Eat, Pray, Love - This Is the Meaning of Life?

First, let me say I consider myself a fairly intelligent individual. It's not that I'm arrogant or superior about my acumen. I don't claim to have any ability equivalent to Stephen Hawking or Einstein. I'm no dummy either.

Secondly, I'm a voracious reader. There are always a few books I'm in the process of reading at any given time. Currently, I'm in the middle of one of the Florence King essay compilations, a biography of Abigail Adams, the letters of Abigail Adams and John Adams (I'm working on those concurrently), as well as a couple of pulp novels that have no particular literary value at all. I just use them as void fillers. In the past two and a half months, I've also read Jane Austen's Emma, three other Florence King books, both The Kite Runner and A Thousand Splendid Suns (by the same author and I recommed them highly), The Red Tent, a Christopher Moore book (whose title escapes me at the moment), The Count of Monte Christo ( for the innumerable time), Friday Night Knitting Club, a collection of O Henry stories (again), and several others, including the latest Laurell K Hamilton.

I recently read Elizabeth Gilbert's Eat Pray Love, which is unusual for me for a couple of reasons. I don't really care what everyone else is reading, and I don't follow the best sellers as a matter of course. Also, I'm not into the whole self-help, 'here's the way to find yourself' thing. Why I actually picked this book up is a mystery. Maybe it has something to do with WHERE she went as opposed to WHY. Her travels took her to Italy, India and Bali, places I happen to find fascinating, and perhaps that is what lead to my interest. At any rate, I picked it up, plunked down my money and bought it. Once purchased, I slogged my way through it, regardless of whether I liked it or not. Rare is it for me to put a book down in total disgust before reading it through. I gave this book the same courtesy. I read it, and I did enjoy reading it, although it did get a bit tedious at times. It was a nice little book about one woman's personal journey to self-discovery.

Do I find it revolutionary and groundbreaking?

No.

This is where I'm having such difficulty. This book has becoming some sort of textbook on how to discover yourself. The author has been on Oprah where much to-do was made, there are reading group guides, the reviews tend to be over the top and I just don't get it. There's just not that much there. It's not an instruction manual. It's not even really a "how-to". It's more of a "year in the life".

Let me back-track a bit here and say, I do understand, fully, a person's need to search for personal or higher awareness. I totally 'get' what Gilbert was about and what she was doing. I don't necessarily agree with her methodology, but I understand the exercise. But, I (and from what I understand, she, too) feel that the journey for this self discovery, or discovery of a higher power, is so totally personal, there's no way to to emulate her journey. Every journey is unique and must follow a unique path.

Besides, we know the answer is 42. However, if you have any ideas that may enlighten me, feel free to post them.

One more small, totally unrelated note. I received word that two people important to me and mine are very sick. Dr. Lucy, whom I've referred to in this blog before has some bizarre, weird thing that I don't understand at the moment, since I haven't talked to her directly as of yet. All I know is she went to the hospital, where it was discovered there were blood clots in her lungs. She's now at home on bed rest. Secondly, The Things' Assistant Principal gave birth to a baby boy earlier in the week. The baby is healthy and fine. After delivery, something happened, and Parks had a heart attack, necessitating open heart surgery and a triple-bypass. For a while, she was being kept in a drug-induced coma, but the latest I heard just this afternoon was she is to be moved to a private room next week. This is really good news for both of my friends, but they are not out of the woods yet, so to speak. So, if you could keep these people in your thoughts and prayers, it would be much appreciated.

These butterflies are the Gulf Fritillary and the Black Swallowtail, both in my yard over the past week.

It's a Gift

I know it's been a while. I have several items I can share now that the holidays are over. Most of these were gifted to family members, so I had to wait until after the holidays.

This is a shawl I made for The Mother. It was from Victorian Lace Today and is called Ruby Scarf. I used 1 skein (about 440 yrds) of Handmaiden's Sea Silk in Mermaid and used all but about 5 yards of the stuff. It was a really lovely and drapey shawl look. The final blocked measurements were 13.5" x 75". It was one big scarf....more like a stole, really. Despite the apparent details of the pattern, it was actually a rather easy knit. The 'problem', if you want to call it that, was the yarn. It's very 'slippery', and I spent a lot of time keeping the yarn from sliding off the bamboo needles.

Next items are the hat, scarf and fingerless gloves I made for the sister. I found a pattern for a Hurry Up Scarf on Spindle and Wheel, and I incorporated the lace pattern into the hat and gloves. The yarn is my favorite, Blue Sky Alpaca Silk, in black. I think the three items took a total of 3.5 skeins (about 500 yrds).

The last item today is the Noro Hat I made for The Sister's boyfriend. I didn't follow the pattern, exactly. I sort of saw one and figured out the design before I knew there was a genuine pattern. So, I'm linking to the pattern, but it's not exactly the same as how I knit the hat. It took a little over a skein of Noro, and I can't remember at the moment which colorway it was. Noro has all those numbers anyway, and I bought several at one time.

The new item on the needles for me at the moment is a group knit I'm doing with some folks on Ravelry. I'm designing and leading a group knitting a mandala. It's a circular knit, and right now, all I've completed (and completed designing) is the center, but it's a start. It's been a tricky balance, as I didn't want the knit to be too boring, but it needed to be simple enough to practice mindfulness or meditation while knitting (the purpose of the group and the group knit). I've gotten a lot of positive remarks from the group, and that's been very reassuring that I'm going in the right direction. Now, to implement the second phase, which is the outer spiral.

If I'm Talking, You Should Be Taking Notes.

On Ravelry, I started a group called Into the Labyrknit. It's short description says: Do you use labyrinths, candles, prayer beads, and of course, knitting or crocheting as tools for meditation and spiritual enlightenment? Share your ways to find peace and mindfulness in the journey. Primarily a Christian group, all faiths are welcome.

At any rate, there hasn't been a lot of chatter in the group, so it's mostly been me posting things. The other day, I got a request from one of the members of the group (CoffeeYarn) if I minded being quoted in her blog. I told her, have at it, and I was glad that someone was enjoying what I posted. Truthfully, at this point, what I'm posting is more what I like, since I'm not really getting a lot of feedback. Apparently, my post about Advent hit home with a her though.
In my mind, and I posted some of this yesterday, Advent is about waiting. One of my posts to the group said this.

In my life, Advent is the perfect example of being mindful and
meditating.
We are expected to wait and prepare. We reflect and open our
hearts.

What can you hear if you listen with your
heart?

I then realized that I spend a lot of time on the group talking about being mindful, which is really a Buddhist concept. That doesn't mean it can't have applications elsewhere, and I wondered if the group really knew what I was talking about, so I posted this for the next day's meditation (liberally lifted from beliefnet.com).

To understand mindfulness, imagine yourself doing something very simple,
something that doesn't arouse a compelling interest--like, say, eating an apple.
You probably eat your apple not paying attention to how it smells, how it
tastes, or how it feels in your hand. Because of the ways we're conditioned, we
don't usually notice the quality of our attention. Done this way, eating the
apple is not a fulfilling experience.

So you blame the apple. You might think, if only I had a banana, I'd be
happy. So you get a banana, but eat it the same way, and still there's not a
lot of fulfillment. And then you think, if only I had a mango--and go to
great expense and some difficulty getting a mango. But it's the same thing
all over again. We don't pay attention to what we have or what we're doing.
As a result, we seek more and more intensity of stimulation to try to
rectify what seems unfulfilling.

So, are you being mindful of YOUR
apple?

The last thing I did was to challenge the group. I challenged them to bring some mindfulness to their knitting/crocheting/spinning (after all, it is a fiber site). I gave them some loose instructions to do the following on Monday afternoon:

I've spent a good deal of time considering the season of Advent, which is big on reflection and anticipation. So, I've come up with an easy, short term project that I want everyone to experiment with, no matter what you're working on.

Here's the plan. We're all going to continue working on whatever projects we currently have going. Work at your
normal pace, doing your normal fiber thing. The only "new" thing you're going to add is a couple of mantra type words.

For any knit stitches, the word you use, either mentally or verbally, if you like, is
"wait". If you crochet, I think a single crochet should work for this.

For any purl stitches, the word is "listen". If you crochet, perhaps double crochet may work for this.

For spinners. If you single treadle, use "wait". If you double treadle, use "listen".

Do this for some time. When you feel so led, come back here and let us know how this worked for you. Tell us how you used it, how you learned, what you learned, how it guided you, etc. Also, good and/or not-so-good responses are acceptable. The whole point of this is to see what works and what doesn't.

I haven't heard any responses from the group just yet, but it's early. I can tell you what I've found so far. I almost get hypnotised saying "wait". That is until one of The Things come tearing through the room wanting something. But still, there does seem to be some basis to this. So, if you're reading this, I challenge you as well. If you don't have fiber or knitting or whatever, choose a really mundane chore...washing the dishes, sweeping, mopping..something with repetitive movement like that. See if it keeps you centered and in the moment as well.

A Little Fiber Is Good for You

I've been knitting relentlessly. Ceaselessly. Tirelessly.

Okay, not so much the last one. I still need copious amounts of sleep. But I have been knitting a lot, when I haven't been playing with my brand new toy. (No, it's NOT a personal product, Dr. Lucy.) I'll show you more of the toy on another post. Today is for fiber.

I knitted these Noro hats some time ago, but just got around to washing and blocking.

Because knitting and washing and blocking is infinitely more enjoyable than spending the day after Thanksgiving in Atlanta with Necropolis and The Things doing Christmas shopping. You can not imagine the horror that was my life that day. All I can say was by the end, on the ride home, I could do a very lifelike and realistic version of Madeline Khan from Clue. "Yes, I did it, I killed Yvette. I hated her, so much... That... it... it... flam - flames. Flames, on the side of my face, heathing... breathle - , heathing breaths. Heathing breath... "

So, unless it's online, it won't be bought by me, except for some toy purchases for The Things as it gets closer to Christmas. We've (read: I) have also decided that we're actually going to observe Advent as it is intended this year. That means Christmas will be observed, well, on Christmas. Not before. No rushing around. We will take our time getting there. We will reflect and enjoy the journey. And, to be even more off the beaten path, we're forgoing traditional ornaments. I'll putting the lights on the tree to night, but after that, every night, after lighting the advent wreath, The Things will put a few origami peace cranes on the tree each night. We may string some popcorn as well. I'll put up the nativity, but that's about it. At Christmas, that is, December 25...THAT'S when we'll celebrate. And, we'll get 12 Days of it, all the way to Epiphany.

This is a shot of our Advent wreath we made a church yesterday.