His music has brought much joy and inspired much action over the decades.
World Wide Knit in Public Day is this weekend — June 13th (and 14, 20, and 21). What will you be knitting? I have started a pair of leg-warmers. The pattern was really for ankle warmers, but I have chosen to make them longer than the pattern suggested. The nice farmers who raise the sheep, spin and dye the yarn, and sell it at the Dupont Fresh Farm Market, called them “yoga socks.” The yarn is beautiful. The sample pair looked like something I would want on my feet in colder weather. The project was small enough to tuck into my carry bag. Definitely a go for summer knitting (unlike the three-quarter finished mohair shruggy that has become a lapful of furry stuff).
“Why are they so short?” I asked. “We had originally designed them to be longer, but our teacher said we might need to grab our ankles?” they explained. “When would you do that, when it would not matter whether you were touching fabric instead of your skin,” I puzzled out loud, not out of criticism, but really wanting to know, thinking maybe in Pilates. The farmers could not really think of a reason. I bought an extra skein along with the kit to make the — oh, let’s call them footless socks — calf height. The yarn has a bit of a stickiness to it, so they are not slippery. They will be good to wear for yoga.
I’ve never knitted on double-pointed, size 2 needles, in the round before, though I happened to have four in the house (picked up at a yard sale for a $1 a decade or two ago and put in the sewing box). I tend not to knit from patterns for whole projects. So I had a little learning to do. The pattern did not explain how to use the double-pointed needles; that knowledge was assumed. I am not used to the contraints of following a pattern. Doing so, on occasion, though, forces me to learn a new technique. It took my a couple of hours to get into the rhythm, but now I’ve eased into the project.
I sometimes seek the same type expansion with cooking. Though easily able to cook something delicious without a recipe with most ingredients, sometimes I pick out a complicated recipe just to expand my skills in the kitchen.
Yoga, most of all, benefits from a combination of free exploration and attentive development to the knowledge imparted by a teacher. We are most full and expanded when we combine experience and teachings. We receive the teachings and then we practice again and again to make it not just our own experience, but part of our being. This process is called vikalpa samskara.
A friend of mine who is an avid and wonderful knitter decided to make a shawl for a friend who is about to have surgery. Instead of whipping out a shawl herself in a few days, she invited other friends to knit squares and bring them to her. She is going to piece together the squares to create, in essence, a physical manifestation of a gentle, loving, communal embrace.
I loved this idea. Though I could not put name to face for the friend who is suffering (I think I would likely recognize her), to support my friend who is setting such a strong intention of sending healing, I am knitting a square or two with some beautiful handspun yarn leftover from a sweater several years ago.
As I knit, I am setting an intention to infuse the cloth with healing energy. In having been invited to participate in this project, I have been given the gift of a potent reminder of how strongly our attitude and intention in whatever we create and offer can shift how it goes forth into the world — whether it be gifts, practice, speech, food, work.
This tree was just up to the height of the porch roof when I first moved into this house. We have been growing together for quite some time.
Today, again, at the Supreme Court.
