We are Stardust: Reflections on Spinning and the Space Between Us



Last night was the final session of the spinning as meditation class.  Six of us sat and applied our spinning and knitting skills to meditation exercises. 

The energy among us changes as we move deeper into practice.  You can feel this energy becoming softer, calmer, as "the space between us" (Thanks, Mr. DD!) flows into a deep sense of connection. 

There is a lovely meditation in which we reflect on all elements which give rise to our present circumstances.  It's a simple practice.  Choose something in your life-food, a treasured object, a loved one, a skill, anything at all-and express gratitude for all the things which allowed this to come into existence.

Spinning and fibre arts are ideal candidates for this meditation.  As you spin, think of everything which brought you to this pleasure.  There are the tools you use, the makers who crafted those tools, the materials which comprise spindle or wheel.  Think of the elements required to grow the wood for those tools-wind, rain, nutrients, insects, other animals who deposited the seeds, to name just a few.

There are the fibres we spin: consider the animals and plants from which they come, the people who raised and harvested our fibres.  We can reflect on the "ancestory" (this spelling intended) of our knowledge.  Who taught us these skills?  Who taught them?  What conditions brought us to this moment, spinning?

A Tabachek bottom whorl spindle and bowl, yarn from Romney fleece, a ball of silk singles, sitting on a handwoven coaster of commercial cotton and hand spun, dyed wool

On and on it goes.  We trace our lineage through time, expressing gratitude to everyone and everything who contributed to our work.

When we practise this meditation, we realize that all things are interconnected and that our personal lives and skills encompass all.  No one person and no one thing arises on its own-we truly do come from stardust, eventually to return.  I'm grateful for that.

Thanks to all the fellow travellers on this journey.

A bucket of goldenrod flowers waiting to become dye