Seeing

Seeing

Seeing

In the 70’s for a while, I got involved in macramé. I remember one day being in a store and seeing a knotted creation hanging on a wall. I was intrigued by the knotting, got a book on the subject, which I spent some time studying. The knotting was easy, and it seemed to give full sway to creativity, so I decided to give it a whirl. I did a few flat pieces to get comfortable with the knotting, very simply really, mathematical actually. I would just make it up as I went and came up with some interesting pieces. Then I tried to do free hanging macramé. I would start with one piece of rope and then build off of it, developing different layers of knotted areas. Then I did bottles for a while, and after about three years stopped. I remember one elderly lady wanting me to do three bottles for her. So I did them, and made some very intricate designs with three colors for each bottle. She insisted on paying for them, so I charged a price, a small one, and delighted she took them, it made me happy that someone enjoyed what I had done.

One of the benefits I discovered after I started macramé was my newly developed appreciation of simple lines. Branches with their curving shapes against the sky, the lines in buildings, and cracks in sidewalks became an unending source of delight for me; they became beautiful where before I did not notice them at all. This has stayed with me, so my interested in knots led me into a whole different world, one in which I saw a bit more broadly.

Lately, a very good friend of my visited me, her name is Kathy and her husbands name is Bill. They are both one of the most interesting couples one would ever want to meet. Bill is one of those very intelligent gents who has an interest in everything, good at it all, happy, gentle, and with a very strong healthy ego, so that working for his wife does not bother him. Yes a very strong intelligent man indeed. I have a deep intuition that he is highly developed spiritually as well.

Cathy is what is called a rain maker. She is a little older than me, yet looks 20 years younger, happy, busy, and wherever she goes there is creativity and energy and yes her famous ice tea that she loves to make. For the past few years she has developed an interest in origami or paper art. On her visit before last she made me a origami box which was very beautiful and I keep it on a shelf, where I on occasion take it down and study it, yes a very beautiful. She was here a few weeks ago and we again talked about paper art, and she showed me some tricks of the trade, also some of the small pieces she made while there. Her grand children also made a few pieces and gave them too me, so they are next to my box. As she was taking out the special colorful paper it occurred to me that after this day I will never look at paper quite the same again. Not just something for writing, but also something to make art out of. Just a few folds and there you have it. A box, rabbit, frog, or perhaps something made up on ones own. So Cathy the rain maker introduced me into a wider world.

I am now trying my hand at haiku and it to is opening up new views of the world for me. I am not yet that good at it, but even if I never get to be a master, it is none the less making me appreciate how full each moment is. A work of art just waiting to be discovered and painted out in just a few words, the whole world is a studio for me, for us all actually, all is needed is to look. The flow is still there, time has not changed, but the moment, each moment, has a depth to it that was not present before I tried out haiku. Perhaps one of the benefits for me getting older is that I am more open to just looking, being, and perhaps expressing.

Music, dance, reading, art and crafts, the love of nature, each of these are doorways into a larger reality. I hope and pray that I never lose my desire to learn more, so that the world will get not only bigger but deeper.