Mindfulness Thy name is crochet

I struggled with the title... lol Zen and the Art of Crochet kept popping in and I kept refusing it. When I worked at Borders there were at least a dozen different titles with Zen and the Art of....... Truly though for my self I use crochet to help me to find that zen spot. I use it when I need to get in touch and when I particularly need to get in touch with my own sense of self. As I once told you I have been knitting since I was in elementary school.... for me a simple pattern with lots of repeats helps me to settle into a meditative state. snick snick snick the needles go and I let my thoughts wonder and my mind go free. I fall into a zone and sometimes need to be called twice or three times in order to come back from that place. This having been my method of knitting for most of my life I kind of figured that crochet would do the same thing for me. ... a sort of walking meditation. Only I very quickly realized that it wasn't for me.
 Crochet takes a conscious effort on my part. I have to be active rather than passive as my work unfolds. Crochet is also the barometer for how I am feeling at the moment.... or sometimes about the thing that keeps popping into my mind as I am working. I find that if I am tense in anyway my stitches get tighter and tighter. As my stitches start to close in on themselves my gauge gets thrown off and the item I am working on will change sizes. This isn't a big issue perhaps on a dish cloth... but it can be on something you want to offer to another as a gift.... or say on that blanket I made for my daughter where the edge closes in and then comes back out and closes in again. Needless to say THAT project stay right here in this house.
During the "dark years" when I had lost all the babies and I had none to hold... I couldn't crochet. I tried. And with in minutes my work would be so tight that I couldn't even get my crochet hook back into the loops. During this time I knit... I knit and I let my thoughts go through me so that I could let them go... because some of the thoughts that come are meant to go THROUGH you not stay with you. Knitting allowed me to do that.
For a long time I thought that I didn't like to crochet because of this... because I had to actively work at getting those stitches down right. With time though I realized that I WANTED to be better at crochet, so I knew I would have to focus my intentions and make it happen. One day at a time... one project at a time... I have worked until my hands can keep an even tension... and my work can be as beautiful as I want it to be. The other day as I sat to crochet I was in a place that was less than ideal and after a few short minutes I realized this and quieted sought that peace in side and let go.... I let go of what I was holding onto so that what NEEDED to come through me could.
As a Spiritualist I have learned Magic Staff of Andrew Jackson Davis. As a Morris Pratt Student I have thought on it long and hard:

Behold, here is thy Magic Staff, 

Under all Circumstances Keep an Even Mind:

Take it, Try it, Walk with it, Talk with it, lean on it 

Believe on it forever. 

I have looked at these words over and over trying to make them my own in some way. I have taken it tried it and walked with it... and I have seen the physical lesson of it in my crochet. I go to that crochet now... when I need to calm, when I need to summon that even mind. I use the stitches now to find the peace that I need. The lessons that I learned as I focused ACTIVELY on making each crochet stitch even and as I mindfully approached the work perfectly embody what the Magic Staff is saying. And as I sit mindfully working and allowing emotions that make me clench or tighten flow through me and then away from me... I realize that keeping an even mind can at times help me to make more emotionally intelligent decisions. I have come to realize that if I take a step back at times I am able to move forward many more paces than what I could have originally. 

So as I work actively to keep even stitches... I work to keep an even mind... and I realize that sometimes we need a moment to knit and let everything just flow through us easily and with no thought.... and sometimes we need to actively work at keeping an even mind. Both are equally as valid... both weave the beautiful fabric of our lives.