The moment I saw Francoise Danoy of Aroha Knits' design called Te_Whenua, Maori te reo for "The Land," I knew I wanted to knit this up to support an incredible ecovillage project in Senegal focused on revitalizing and reclaiming indigenous ecosystems called REDES. Francoise graciously gave me permission to use her design in this manner.  
 
This shawl was a joy to knit, is soft and light as a feather, made from a Merino wool and black alpaca blend for the main color, and a few hand-dyed Merino wool samples I had in my stash. You can own this as an art piece for a wall or wear it draped around the neck for warmth on cool days. Wingspan: 80 in/203 cm, top to bottom 37 in/94 cm.
 
To enter drawing: 
Step 1) Go to Context.org to make a minimum $10 donation. 
 
Step 2) Email a copy of your receipt on behalf of REDES to waterwomanknits@gmail.com.  
 
Step 3) For every multiple of $10 you donate, I will enter you that many times into a drawing for the shawl, so one entry for $10, two entries for $20, etc. 
 
Step 4) On February 28th, last day of the month, I will randomly select a winner, contact you by email to request your mailing address, and pop it in the mail anywhere to your door!

Yay, I moved! (Again).

Deep gratitude to my parents who took me in and allowed me to continue working during two months of nowhere to live despite pandemic, because my isolated lifestyle pays sometimes. ; )

Meet my new beautiful neighbors. Their owner saw the rental ad I placed and said she was about to post an ad that looked identical to mine. Perfect fit! Not only have I landed adjacent to an established organic farm, but my child can have stability of remote school for a semester. In summer I can contribute labor to a garden to grow my own veggies (or walk next door to the farm's CSA (community-supported agriculture). 

Learnings:

• Family is immeasurable, however you define family in your universe.
• Sitting at the base of a tree is the fastest way to heal my body and mind.
• Now I know I can endure half a year of income loss, thousands in medical bills not paid by insurance, and work hard enough to make up much of the difference by year's end.
• Working from home 15 years has been the best blessing for these times. 
• Listening to and retelling a stranger's story in first person is a powerful way to see life reflected in others.
  Thanks Narrative 4!
• Ending the year homeless through no fault of your own is not the end of the world when you have caring people to take you in while you search for a third place to live in 15 months. My dream is to provide a space adult daughter can complete her college year remotely.
• You're never too old to go back to school. 2021 may be the year you start that biology degree online.
• Spirit is everywhere to call upon and ask for guidance and abundance. 
• Knitting copper wire LED lights is a fun challenge to bring light into dark days. 

The Woolly Bear caterpillar in the first image below becomes an Isabella tiger moth in spring. But first it can freeze solid up to -90 degrees Fahrenheit if need be. Now that's resilience! (And metabolic anti-freeze). 

Today, a wonderful article on calm from knitting. Once we can sit side by side without restrictions, this article is inspiration to resume my intention to teach beginning knitters offline. 

October was full, albeit without a blog post. I threw myself into several volunteer endeavors that led to heart-opening connections with people from around the globe, like Conservation Conversations at my alma mater and Narrative 4 facilitator training. Story exchanges were such a powerful experience both as participant and facilitator, I found myself regretting not finishing my teaching degree way back when so that I could have a pool of folks to work with for future exchanges. I continued meeting with a small group in support of REDES and will soon have "The Land" (Te Whēnua) shawl ready to auction on their behalf. I ended the week of Halloween or Samhain in a small group discussion about Spirit with the author of Sand Talk, my favorite book still in process. (I have partially finished reading quite a few books since my English major days - something about great intentions and speed reading?). 

It dawns on me, along with distance walking and knitting, connecting with folks across cultural boundaries is what really makes my heart hum, especially when people discover in one another's stories some common feeling more than thinking, some common aspiration for what life on planet Earth can be. It's as if a part of me has always resisted the powerful cultural indoctrination of my culture as viewing oneself as primarily a consumer inside status stratification or money, and a compassionate human being connected to the whole web of life secondarily or as afterthought. 

I also finished up 6 months volunteering with Organic Farm School, to which I am endlessly grateful for feeding me luscious produce through most of the pandemic thus far and allowed me to connect with my community off screen. ​ Consider contacting them if you wish to be trained in small-scale sustainable practice farming for a first or second career.  

Starting off September with a physical move to a lovely rental that can house my adult child if needed, the month has involved a tremendous amount of change and patience in equal measure. My favorite thing about the new space is it came with built-in bookshelves and trees outside, and its skylights function as a sundial (when a person can see the sun, which has been blotted out by smoke for days). I can watch stars on cloudless nights from inside!
​
My least favorite thing is an initiation of sorts that seems to occur in almost any place I've ever moved. First my rent check never arrived via USPS to my landlord and upended my finances when my bank put a seven-day hold on a refund. Next, it turned out a giant community of wasps liked the house too and was building a nest in the ceiling. After spending ten days hoping they didn't spread beyond the one room they were in, that is now taken care of and peace of mind has returned. 

Heartbroken over wildfires in beloved Oregon, a place of a sort of pilgrimage and sanctuary since age 11 when I saw its coast for the first time on a family roadtrip, went to college there and solo hiked much of the OC, I would like to do anything I can to support those who are uprooted. Up North in Washington, every breath I take, I envision inhaling the loss of animals, plants, humans, belongings and exhaling hope and healing. The wildfires cover the entire coast, but if anyone would like to help Oregon specifically, here is the best collection of support networks I've seen in a single link:  Ways to Help During Oregon Wildfires.

In photos are some of the projects I'm working on or have finished over the past month. Patience is required in great measure these days, and I am wishing for all who need support to receive it, and all our collective grief join us in some way larger than our divisive politics.

Two books I can't recommend enough for these times. One for adults, one for children of any age. ​

Enjoying the soothing power of garter stitch on my nerves these days. Nearly done with Ysolda's shawl and creating one of my own as I go imagining waters of a summer beach.

Now that my workload has recently returned to pre-pandemic levels (whew!), I've enrolled in Betsan Corkhill's magnificent course on Therapeutic Knitting so I can learn how to better use the gift my grandmother gave me to help others in the future. 

May you be well.

Honoring International Day of the World's Indigenous Peoples today. 

A member of the International Council of Indigenous Grandmothers, Grandmother Flordemayo's seed-saving work is supported by Waterwoman Knits. I learned a squash is growing from 800-year-old seed in her family's gardens today. I find listening to her words and guided visualizations healing. Perhaps you may too. 

​Sitting at the base of a tree for half a day and knitting heals my overactive screen head mind. Slowly my joy of knitting is returning. I hope making Ysolda's shawl pattern will function as a gateway to resume my own design work. 

Having my livelihood pared back mid-50s after living on a hamster wheel of survival productivity for decades has been a blessing of sorts. It has caused me to open my mind to view other directions I might take my life energy and what I might learn. Partially unemployed, I'm taking free coding classes because they are offered to me free. But unless I can use what I learn in support of a nonprofit that is focused on earth regeneration, my heart is not in being a computer coder. 

I feel guided by my inner compass to follow threads wherever they lead. Volunteering at Organic Farm School in work trade for best veggies I've ever tasted, finding ways to support an ecovillage project in the African Sahel, adopting a trail near me to be able to give back to the woods that keep my mental health intact. I do not know if I'll ever earn a "living" wage in my lifetime, but I know I am supported to be here. And there are many ways to thrive that have nothing to do with money and everything to do with energy exchange with the natural world and Earth's intelligence.

I support any actions taken to protect and fight for all beings' freedom to breathe, and I bow to earthworms keeping soil thriving under humanity's feet. 

During June 2020, my family did. Sort of. 

Each week since pandemic times began, my nuclear family with additions (partners, children) has been holding weekly Zoom calls. It's been a wonderful way to have (at least for me) even more communication than prior (my blindspot is initiating contact), and replace our in-person family gatherings for 2020. 

My niece birthed the idea for a group of "TED talks" or really a "Teach-O-Rama" for the celebrating resilience occasion of my dad's 80th birthday. After all, what would a retired professor like more than to listen to lectures? The experience need not happen for a birthday and you definitely do not need a professor in the group, but it was such a fun way to share with one another that I thought I'd write a post to encourage anyone else who may be in Zoom-ville doldrums to try it and see what happens. 

Step 1:  Each person chooses a topic of interest or passion to them that they could comfortably talk about for minimum of 5 minutes. Some of ours went way longer ... in a good way!

Step 2:  Take a week or two to plan your sharing, teaching, demonstration. 

Step 3:  Agree upon a time to meet for 1-2 hours, depending on how long your presentations are. 

Step 4:  Write up a schedule with presentation titles and share your screen at start of gathering with said schedule. 

Step 5:  Zoom it up and give one person at a time your full attention while they share their passion project or expertise or whatever they feel compelled to share. Use PowerPoint, or a photo slideshow on your screen, or just you talking with a cardboard cutout behind you and a paper mouse arrow, as one of our lovely presenters did. Endless possibilities.

To give an idea of the topic range, one person shared about values important in teaching, one about data compression and GIFs, one about library classification systems, one about rules of writing four-part harmony in music, one about following genetic information from DNA to RNA to proteins with computer coding, one on the importance of the ethos of creativity in reimagining a more compassionate world, and a few heart sharings that were personal contributions more than teachings, since it was a birthday after all. 

For me the "TED talk" experiment was super powerful for several reasons.

• Listening allowed me to appreciate each family member in a completely new way ... and I've known a few of them for over 5 decades now.
• Compared to many family gatherings which often contain a lot of crosstalk and overtalk or simultaneous side conversations, fully focusing on one person's sharing at a time allowed each person to be heard in a way I had not experienced before. 
• My mind was blown by learning information new to me, even if I did not share the same passions. 
• I fully intend to do a how to knit tutorial at a future gathering after I mail everyone supplies, because when I asked if there was any interest, they said, Bring it on! (my words)
• Participating in this memory for me has been a highlight of the past few months.
• It seems most folks have many more than one area of interest or passion they could share about or research enough to create a small presentation. You do not need a ton of education or some fancy job title to teach another person what you've learned or care about from your time spinning around on spaceship Earth. Anything from plants to animals to music or an artist you love, sky's the limit.

Try it and see how it goes for you in any group, family or not.

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I discovered a review I made of compassion years ago, and it speaks to me loudly in this time, so I share it here. An interesting exercise to try, asking yourself, when are you compassionate? When is it difficult to be compassionate? 

I am typically compassionate when:

• I see someone wounded or vulnerable.
• I see injustice happening to others, one form of which to me is judgment of a person based on something external or need to categorize a person without acknowledging their heart/mind.
• I am dealing with elements of the natural world.

 
I find it difficult to be compassionate when:

• I feel someone is attacking my efforts to share my heart with the world or to process my own questions about being human here now. 
• I witness someone in position of power using that power for their own gain above anyone else.
• Someone has harmed me or is harming me. The transition from wounded victim to living in power of compassionate forgiveness is what I strive for.

Compassion is most needed for self whenever I block myself from extending compassion to others out of fear.  Awareness of my wounds without picking at that woundedness like a scab, alongside awareness of how every human on the planet is wounded allows me to hold great compassion for both myself and others.  Everyone wants to feel safe and comfortable in their own skin. People may have dysfunctional ways of going about getting that feeling of safety and comfort.

I have witnessed countless people practicing compassion in action, and I am grateful for their models.  (Knitting in action). I am passionate about both distance walking and knitting as secular spiritual practices where I find personal peace and methods to show compassion for others.  I have raised thousands of dollars for people through walking prayer. 

*** 

In this moment of June 2020, everything I can say or do feels inadequate to rethink my place inside a racist structural system, the pain so vast. So I am now listening to strong voices of those expressing generational trauma and oppression. America has its own unique form of racism that began before the country found its identity. Wall Street is literally built on mass graves. Hitler even took his "bible" from America's breed of self-proclaimed superiority (Madison Grant). We then took on an anti-racist identity in fighting in WWII. And yet, we did not look in the mirror until enough is enough and the world slowed by pandemic allowed us a moment of clarity that feels different than any before.  

One tiny bit of action I am taking shamefully so late, is to join in support of the NAACP and other social justice groups. Decades ago I completed my English degree thesis on African-American poetry, specifically Gwendolyn Brooks' writings signed off on by a teacher who was a close friend of Ralph Ellison. I lived among a diverse group of POC after college who accepted me warmly as their awkward, white friend. I know exactly where I was when Nelson Mandela was freed and South Africa's truth and reconciliation trials began. I became a literacy center tutor for five years following the poem I wrote below at age 20, a few years before Portland systematically drained black neighborhoods and became one of the whitest cities in the entire US. (I do not mean to suggest illiteracy is linked with race, historical access to education system is though). 

What I ask myself in this moment is, where have I been since then? Yes, I've been single parenting, working 60+ hrs/week for years, but in my work and education I also had privilege to have access to information some others didn't outside my social bubble. And yet I did not feel empowered, no, take the time to act on that information. It feels like I've been hugely distracted and disassociated from the experience of others based on my choices and geographic buffers, i.e., white neighborhoods. In this moment, the light is shone brightly on the truth that I live in a different reality, yes, the same country, but a different reality than black folks, as no matter how high up the corporate ladder, when out on the street living lives, it's a different reality from me. And yet, our fates are deeply connected. This James Baldwin clip from 1968 is just stunning when heard in light of today, more than five decades later. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dO2kwzJ_Zg4

I do know what it's like to be low income all my adult life, but I don't know what it means to not have family able to support me when the going gets unbearable (privilege), don't know what it is to live judged as a POC/BIPOC, and even though I learned much historical context, I am ashamed it has taken me this long to see what is true and how much work I need to do.  

Two Top Buttons Fell

Portland's public reading room is shelter from
Oregon's cold winter days;
downtown where you are
always trying to get up.

My high-back, hardwood chair
brings me to the edge of Medgar Evers' life story,
marching on Selma's streets with N double ACP.
Seeing people overcome the hound dogs' bark,
reading words of freedom-love, life-love, blood-love.

Your tired scarf and maroon wool hat
frame your pride-lined face.
Across the broad yellow table,
your brown Salvation coat gapes at me
where two top buttons fell.
Veins in your thumb strain as you move a page.
Your eyes look only down over Time magazine glare.
Glossy red runs there between dark skin
and South African dirt.

I want to teach you to see the words
on that shelf behind your back.
Bright lights in this room
remind us to belong out of the cold;
only closing time pushes you back
to the frosted bench to wait.

Every day you understand
how to sit near the words
and meditate on full color.

No story can explain 
how you know that blood speaks.

One of these days, I'll get back to blog on a love of knitting, but in the last few months what sustains me is nature connection, so I am sharing yet more images of the natural world. I cannot explain why my knitting mojo has left for a few months, but a major lesson of this time is kindness to self and leaning into what is. I deeply appreciate you know who you are for checking back in with me on a weekend about the Maker Circles. I'm game anytime anyone would like to join me, and I will be inspired to knit a few rows. Find me on Insta or waterwomanknits@gmail.com if you want me to send out a reminder and a link/password. 

Ferns are among the oldest surviving plants on Earth, and they have always called to me. When asked to seek a name that nature gives me in an eco-art course, my birth name fit right inside. 

This week, I felt in heaven walking among this season's spirals of new life in the sun filtering through the woods. And as I leaned in close to look at the spirals unfurling, I felt I was staring into scrolls of ancient wisdom of the universe.