Practicing Reiki has changed my life in many ways.  The Five Precepts of Reiki, which are to be recited at the beginning of each day, have many consequences if I am thoughtful about their application and not repeating them verbatim.  They are…

Just for today do not worry.

Just for today let go of anger.

Just for today show gratitude for everything.

Just for today do my work with integrity.

Just for today be kind to every living thing.

Sometimes, I fail at taking these to heart and have to be reminded throughout the day to do them, minute by minute.

Or I might find that one of them are flowing over me at the end of a day.  A fleeting moment of self actualization that is rare and breathtaking.  I am able to rise above pain and painful truths to be aware of really beautiful occurrences.  To be grateful.

What a last couple of days my family has had.  Nothing spectacular that everyone else doesn’t have in their days as well, but just the same, the troubles of life.  We found out my future daughter in law has a second, deeper, more dangerous tumor and the ‘shit has hit the fan’ so to speak.  When I leave for Atlanta this week,  none of us know what we will face there.  Janeen is seeing a head and neck surgeon of some renown at Emory University and a new surgery will be scheduled. I’m not sure when I will be coming home, or if I will have to return as soon as I do.

My sister Liz phoned from Michigan to tell me that our sister, Sarah, in poor health for years since a tainted blood transfusion back in the 70’s, is failing rapidly.  I am torn between two places.  I want to be there to see her and spend time with her, but I am needed elsewhere.  Sometime this spring I hope I get there.

A panacea for this and more was preparing for the dye workshop yesterday.  Five of us packed into my barn to paint warps that will be woven later.  All women that I care about deeply, I was concerned that we wouldn’t be able to accomplish what we needed in a small, dusty space.  As it turned out, everyone came with a spirit of adventure, so that having to eat lunch with my sheep bugging us, taking turns with time constraints in mind, my jumping and barking dogs, didn’t have too much impact.

After everyone left, I felt like I was high!  The women were such a primo group.  Seeing the way some of them choose the colors of dye they would use was interesting.  My weaving teacher, Rita, had colors in mind and brought several issues of Handwoven magazine with beautiful color forecasts.  I was secretly smiling in my mind because this is the way I go about choosing colors.  It made me happy to know that someone whose design sensiblities I admire so much has a method!  Karen, the president of our guild, chose her colors from inspiration gleaned from a magazine cover.  They are successful in their art because they have a methodical progression of steps that lead them to a desired end.

They also are able to let go of the ‘written in stone’ mentality that plagues so many of us.  They can change their plan in midstream.  Something that is difficult for many fiber artists is to bend with the properties of their medium.  Especially when you are first learning the craft of dyeing, you have to sometimes allow the yarn to tell you what it can do.

I like to watch Trisha work.  She took an earlier warp painting workshop with me a few years ago.  She comes in with a plan, and then does it!  There is never much a ado!  She works full time, so there isn’t a lot of free time to spend planning out these things, but she doesn’t have many failures.  She doesn’t have time for them!

April, Marilyn and I seem to work in similar ways.  I can’t speak for them, but we seem to want immediate inspiration and jump right in.  With dyeing, I have not usually had the luxury of spending a whole lot of time planning out what I am going to do next.  I have color wheels all over and a Pantone color chart.  When I have had the luxury of sitting down and mixing dyes by formula, I’ve done the best work.  So with dyeing, as with weaving, the more planning you do, the better the result will be.

I hope to develop the workshop into a study group we can offer to the rest of the guild.

This morning, my husband got up with the dogs so I could sleep in.  I usually can’t sleep much past seven, but today I didn’t get up until 9:30!!!!  He said he was getting worried about me.  For Mother’s Day, he bought himself a new wedding band to replace the one he lost a few years ago.  I am thrilled about this.  I want him to have a wedding ring on so that when we are out in public, people will see it and think maybe he is my husband instead of my caretaker….we went to an RV show last night and I was so hunched over and decrepit looking and he looks so healthy and strapping.  He had to lift me out of the campers I was able to get up into!

Jeni is coming over in a little while to visit and maybe go shopping with her old mother.  That is the nicest Mother’s Day gift; to be with your kids.  I’ll see Andy and Janeen Tuesday.  She sent me a beautiful bouquet, and an Edible Bouquet, perfect for the raw diet.  I’m eating the chocolate covered strawberries and don’t care who knows.

So I am very grateful today.  For my friends who were here yesterday and all that they are and mean to me, for my family in Michigan, for my children and their significant others, and for my husband, who still after 40 years, is trying to please me.

Happy Mother’s Day to all of the mothers out there!

Karen's Warp