Threads of memories and intentions

Sunday, January 12 2014

A year ago today I stepped off a plane into the coconut tree landscape and smoky, spice-laden air of Kerala, South India. Was it really that long ago?

Another stay in a country that intrigues me; this time for three months to study and create textiles – another of my joys.

 I returned to Tasara – translation ‘the weaver’s shuttle’- a weaving centre in the small village of North Beypore, about half an hour’s rickshaw drive from Calicut.  Previously I stayed with the family when a group of us were in India for yoga and Ayurveda studies. I knew I would return.

 

This time it was complete immersion in Indian life. With other textilers from Sweden,  Australia, Greece, England and India I ate with the family, learned Indian cooking, shopped in the village shops, showered and washed clothes in cold water, lived with spiders and other assorted creatures  and worked.

 

 

I arrived early and my first weekend included an invitation to a temple wedding. About a thousand guests and the finery of the women’s’ saris was a feast for my fibre artist’s eyes. During our stay the group was lucky to attend another wedding, this time a simpler affair, but still gorgeous clothes, at a neighbouring house.

 

 

Weaving is no longer a paramount business at Tasara. But I could never afford a full-size loom anyway, nor do we have room for one. The techniques we learned are mostly ones I can do at home – some only in warm weather. Almost seven days a week we did hot wax batiking,  fabric painting and dyeing, block printing, screen printing, shibori and wet felting. The two latter my absolute favourite processes.

Arashi is a form of shibori; quite simple really. Tightly wrapping a wet cloth around a rod or tree branch (several of my best pieces were done this way), you then dye it, rinse, undo the string and voila. The excitement is the unknown pattern that results, then what you do with it. I added sequin ‘bubbles’ to my fish cloth which now hangs in our bathroom window.

 

Making felt from scratch with bubble wrap, soapy water and rovings was a great joy f0r me. It’s quite hard work but seeing a lovely piece of soft fabric emerge and then knowing I will embroider and embellish it is incredibly satisfying.

 

Not every day was textile day. I spent two weeks at a peaceful tea garden estate in the Western Ghats, had a full Ayurvedic massage, taught yoga to family members and others in the group. I was fortunate to attend a concert of classical South Indian vocal and tabla music,  find a dancing Shiva for my yoga studio and, one of my greatest joys, visited an elephant sanctuary.

 

All too soon it was goodbye to colour and warmth and a return to snow.

A spring session of yoga followed. During the summer, wanting to downsize, we put our house on the market – no surprise, no sale!  In the same spirit of de-cluttering I spent several months at a local Sunday flea market. Also created some mixed media works and attended a three-day movement workshop. The year ended with another yoga session to teach.

 

Now our winter session is underway and I’m looking ahead.

My plan is to spend as much time as possible when not teaching to work on the large bundle of textiles I brought back with me. I need to do this for myself,  for my creative spirit and fulfilment. Next year I hope to return to India to continue this thread.

 

Glancing Back. Flying Forward.

January 6^th

 Twelfth Night. Decorations packed away; the rooms seem bare.

My diary has been neglected. Where do the days and weeks go?

 They’ve been filled with teaching, music, art, pottery, gaining my Level Two Reiki certification, helping at one of my favourite events – Ten Thousand Village fair in Riverview, visiting friends in Saint John – and making big travel plans.

Our autumn yoga classes were as ever, fun and deeply enriching. From five-week-old babies to seniors we stretched and twisted, balanced and flowed, and laughed too.

There were drives to Sackville to hear several rewarding performances by Mount Allison music faculty and an amazing recital by a young violinist at the Moncton Community Concerts.  We went on Fundy and Across the Marsh art tours and I completed my pottery explorations. My fern plate is now on display in our dining room. This year’s festive card was also a successful project.

Hot chocolate and treats with friends, Discovered Atthea the new delectable shop in town for artisan teas, delicious drinks and melt-in-your-mouth ‘mignardises’.

Movies: Incredible 3-D film ‘Pina’ about the legendary dancer and choreographer Pina Bausch and her company.  A sensual, visually stunning journey of discovery on stage with the legendary Tanztheater Wuppertal  and on city streets and the surrounding countryside. I could have watched it three or four more times.

 Two interesting black and white films; ‘The Artist’ and a Christmas gift ‘It happened on 5^th Avenue’ Plus a re-watching of ‘The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel’. The last preparation for my next adventure – three months in India!!

I’m taking a sabbatical session from teaching and  will fly out on Thursday, January 10 and will be in Kerala in southern India on Saturday morning. Flying by way of Toronto, London and Doha.  I’m staying with the family I stayed with a few years ago when I went to study advanced yoga and Ayurveda. They live in a small village called Beypore, on the Arabian Sea.

 I’ll be studying, exploring several new ventures, fulfilling dreams and expanding my creativity. Also teaching yoga to ladies in the local community.

 So it’s goodbye to my Blue Tulip journal for a few months. Though there will be lots to write about, and dozens of photos to share in the spring.

Seeing and Making Art

A weekend ago was all about art.

 

 I spent most of the Friday glazing my pottery after its first firing. Judy Tait, owner of Albert County Clay Company, thought my fern bowl looks very good. Though it’s really “our” bowl, as I could not have achieved it without her help.

 

My medallions and other pieces were also a pleasure to work on. Now I wait a couple of weeks until Judy has a glaze firing.

 Saturday, September 29, was the art studio tour in Moncton. After visiting the markets, and buying a special elephant/Ganesha pendant from my favourite jeweller, Terry Belliveau, we explored several studios but the incessant rain cut short what could have been another pleasant day of discovery. Some galleries and exhibits are open daily or the current exhibitions continue so perhaps we’ll visit another weekend.

 

On the Sunday the Owens Gallery on Mount Allison campus had its annual Open House. A great opportunity to ‘go behind’ gallery walls; to see the archives of paintings not always exhibited and to talk to restoration staff about the various methods used to detect damages and make repairs.

We spent time at the creative table making art-inspired buttons.

Gifts of and for a new session

Every time I come to my yoga nat for another class, another session, I receive many gifts. Each student new or long time brings me an individual ‘gift’. No gift wrapping is necessary when it’s a student new to the practice, making joyful discoveries,  finding the benefits to body and mind or the returning student’s happiness at being back in a place of relaxation and restoring of sprit.

 A wonderful re-occurring gift for me was once again being in Chester, Nova Scotia, rapidly becoming one of my favourite places, for my fourth workshop with senior Iyengar teacher Fr. Joe Pereira, on another visit from India. Three days spent with this energetic 70-year-old receiving his wisdom, both yogic and spiritual, is beyond any price. So much to take into my own life and practice, so much to bring back to give to my students.

Thoughts of growth, coming to fruition and fruitfulness were in my mind, appropriately echoed by this peach tree outside the window where we practiced.

Three days spent with this energetic 70-year-old, receiving his wisdom, both yogic and spiritual, is beyond any price. So much to take into my own life and practice, so much to bring back to give to my students.

Also a special gift was the evening sail offered by fellow students, Margie and Glen. Some of us continued or yoga practice on the deck.

 

Fr. Joe took a turn at the wheel.

A few weeks later I was back in Chester. Dr. Satyanarayana Das on his way home to Vrindavan after teaching at Rutgers university and Kripalu, came to talk about the Bhagavad Gita, Hindu philosophy and Ayurveda.  A compelling and intensely thoughtful two days.

 These intangible gifts are very precious.

 So are gifts I can hold in my hand.  There was Wendy’s singing bowl, passed into my care by her partner this summer.

My other gift, from a student found while she was on holiday in P.E.I, was a stone Ganesha, the beloved Hindu elephant-faced deity, one of the most popular gods in Hindu mythology. Known as the ‘remover of obstacles’ he is endowed with a gentle and affectionate nature; he is also a god of wisdom .

Ganesha has settled down in our Yoga Space and Wendy’s bowl sounds the beginning of each class and guides us into relaxation and meditation.

 

Playing with Clay

It’s not often I take a day off to simply play; a day for myself.

Last Tuesday I did just that. I spent a day playing with clay, getting my hands into mud from the Chocolate River in nearby Fundy.

I’d been thinking about doing this for quite a while. It’s been years since I did hand built clay work. Lately I felt a need to find time for myself, for creativity; to widen my circle of activities, to simply let go and see what happens.

Potter Judy Tait owns Albert County Clay Company in Curryville on Albert Mines Road, a quiet, winding country road by-passing Highway 114. Her studio is the 100-year-old Curryville Community Hall; until the early 1900 hundreds the centre of the community, hosting church suppers and ice cream socials.

With lots of help from her husband David, Judy extracts clay from the ‘red muck’ found locally.  It’s a fine clay that lends itself beautifully to her speciality of hand building. While I am studying my rolled-out pieces of clay, envisaging my end product, hoping it will match the picture in my mind, Judy is hand cutting and scoring large leaf shapes destined to be attached to the outer rim of a large vase. She handles the clay with authority and ease, with confidence in her creativity and how to shape the clay to her inner vision.

My vision was to create small medallions to be incorporated into mixed media and textile hangings. To help achieve this I took several of my Indian wooden fabric printing blocks. Usually used for printing on fabrics, they make interesting indented patterns. My Ganesha stamp produced some small bas-relief plaques.  As I made them I loved what I saw, though I have no idea how they will eventually feature in my own work.

As the day progressed Judy and I listened to Loreena MacKennnitt CDs and talked about many things. About textiles - her first training was in surface design; her studies in England’s Potteries districts; her travels to Ghana; yoga; meditation; life in the quiet countryside.

Judy encourages me to make a bowl. I opt for a shallow design, using an old glass light fixture as a mould.

 Excited by her signature of imprinting her pottery with grasses, leaves and natural wayside finds, I am thrilled to find ferns, one of my favourite plants, growing abundantly nearby. Leaving the centre of the bowl plain, perhaps to hold beach stones, pine cones or other treasures, I impress the edges with the ferns.

It’s not all easy, requiring us, for this is not just ‘my’ bowl, to turn the clay over several times. I realise I’m far too gentle, rolling the clay tenderly, as if it were flaky pastry. Judy slaps it down on the table and uses the rolling pin with strength. She is firm with it but always respects it.

Still I am pleased with what I achieve. All day I let my hands focus on the clay, feeling its substance, learning its possibilities.  Totally forgetting about e-mails, phone calls, just absorbing the peace and quiet, letting it inform what I create.

Now the clay is drying and will be fired with other of Judy’s pieces; in a couple of weeks I can return to do the glazing. I’m busy considering colours; Ganesha should be red, his usual appearance. My favourite blues will figure in some pieces, and there is also a soft green, perhaps for part of my fern bowl. Some pieces I may finish with a natural glaze, allowing the richness of the clay to show through.

The results are for another entry in this journal.

Wendy's Bowl - the Song Continues

Each time I strike it, the sound goes straight to my heart. It’s a Tibetan singing bowl. A special one for which I have just been honoured to become its carer. I don’t think owner is the right term; I believe these bowls come to us bringing their special meditation and healing qualities for us to share.

This one belonged to Wendy Martindale, friend, former yoga student, ‘boss’ and mentor at the New Brunswick Museum and inspirer of my recent ‘Warrior Women’ – Yoga for Breast Cancer programme.

Wendy’s partner, Harvey, gave it to me a couple of weeks ago.  As August 1st would have been Wendy’s 60^th birthday, a day she had planned as her retirement, it was an appropriate, if stingingly sad time.  Wendy lost her warrior’s fight with cancer two years ago in July. Harvey had earlier given me her mala (prayer beads) and yoga books, providing a deep continuation of friendship and the sustaining power of yoga. A wooden box handmade by Wendy’s father is a fitting keeping place.

 

Wendy was one of the first people I met when we moved to Saint John. Wondering if the Museum might have work for a writer with my background. It didn’t at the time. But when Wendy, a previous yogi, heard I was also a yoga teacher, she was ready to sign up. And she did as soon as I began an early evening, after work class.

Later I began working part-time at the Museum, helping Wendy get through her hectic schedule. We cried together when I had to move to Moncton, but the connection remained strong. When I applied for a Canadian Breast Cancer Foundation grant for my ‘Warrior Women’ programme, Wendy wrote a moving testimonial about the amazing benefits, physical and spiritual, yoga offers to women adjusting to a ‘new normal’ body as they “continue to continue”.

 

Wendy’s bowl, as it will always be known, is an interesting design; brown with a pale gold band running round the upper rim. Symbols cover the sides and base with some inside. So far my research has not found any matching symbols or mantras, often etched or painted on. Next month I’ll again be at a workshop given by Fr. Joe Pereira, so I’ll take the bowl with me.

 

Researching Tibetan bowls is a lovely, if time consuming, process. Almost every web site has an audio track so you can hear the amazing sounds.

Tibetan singing bowls are thought to be made of a many-metal alloy  of silver, nickel, copper, zinc, antimony, tin, lead, cobalt, bismuth, arsenic, cadmium and iron. Other research suggests they may be a pure mixture of copper and tin.

 When stuck with a wooden mallet the clear, rich vibrations quickly inspire centring and stillness. When the mallet is gently circled clock-wise round the outer rim, harmonic overtones produce an ethereal singing sound, the vibrations are felt though your body and mind. It is this aspect that is very important in healing

 

In yoga and meditation we strike a bowl to signal the beginning of a practice session. By sounding to all four directions they offer a summons to the here and now, clearing the space of negative energy, opening it and the practitioners to new energies, deep meditation and healing. Sounding a bowl can also signal a change from sitting to walking meditation; a period in which meditators inhale and retain the breath until the sound ceases, or the end of a practice.

Thank you, Harvey. Thank you, Wendy. Your bowl has another good home and will continue to sing.