it. I have 3" here. I may have to look at the photographs again and see if it will look too weird to stop here. I mean, c'mon.

And this:


A hat in progress, made with more islandsweet yarn. I am so in love with this yarn that I am sharing out the knitting like it was candy.

And I want to remind you that I will be teaching a three-week workshop on natural dyeing and spindle spinning at Wave Hill beginning next Friday, November 5th. It will run for three consecutive Fridays from 10 am to 1 pm. The cost is $130 for the three weeks, all materials provided, including a top whorl spindle that you will be able to keep as your very own.

Join me! Because when I am not screwing up my children's future, I do love sharing the wonders of dyeing and spinning with others.

The Reluctant Talent Handler

We have been on something of a 30 Rock binge. We don't own a functioning television - we missed the digital change over completely. But we do watch things on the computer and somewhere along the line we bumped into 30 Rock. I know it is in something like it's 6th season, but did you know it is this really funny show starring Tina Fey? Really! I recommend it.

The downside seems to be that my hat model has started acting a little too much like Jenna, the self-absorbed and difficult actor that Liz (Tina Fey) has to coax and flatter to get her to do anything.

Example A:

For this hat, I was mocked not just by Lucy but by, well, by everyone in my family for making a hat that was silly looking. Then I noticed many people at the Sheep and Wool Festival wearing hats not dissimilar to this one. Only mine was made with hand dyed, handspun yarn made by islandsweet so it is extra special and fabulous. Sheesh!


Her Royal Highniness agreed to a couple of pictures. This hat is now at Calico Juno on City Island.

Example #2:

This one is made from yarn I purchased from Fall Creek Fibers. My hat model was very reluctant so I only have this slightly blurry one. Let's call it arty. Hmph.



Things perked up when we headed to Knitty City to purchase yarn for our model's birthday sweater, however. We decided to make the Central Park Hoodie. I mean, 1,000 people on ravelry can't be wrong - right?


We went with the suggested yarn in a lovely deep and tweedy red.

I took advantage of Knitty City's excellent Cascade 220 collection to stock up on yarn to finish my Ontario section of Knitting Sprawl. After letting it sit in a box for several months while the bitter taste of failure faded from my mouth, I cracked open the box to see if it was as bad as I remembered. What I found was a project that isn't a total failure, just incomplete. And I am feeling pretty excited to finish it.



Even the talent handler should be allowed her moment of drama, and to have said moment soothed by the purchase of some lovely yarn.

Spindle 7 - The Movie

Normally I would not post two times in one day - my life just isn't that exciting. But today is different! I want to share this with you immediately:

Spindle 7, the movie, is now live!



It will be embedded on my website soon but it will not be available for capture by others (sorry!). But please feel free to share the link.

I am very pleased with the result. The amazing camera work was done by Marcia Connolly, filmmaker extraordinaire from Toronto. She ruined a pair of jeans in pursuit of the best shots, even if it meant crawling around on the subway floor. Also, as a person with a much more extroverted personality, she pushed me to have yet one more encounter, even when I was ready to run off the train and cower in a corner somewhere. The editing was done by Susan Forste. She also did the interview that resulted in all of the voice over. I know for a fact that she is looking for new projects.

I hope you like it as much as I do.

Talkity, Talk, Talk

On Wednesday evening, I gave a presentation to an undergraduate class at NYU, in the photography department. It was a class called Processes and Practices (or something like that) led by a friend and artist, Erika DeVries. Although photography is peripheral to my work, I am heavily into process over product so Erika thought it might be good for her students to see it. She also asked me to teach a little yoga practice at the beginning, which was kind of fun - we only did a small amount of asana since most people really were not dressed for it and the floor was less than clean. Then we did nadi shodana, a pranayama exercise and a very brief meditation.

After their bodies and minds were primed, I started blathering about my work. Maybe I shouldn't say blathering but I often feel a little nauseous after giving talks about my work, which leads me to believe it might not be so good to spend that much time talking about myself. In any case, talk I did. It was a four-hour class! I chose projects that were especially process oriented - The House Museum, The Knitted Mile, Spindle 7, House Study/Handmade, Knitting Sprawl and Unconditional Yes. See my website for information if you are curious.

The students were lively and asked great questions. Erika had asked them to read the first chapter of the wonderful book titled The Gift by Lewis Hyde in preparation for my visit. So they were definitely keyed into my explorations of gift culture and of the whole notion of giving freely. As photographers, they were a little taken aback by such object-less work, or work in which the results disappear. But I could see some were intrigued. After my talk, I participated in looking at the student's work-in-progress. They are all making semester-long projects. As someone who received a "D" in photography in art school, I definitely don't pretend to understand the technical side of taking pictures so I was a little out of my league there. I was so impressed at how they shared their thoughts about each other's work openly, honestly and constructively. It was really refreshing and encouraging to see their work, feel their energy, and be immersed in that atmosphere.

There were some surprises too. One woman who spent my whole talk looking at the clock and yawning, came up to me afterwards and made a point of thanking me and asking if I teach yoga somewhere nearby. It was a good reminder that you can't know how your work will affect someone. Isn't that one of the great mysteries (and attractions) of making art?

And so this isn't a totally text-only entry, here is a photograph I dug out from my House Museum files for the talk.


It was from 2007, when a group of local residents worked with Marlene MacCallum to create photographic installations in THM. Dorothy King from the local CBC radio station is interviewing Midge Jones, one of the residents. Now that I am looking at this picture again, I realize what a photographic nightmare it is - back lit and poorly framed. No wonder one of the students asked me if I ever considered using photography to document my projects - disasters such as this clearly didn't count as "photography" in his book!