OnSlenderThreads

Last class taught, performance encored, stage struck, props stored . . . well, how about the passions, how about forty years of teaching awareness and deeper living through dance . . . how do I fold and tuck them away? How do I tell the images dancing in my head it’s time to stop, time to be done, over, kaput? “You’re hereby retired!” No way would the images curtsy. “Fan those passion embers, Kay, fuel those flames!”

Swinging in my garden, being lulled by moonbeams and twilight critter music, I pulled my shawl closer stroking a lapis touchstone with my fingers. Like a bolt of lightning, I remembered what I’d taught for years, ‘there’s more than one way to do the same thing’. How many times have I asked that of dancers? “Well, now you do it, Kay!” So I descended into pondering gathering my favorite things into a new expression that kept shifting like a kaleidoscope. First one shape, then another, and another . . .

Finally the parts morphed as Mindfulness Mantles* and ‘tiny quiets’** emerged. Heart tools to embrace, soothe, and enfold one’s edges while journeying within . . . that wisdom place inside one’s self, where one’s answers await. A place of sheltering during storms, cocooning into butterfly flight, blooming petal by petal, gliding in emptiness, seeing with eagle eyes, walking luminous rainbows, blazing in refining fires, shining like a star, dancing one’s essence . . . (to say transformation through metaphors erases the magic and wonder, so I won’t say that ever!). They are comforting, healing tools for soul growing . . . tools for flying into daily life.

Oh! And they are wearable fiber art ~ beautiful shawls and sacred wraps . . . mindfully, tenderly crafted by me.

I’m a wife, Mother, and Nonna to two curious adventuresome redheads. The Deep South is home where the pace is slow and easy . . . where stories thrive as the earth rises to meet you. My studio is my home surrounded by a lush shade garden. It’s difficult to know where one ends and the other begins. Here one rests in places of quiet repose communicating with the flora and fauna (including our recently rescued greyhound) . . . swings, sky chairs, benches, fountains, a babbling brook, an ancient fishpond, and a star tree . . . Can you feel the heartbeats pulsing through each piece of wearable fiber art!

* Mindfulness Mantles ~ a healing shawl, ancient shielding cloak, a cocoon, body wings, mesh encircling your fire, sign igniting your lineage, a sanctuary. Created in silence with intention in my garden, a place for holy pause.
** ‘tiny quiets’ ~ mini Mindfulness Mantles