Quilt-Making & Body-Making

The Making of the Quilt of My Self

I woke up with the urge to make a quilt. My desire is not daunted by the concern that I do not know the first thing about quilting, that I can barely sew. In my highly strung mind, that part comes later, after I’ve had my rocks off designing the quilt. It occurs to me that I do love the process the most, where I fall short (literally) is that I abandon the process too often before manifestation—execution of the design or idea—is underway. I’ve gorged on brain candy, now I have to get going to find my next fix, so sayonara!

While there might be nothing ‘wrong’ with sampling as I go, my active and relentless pursuit of experiences and knowledge is exactly like a junky possessed by her addiction. Just in the last 10 minutes I’ve tried to read and write 4 different things at the same time. Is this how my mind naturally works, because it can? Forcing it to stay with only one thing at a time, I must admit, does not always feel the right thing to do. If I ‘go with the flow’ of how my mind wants to go, reaching out and picking up all the sensory input coming its way like a spider sitting in the hub of its great web, and stay grounded in maturity and clarity so I can discern what’s relevant and what’s not, so the decisions I make are wise and for good. The spider needs to be tuned in to the sacred and the divine at all times, that’s all.

So don’t worry any more about how to be, do one thing or many, or what to be, designer or production artist, just surrender my whole being to the divine, and stay open, relaxed, and spontaneous.

I still want to design and make a quilt though.
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Upon asking myself (a set of questions found on a website):

1) Where do you feel victimized in your life? Where do you feel life has “done” you wrong?

2) Can you see places where you choose to keep yourself small and avoid taking the next step in your life by hanging onto your feelings of victimization?

3) What would your life look like if your did not feel victimized? How would you move into your day? What steps would you take?

“You choose to keep yourself small” socked me in the gut, again, still. All of my life I’ve been told that I am small, as in physically. What most people don’t know, though some do, is that it happens to match how I see myself, how I feel inside. Even now, when I know a cover is just a cover, it’s not the book. Did I buy into the belief that I am small so I don’t have to risk bigger challenges, or had my vulnerability and fear of the spotlight made my smallness necessary? This is the tide that bounces from one shore to the other, and in between is the fathomless ocean of my fear.

I don’t think I can even answer question #3 because I’ve never been without this fear. I have always been small, felt small. But it’s not exactly true, is it? When I was born I was a good size baby, and got chubbier quickly until I was like a fat little buddha, with three creases in my arms instead of the usual two. I have photographs to prove this, even if I’m not all that keen on showing them. Did I chunk up to protect myself, as I know now most people do? I was only ever thin when I was feeling my bravest, and physically free. Hmmm, that means I don’t feel completely free even now, as I’m sporting a fair bit of excess fat on my belly.

It is true that I feel more free mentally, emotionally, and spiritually now than at any other time in my life, but it is also true that I do not feel a corresponding free-ness physically. I am healthy, that is, without disease symptoms, but I don’t feel free in my movement, poise, carriage. I don’t feel graceful, agile, vital, focused, at ease, safe—in my physical body. The world still feels like a big, bad place to little me, frought with possible danger.

It occurs to me that my body has seldom known love, pure, unbridled giving of love without judgment or reservation. I’m not used to giving nor receiving physically. Mostly, I am awkward with my body.

So, smallness, what to do? How to become the size I truly am, inside out, throughout my being? I see a small circle of light shining on me, my smallness, alone on the dark stage. As the light grow bigger, I unfold myself, stretch out my arms, get to my feet and plant them wide and firm, lift my face to the light and look into the distance, even if it is only darkness I see at first. But my real vision is turned in, I am only seeing my physical self move. It is moving into my own version of African dance, solid contact and clear cut moves. All I can feel is my body.

I have begun to experience this purely physical feeling when I do my half-hour yin yoga sessions at home. Even though I’m not a complete stranger to yoga, this is the first time I’ve felt this way.

As I fill myself with this body sense, this totally in the body feeling, through yoga or whatever else, my sense of self will grow as well, until my smallness is just another baby picture, in some album of my past.

Today seems to be a day for revisiting some old places on the healing spiral, a day of deepening into that healing that came, that began some time ago. It is a good day.