Weaving a Life ~ The Bowl

Me embracing my intentions!

 Greeting fellow Thrivers!  We spent a glorious weekend working with our weaving Guru, Michelle Clark.  It was a powerful weekend devoted to exploring our deep core beliefs.  We gathered with the sacred intention of creating a symbol that would hold our beliefs and intention as we journey through our lives.  

We had planned for this to be a two day workshop and instead it became a Power Weaving Warrior Day!   10 hours of intense focus, bonding and weaving.   First Michelle with gentle guidance help each of us explore our thoughts.  We had to focus on our vision - with eyes wide open.  Letting go of the baggage, hurts and many other life experiences that we have been dragging around like a ball and chain or a badge of honor.    These life badges needed a little re-working - we needed to dust them off and shine them up a bit. 

Our beautiful teacher - Michelle

Michelle says, "Bowls speak to our deepest nature.....they tie us to the Earth, as do shapes in nature.  A bowl is a universal image of offering, opening, allowing and holding."  As we worked to find the words that would best describe who we are, we laughed, cried and pulled our hair.  This was very deep and crazy painful work.  The words we chose had to feel right within our hearts and bodies.  These words would come to be the intention - our truth - that would be woven into our bowls. Michelle guided us with, "The receiving bowl represents the stage of new birth in our life, in which we daily change our viewpoint on ourselves.....consider this an invitation to explore what we believe about ourselves with fresh eyes."  

Beautiful Fibers

Working on the details

This was a monumental task for me.  I have spent vast amounts of energy recreating myself.  I have had to come to terms with the constant fear about returning "Toads" (cancer), the loss of parts of my body, and the arrival of Lola (my stoma).  This was the first time I had really thought about how I wanted to define myself.  I mean - I've defined aspects of myself...but never as a whole entity.  This was serious stuff!  I shed some tears (ok lots) and felt my heart crack open as I released and embraced the words I would weave into my bowl. 

We celebrated our "words" with a little ceremony.  Each person took a turn stating aloud our words of Intention.  We stepped over a branch as we entered into our new life of awareness.  Then we danced!  Laughing with the release of work well done.....and we had not even started weaving yet!!

Terry

Kit

Sally

Now - you may ask......How do you weave a bowl with fiber?  It's really very cool!  It starts off as a two dimensional weaving on our hand loom.  We warped (putting on the vertical threads) with ease.  We already have that part down from our previous class.  We felt in control and know this was going to be a piece of cake.  Yeah right!  We were setting the stage for change. Then the troubles began (giggle)  We followed a very specific pattern. Ah that tricky tricky pattern.  I think this pattern is a metaphor for the struggles we face as we weave our intentions into the bowl. We wove - we tore it out - we wove again.  Everyone found a way to make peace with their loom, and we all found our own rhythm. Our rhythm was the rhythm of labor. I think I broke a little sweat on this one. 

Processing our thoughts

Setting the stage for change!

The beginning of my bowl

Kit, Sally, Michelle, Terry & Naomi (Me)

My Bowl

Now comes the really scary part.  We had to dismantle our looms and remove our weave from the loom.  It looks so fragile - I wasn't sure how it would hold anything especially my precious Intentions! Then the pulling began.....gently gently we pulled the strings gathering the fibers until I had... I had....the lumpiest orange looking puppet on the planet.  We all had to take a leap of faith - we continued to pull and tweak our little misshapen bowls.  Working with our odd little fiber bowls we all began to birth the belief in this new stage of our lives, and we didn't even need an epidural!!  Thank you Michelle ~ for bringing us this beautiful gift of The Bowl. Our worlds have changed forever - this was a Bonus Day for all!

 Oh what was my Intention - the magic words that now reside in my bowl?  "I THRIVE - I stand now - new, open, resilient, radiant and vulnerable!"  All these words describe the woman that I've become. These are the words that live in my little fuzzy orange (second chakra)  bowl, as a constant reminder....in case I should forget.

Moth Bean Kitchari

1 cup Moth beans
1 cup Job's Tears or Brown Basmati rice
3 celery chopped
4 carrots chopped
1 onion chopped
1 bunch swiss chard chopped
olive oil
4 cups water
2 Tab ginger-garlic paste or 
2 cloves garlic & 1 in ginger chopped
1 tea turmeric
2 Tab summer spice blend (optional)
salt & pepper

 Soak Moth beans and Job's Tears overnight.  Drain well and set aside.

Saute ginger-garlic paste or garlic/ginger chopped with a little olive oil.  Careful not to burn.
Add onion, carrot & celery - cook until onion starts to soften.  Add turmeric and spice blend toss to cover.   Add beans and grains stir well to cover with spice.  Add water and bring to a boil.  Turn heat to low and cover leaving the lid ajar for steam to release.  Simmer for 1 hour.
(It may take longer depending on how hard your water is.)  When beans and grains are cooked to your likeness add swiss chard.  Salt & pepper to taste.
Enjoy!!

Blessing to all!
Warm fuzzy orange kisses!
Namaste`
Naomi