Gifts

I am moving slowly through the days, so foggy and distracted of late that if I try to move quickly, I will make mistakes and do stupid things. I know it's "normal."
I miss Patrick. Sometimes with a desperation and anguish and horror so intense that I can barely believe it is survivable. But I do believe it is. And so I endure.
And the enduring is made tolerable by many gifts from nature and from many compassionate people.


A Gift From Nature
Last week, there was a fast, intense storm that moved through. Afterwards, a remarkable golden light poured through my windows and lured me outside into the remaining drizzle. I knew there was the possibility of a rainbow and sure enough, there was a rainbow, arching over the house. The quality of light was very peculiar, it was about 7:30 p.m. and the sun was nearly set in the west.
The rainbow was faint, but visible. And it kept shifting about the sky, which was filled with rapidly swirling gray clouds. Suddenly, a whole clump of clouds to the east lit up with a deep rose color and a rainbow streamed upwards from the rosy glow.
I ran inside to get my camera, chanting "stay, stay...please stay!"
Well, sky phenomena are notoriously ephemeral and the intense rose circle was gone, and the rainbow had shifted yet again, but I quickly snapped 3 pictures. And the sky quickly grayed as the sun set.
When I looked at the pictures, I was astonished to see the full moon. I had not seen it with my naked eye and it only appears in the first picture, not the ones taken immediately after.
I didn't do anything to enhance this picture - if you look closely, you might be able to see the faint rainbow arcing under and to the right of the moon. I guess that for just an instant, the instant I took the picture, the cloud cover thinned enough to reveal Mother Moon. A gift, as was the radiant golden light that drew me outside....

A Gift from a Stranger
A couple of weeks ago, I received a wonderful email from Linda - a fiber artist in Washington. Well, she was not a complete stranger as I have seen and admired her work on Deb Brandt's show and tell blog. Deb makes glorious dyed rovings and invites us to send her pictures of what we create with them. That is how Linda found my blog.

Linda's email was open and compassionate and filled with an empathy that deeply touched me. She wrote that she was creating something with thoughts of me and Patrick as she worked, and wanted to know if she could send it to me. Within days, I was opening a box just filled with treasures -- all of them chosen carefully.
It was obvious that Linda had read a great deal of my blog because everything connected with something important or symbolic for me. You can see above the handmade collage card, a lovely handspun yarn from the Orcas Islands and an incredible felt rose (I will take a better photo of it one of these days - right now it sits on the mantle in the little shrine that has evolved for Patrick.)

And here is the astonishing, deeply moving piece that Linda wrote me about - a heart weeping rose petals. I've hung it on the door of Patrick's old room. I love it intensely. Thank you, Linda - I am almost overwhelmed at your generosity and your art is truly amazing.


Isn't it just the lovliest....???
And here is what I promised to show in my last post - the coming together of all those freeform pieces into...... a neckpiece! Ta Daaaa. I'm very excited about this. Even though all those hats I made back in Feb/Mar were freeform organically done, this piece is my first with actual scrumbles.

The rose just fits through the hole between the leaves and scrumble, to make a suitable fastener.

Oh, and Bullion Stitch in the scrumbles! I finally "got" Bullion Stitch. I can do them in my sleep now. It was a wonderful reminder about accomplishment and the 3Ps: practice, perserverance and patience. (Here's a nice Bullion Stitch tutorial I just found, maybe it wouldn't have taken me so long to get it if I'd seen this before!) I can't write about this stitch without mentioning:
Prudence Mapstone's little tome called Bullions & Beyond. You might have to google around to find someone selling her freeform crochet books - there are three that I know of. I was lucky enough to be able to get them all through my LYS, Riverwools.

I have more freeform in the works. Next post I'll be ready to show off my freeform cuff bracelets!
Love and beauty and creativity wishes to all...
Namaste,
'zann