Za Zen

Every quilt is journey into myself. I learn a lot about myself when I work on a quilt project. Sometimes I get really frustrated like I did with the dragonfly. (Although one day I will figure out how to use all that thread painting I did and give that quilt to the wonderful lady I made it for. Her baby may well be in this world and no longer in her womb when that happens, but that's ok. I want to be proud of what I give her.) Sometimes, I learn a lot and sometimes they just don't make sense to me - at least not until I finish them.

I have been talking a lot about just sitting with the lessons that life throws you and surrendering to the great mystery in which life is. I don't know about you all, but that is not easy for me to do. I start to worry, I start to panic, I think too much about HOW to change things. I am not good at letting go. A natural born control freak is what I am. So, my big homework from the powers that be is to learn to LET GO, to simply surrender. Everything always works out all on its own when we let it - or that's what everyone keeps telling me.

Jason has been working hard at sitting in Za Zen (meditation) in the mornings before work and he keeps encouraging me to do so also. I keep thinking, it's just one more thing I need to do and one more thing I need to fit into my already overflowing schedule and I don't want to (I know you can picture me kicking and screaming and throwing a temper tantrum, right? YOU CAN"T MAKE ME!!!). I know mind clearing is healthy for the body and I know the benefits of doing it, but I don't want to cultivate the practice. At least, not yet, maybe I will one day. That's my story and I'm sticking with it. My question then becomes when will that one day come? Isn't sitting with it what I'm trying to cultivate? Then, this quilt comes into my heart and through my hands...

I don't love it once it is bound and ready for the wall. I feel like I could have done this better or that better and what does this mean to me? Not another quilt to toss to the side?

Then, I realize, oh... she's sitting with it. She's surrendering... Now, I LOVE it and will hang it up to reap her medicine until the time comes for her to live somewhere else.

Laying in bed last night thinking (I do a lot of that), I realized, some people sit in meditation to clear their mind and that is awesome - I am so proud of them and maybe one day my heart will change and I will join them. What do I do? I sew. That's what I do. It brings more calm into my heart than anything else in my life. I think of nothing else except where the next piece of fabric is going to go. THIS is my Za Zen. This is a moving meditation like walking can be a moving meditation. I heal myself and my heart through quilting. So, like this lady, I'm sitting with it - AND my sewing machine! And for now, that's where I'm at and my mind becomes clear and my heart stays open and the mystery continues to unfold before my eyes and I get back to looking at life through rose colored glasses. Just the way I like it. And then, I breathe...