Dear Beautiful Souls…

I was thinking about you all last night as I snuggled on the couch with the puggeries, my book in my lap, just kind of musing about the day. The interesting thing for me is that for some long time now I have been so scattered all over the place, afraid how I could pull things together to make a living, and kind of all over the place with it, that many of the things that I love, that define me, have fallen by the wayside. And now that my business has a structure, and I have a business coach to help me pull things together, I am defining times to do my work and I am getting a lot done faster and experiencing a sense of ease I haven’t known in a long time. I have a long way to go, this is the work I will do for the rest of my life and I will continually be working, but now time is opening up for me so that I can bring back in the things that I love that have gone by the wayside. What are those things?

First of all the thing that calls to me is my fiber art. For years I have been handspinning art yarns, doing freeform knitting and crochet, creating fiber art, weaving, spoolknitting, and more, but in the last year and a half I have gotten away from it and I miss it terribly. To feel the fibers in my hands, to spin them on my spindles — I am a spindle spinner and have a vast collection of spindles, but I long to learn to spin on a wheel. I have 2 wheels but have never had any luck with them, I intend to learn soon! One of the things that happened for me is that the work that I did was so complex, and took such a long time, that I came to realize I couldn’t make a living as a fiber artist because I couldn’t produce enough fast enough. Now I want to create for JOY. If I sell some things along the way that will be grand, but not my purpose!

And I want to devote more time to my art, drawing and writing the stories of my 100 ladies for The 100 Ladies Project. I need the work of my hands to balance the work of my head and that is the way I best stay centered and well.

Not long ago I wrote a blog post about a series of exercises I did with my journal classes. The series is called Hurdles and it is a 3 part exercise. This series helps us define what the hurdles in our path are, what the things in our lives are that sustain us, and how we use those things to get us over the hurdles. The problem is when we encounter the hurdles in our lives all too often we completely forget about the things that sustain us and limp along in pain, filled with fear, depressed, when if we used those things that uplift us, that fill us up, that are healing, we could far more easily cross the hurdles. And often, it is these very things that we let go of because we feel that they are not important, or as important as the task at hand, and even that perhaps spending time doing them is taking away from the work we need to be doing. The thing is, feeling full, being uplifted, having something that, even for a short time, takes us out of that place of worry, dread, fear, or carrying the weight of the world on our shoulders makes all the rest easier to bear. It is so important not to let go of these things.

For me, as soon as I realized that there was no way that I could support myself doing fiber art I stopped doing it in the mad dance to find something that I could do to create income and I have had a very hard year and a half or so. It is important to contain the work that we do to a set amount of time, and take time off, to meditate, to garden, to be with loved ones, to sing, to dance, to do whatever it is that sustains you and makes you whole again, even if only for awhile, and to keep doing it, keep making time for these things, to create a climate in which we can stay whole and sane and well in the world. And so I am going to do my work and then turn it off and draw, paint, spin, weave, do all of these things that have brought me so much joy over the years. I will never let them go again.

So the question came to me to ask all of you ~ What has slipped out of your life that you miss, that had/has meaning to you, that would enrich your life now? I would love for you to share this with me in the comments below. I think in today’s world having a balanced life is one of the hardest things in the world. I’m going to talk about this in my podcast today — that just came to my mind.

Would you share with me the things you love, and how you find balance in your lives? I’d love to know…

Blessings and Love,