Stitch Meditations
This morning, I woke up late. Last night was full of life circumstance. The world feels different to me this January 5 than it did a year ago. I have had a year here on my hill, isolated, not by choice, but by a cataclysmic event of global proportions. I have often, over the past decades, mused over the fact that I have lived in an era where nothing huge happened to me — it was always events overseas, or at the other end of the country — disease in Africa, earthquakes in Mexico or San Francisco, genocide in Kosovo; but not in my immediate sphere. I teach art history and I always take the 5,000–30,000 year view on things, so the concept of a global pandemic was easy for me to understand. After all, the human race has not been around long, in geological terms. But, I have been given the opportunity to use the time in a way that has made me and those in my sphere stronger. I do not take this lightly.
This morning, because I got up late, it was a morning of dirty laundry and spilled coffee. Of taking care of an at risk family member who is very sick (and in this new universe I am grateful that it is “only” pneumonia). I had a video conference at eleven. It is now 1:50. I have art clients at four. The days are full.
Stitch meditation is a place I go in between all of the day’s events. I am a textile artist. Although much of my work has to take place in the studio, I get to carry some of it with me. I can regroup at any time of the day; I can stop and do a meditation, and while my current art work grows, a stitch at a time, I watch colors grow and talk to each other under my fingers.
In “The Art of Thought”, Graham Wallas talks about four stages in thought-association: Preparation, Incubation, Illumination, and Verification. He describes the Incubation stage as a place to rest “from any form of conscious thought”. I get to put myself into the incubation stage any time I create a mental space to stitch and meditate. It is part of my art, but also a healing process separate from it.
I have many hours left in today to “get things done”. My workday is self paced, and is often like a series of HIIT workouts: move and regroup, move and regroup.
Carol LeBaron
www.carollebaron.com
