Sunday 17 March 2013

NEW CLOTHES FROM OLD - 2 & 3 ..

I seem to be becoming addicted to playing with my sewing machine,  and great fun it is too.  Why stick with clothes you are not happy with when you can change them ?? Get out the scissors & cut off what you don't like!
That's what I did with the t-shirt below,  I snipped its little sleeves off.   I love the blue colour,  that's really why I bought it,  and for the cool drawing by Jean-Michel Basquiat,  which I take to be of himself.


Well,  JMB,  I loved your drawings,  but not the kind of texts in your paintings that were like this one,  doing poor me about people with lotsa money...  so I covered them up & got a nice little pocket into the bargain.   I hope you like looking at the African drawings which I put there instead,  and the fun I had with the shapes from t-shirt 2.  That was another real favourite which had worn too thin,  and was another lovely blue,  so I am pleased with the colour mix too.  Here's the back ..


For the next one I went back to the fleece material left from my 1st garment (2 posts ago)  and used the central part of the blue piece,  with red additions this time.  Another useful pocket,  of course,


and on the back a lovely design from another old favourite t-shirt  the rest of which will be in the rag bag.  Alas I dont know who JG is,  but her initials are still on it,  and the title - Lapwing.  So this garment has a name  too.



I have already been asked to make a garment for someone else,  and offered some more old clothes,  this seems all set to escalate..  watch this space !

Wednesday 6 March 2013

Interfaith Ministry

I said I would post next about Interfaith - so here I am,  1/4 of the way through training to be an Interfaith Minister with the One Spirit Interfaith Foundation.  This means a w/e in London about once a month with a wonderful group of fellow students,  mentors & tutors going through all manner of experiential learning processes, looking at many of the great faith paths /  religions,  and learning about an inspiring form of deep listening called Spiritual Counselling.  This will lead on to creating ceremonies in the 2nd year of the training too.  

It was this latter aspect that drew me in initially,  as an opportunity to explore ritual & ceremony further,  I have so enjoyed helping create ceremony to mark important moments in people's lives already.  I still look forward to that element of the training,  but I am engrossed in the beauty of finding out about so may ways of honouring Spirit in our lives, that I am in no hurry to get to the next bit of curriculum.  And I am reading so many wonderful books - many of you know what a happy bookworm I am..

A friend whose experience was one of my inspirations to do this training spoke of 'having layers peeled away' , and this is certainly my experience too.   It confirms for me that  opening to the Divine is & always has been at the centre of my life;    but now I am learning to recognise how I have ducked & dived away from this,  how I hide behind my defences, indeed hide myself away.  I need the challenge of working with these patterns to have anything to offer others down the line.  The more I step into the enormous support that was always there to stop this , the more my relationship with Whateveryoucallit grows.  Words are difficult,  so easily laden with old stuff - but  God /  Spirit /  the Mystery /   Source /  is beyond those hangups,  and shamanically speaking my Spirits are backing me clearly and strongly.

This kind of focus stimulates creativity too,  & I continue to play with my sewing machine - more posts soon.

And we have done fun things in the recent good weather, like have fish & chips at Newquay on the w/e ..  under a watchful eye, as I thought,  though when I saw this photo full size, the eyes seem to be elsewhere ..?!