So, if you are
too tired to speak,
sit next to me,
because I, too,
am fluent in silence.
 
- R. Arnold

​I take the seashell from my jeans pocket and rub my fingers across its silken, indented surface, shallow as my own open hand. 

This chalice, subtly shaped by some divine intelligence to allow water to flow in and out with ease, is what I aspire to become: a vessel through which feelings can pour in and spill right out again, without all the grasping and holding that obstructs the flow. 

"​Can I be as serene and simple as this bleached shell, rubbed smooth by wind and water, 

​receiving and releasing, filling and emptying and filling again, 

eternally receptive to the currents of life?"
- Katrina Kenison,
​The Gift of an ordinary day

​I was sad all day, and why not.
There I was, books piled on both sides of the table,
​paper stacked up, words falling off my tongue.

​The robins had been a long time singing, and now it was beginning to rain.
What are we sure of?
Happiness isn’t a town on a map, or an early arrival,
​or a job well done, but good work ongoing. 

​Which is not likely to be the trifling around with a poem.
Then it began raining hard,
​and the flowers in the yard were full of lively fragrance.

​You have had days like this, no doubt.
And wasn’t it wonderful, finally, to leave the room?
​Ah, what a moment!

​As for myself, I swung the door open.
And there was the wordless, singing world.
​And I ran for my life.
—Mary Oliver, Work, Sometimes

You cut a length of thread, pull the end through the eye of a needle and knot one end.

You take a piece of fabric and push your needle into one side of the cloth, then pull it out on the other until it reaches the knot.

You leave a space. You push your needle back thru the fabric and pull it out on the other side. 

You continue until you have made a line, or a curve, or a wave of stitches or simply a mark.

​That is all there is: thread, needle, fabric, and the pattern the thread makes. 

This is sewing.
.............................................................................................

Words from the book….THE THREADS OF LIFE
 A History of the World through the Eye of a Needle
CLARE HUNTER

There is a time when you need to refocus on the task in hand... with a few words and great images, it is a thought process and a journey.

Without thought, there is no art, when there is no art there is a huge hole...

​

                                                                                "I am not old she said,
                                                   I am not old she said..."
                  But the music continues to play, swirling with the first Opus and gathering pace                                                     as it comes to the finale.

With notes in a precious book, tis time to reflect and move on....