Healing Handcrafting


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Supporting Grieving Children

Thursday is Children’s Grief Awareness Day. You can read about the origins of this important day here. If you have a child in your family, classroom, sports team, extracurriculars, or community that you know is grieving the loss of a loved one, you can find wonderful information on the Highmark Caring Place website about how to support them.

Definitely check out their Facts and Stats page for some insights into the breadth and depth of grieving children and the long-term flow of grief so many of them experience.

Below I’ve shared an excerpt from The Long Grief Journey in hopes of contributing to this very important conversation. There have been many times over the years where I’ve worked with children who appeared to be struggling with learning or behavioral issues who also had lost a loved one. Sometimes it was long enough before I became involved for educators and other important adults in their lives to not be aware of the child’s loss. Sometimes too, the assumption was made that so much time had passed between the child’s loss and whatever was happening at the moment that the two issues (or more) weren’t related. What we found, time and again, was that with tender care and raised awareness, support of children was more full-bodied, relevant, and empathetic when the picture of the child’s life was viewed as a whole, grief included.

I hope that if you are supporting a grieving child, you find this useful.

The Long Grief Journey, excerpt from Chapter 15:

Helping Children Cope with Long-term Grief While Tending to Yourself

It can be tough to help kids deal with grief when you’re grieving as well. It’s important to take care of yourself…

Amy Morin, LCSW, psychotherapist

A life built around a core sense of absence is its own type of grief and for many is difficult to describe in words. The journey begins early if your child lost a significant loved one at an age where they don’t hold any memories of them. If you’re helping your child grow up with the absence of a precious loved one, you already know you have a crucial role to play. It’s important to keep their deceased loved one in consciousness, by name and by image, to tell stories about them, saying their name in fluid, non-whispered ways. Consider also this truth: children will grieve and will process their grief in some way, no matter what we do. The more open we are, and the more space we can hold for them, the more fluidly their experience will go.

SPOTTING LONG-TERM GRIEF IN CHILDREN

When a child loses a parent…that child grows up feeling different and alone. A story is written in a secret place in that child’s mind—a story of loss and pain and the triumph over that pain.

Maxine Harris, PhD, author The Loss That is Forever: The Lifelong Impact of the Death of a Mother or Father

As much as we’d like to insulate ourselves from untimely loss, it’s proven to be impossible. Some people lose a loved one when they’re infants, and others after a long life lived together. There is no official roadmap detailing how loss will impact a life, but some themes emerge worth considering.

Here, we write as though you are a parent or caregiver to a child who has lost a significant loved one, but if you are reading this section with yourself in mind, hold a space for remembrance of your age and your thinking and needs from that time. So often as children go through their own grieving process, they are supported by people who are also grieving and who have varying levels of knowledge about developmental ages and stages and the needs associated with them. Those who are in the acute stage of grieving don’t generally have a lot of extra energy to spare.

Let’s begin with what unifies us all in the experience of long- term grief, regardless of the age you are at the time of loss. In the beginning, common feelings and reactions include anger, ambivalence, longing, and the persistent striving to recover the person lost. Age is what tends to dictate how these emotional reactions appear and are understood or expressed. As a rule, adults have more life experience than children and have more reference points for identifying feelings and for asking for what they need. Children are often confused about what their feelings are about and may even struggle with naming them. Anger can feel more like an urge. Persistent longing might be expressed through obsessive ritual and magical thinking. When young children lose a parent, sibling, or other precious loved one, the effects can last for years, especially if they are not supported by the important adults in their lives in a way that allows all of the feelings and fears to be expressed and processed. Michael described how his granddaughter continues to process the death of her father who passed away five years ago.

My granddaughter has hundreds of cuddly toys. So many around her bed that she can’t get in it! She fixates on keeping them all in the same order. She is ten now and she doesn’t look to be abandoning her teddy bears any time soon. We just accept it.

It’s so important for caregivers, teachers, and other adults to know that even years after a child loses a dear loved one, especially a parent or sibling, issues can arise which look like anxiety, depression, attention deficit disorder, autism, obsessive-compulsive disorder, and academic delays. In a child’s life, loss changes the shape, texture, flow, and rhythm of most everything. It doesn’t mean they can’t go on to live wonderful enriching lives, but it does mean the relevant and important adults in their lives need to keep an open ear to underlying issues as they express themselves.

Older children and adults understand time and finality, whereas infants, toddlers, and young children do not. Forever can be both an impossible concept to understand as well as terrifying when applied to the deceased loved one. It’s easy to see how immediate grief reactions can evolve and morph into long-term and unresolved grief as the child learns to have a relationship with someone who isn’t there. Even years later, people of all ages report “seeing” their loved ones in passing cars or in groups of people. Pam swears she saw her father sitting in a diner eighteen months after his death. “I saw him sitting in the window from the parking lot wearing his favorite baseball hat, and I almost approached him!” This kind of seeking behavior is found in people of all ages.

No matter the age a child is when they lose an important loved one, they are likely to regress to behaviors from a younger developmental stage, at least for a while. Children who were potty-trained may bed wet again for a time. Teenagers may want to sleep in their parent’s room or may not feel comfortable going out. Moreover, adults may wish for someone else to manage the nuts and bolts of life, responsibility feeling too burdensome and stressful. Herein lies the potential for a complicated battle of the needs. It’s easy to imagine that if an adult is feeling the pains of grief for a long time and needs a release of pressure, it might be doubly hard to care for children who suddenly are not only grieving but are also doing things that are unexpected, appear immature, or even are annoying. The way children’s caregivers respond to these regressions has a lot to do with the way grief is metabolized in the long run. That’s why getting support and gaining increased under- standing of how children express is so very important.

A LIFE REDEFINED

Ian was twelve when he lost his father. When he was twenty, he asked, “I wonder what kind of man I would have been if I’d had my father all this time.” Now he’s forty-one and told us, “I still miss him every day.”

Pam

Another thing to remember is that at every developmental stage or milestone, life is redefined. Graduations, new jobs, greater independence, a committed relationship, parenthood—all these things that come to pass in a life stand out as one more life event a parent didn’t witness, and one more moment to grieve. Over a lifetime, metabolizing this loss and incorporating it into one’s identity is the goal.

Those who lost a loved one at a young age might not feel free to talk about them. Some feel as though bringing up their name or names will make others uncomfortable. Some suffer from feelings of sadness and jealousy when they witness others having close and bonded relationships. There is a sense of difference, of otherness that marks a person’s life and can make special moments at best bittersweet, at worst, emotionally intolerable. It seems there is a value placed on the recency of loss. The further back one’s loss goes, the less room it gets to take up in conversation. Meanwhile, the person who lost someone at an early age may feel like this fact of their life is the first part of them that enters a room, the rest shaped by this loss.

Whether we’re healing our inner child, tending to our adult wounds, or helping another person on their long journey, it helps us to be oriented to where a person was in life when they sustained their profound loss. It can also help us serve ourselves from a tender and compassionate point of view.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

A Book Recommendation: a dear friend of mine whose family has been impacted greatly by loss recommends the book The Invisible String, by Patrice Karst. She said this book was invaluable to her family when they were supporting her grandchild through grief. There are other books in the series that are all wonderful and deeply supportive of children and those who care for them.

Do you have books you recommend for grieving children?


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Thoughts On Grief

I spend a lot of time thinking about and talking about grief. It’s part of my job as a therapist. I co-wrote a book about it. And I incorporate working through grief into certain of my weaving classes, both with groups and individuals. It’s a subject that is always relevant because all of us, at some point in our lives, barring few exceptions, lose loved ones or experience losses of other kinds, like endings of relationships, job loss, or significant life changes due to chronic illness, bankruptcy, natural disaster, war. The list is long. The news of late has been devastating and heart crushing when viewing what is happening in the Palestinian Territories and Israel. So many of us are grieving locally as well as globally. So many of us have been doing this for a long time.

There’s nothing to say about it that can take away the reality of the pain, anguish, trauma, and truth of the matter, which is that human beings can be so utterly monstrous to each other. It’s shocking, and then we must think on the reality that we have choices to make every day about how we are going to be in the world. And sometimes even the most peaceful of us disappoint ourselves. I guess that’s where the truth is, too. It’s always a choice, and always it is true that how we are to others impacts our experience of our lives and our relationships.

I’ve noticed a few things lately that might seem obvious, but that have been moving me and making me look above and beyond the chatter. These observations help me connect with my choices in a way that mitigates feelings of helplessness and despair. I’ll share them with you here.

~ There’s a lot of dialogue about how much our culture gets grief wrong and how there is this pressure on people to “get over” grief quickly. I don’t disagree with that, but I have been noticing how many individuals and organizations are out there, all over the world, talking about how grief really is, and how much it changes a person and a life. As I’ve looked more deeply into remembrance and awareness days to do with grief, I’ve seen a lot of realistic information about what grief is really like as well as how we can support others when they are struggling. I’ll write soon about an upcoming awareness day to do with grieving children. I wonder what is getting in the way of the honest messages to do with grief from landing and changing the experiences people have when they are suffering. How can we release the pressure we put on ourselves to stay the same, no matter what?

~ Giving people the space and respect they deserve and are entitled to when processing life events and grief is a wonderful thing to do. When we can get out of the mindset of having to make someone “feel better” and instead hold space for them to simply be where they are, a sort of alchemy takes place. A bridge of trust grows, and often it looks like recognition. Almost like a version of namaste, it is as though the spirit says, the grief in me sees the grief in you.

~ As I talk with and listen to people, something is becoming crystal clear: long-term grief is not always solely about the loved one lost, but sometimes is a result of the anguish of trying to get back to normal too fast, whether this is a self-imposed pressure or felt as pressure from others. As a result of that anguish, there are multiple layers of complexity piled on and on and on. As people try to find their balance and figure out a new normal after any kind of grief, part of that often entails facing the pain of how their grief was received and responded to. This is tough stuff, but it seems important to me.

~ There is something incredible that happens when people let themselves process life events through the practice of making. We do so much thinking about so many things. And I’m a fan of thinking! Thinking helps us make choices that are less reactive, more informed, and ideally lead to better outcomes than when we fly by the seat of our emotions. But… sometimes we get lost in the weeds of words and self-analyzing. Creating spaces where people can translate lived experience into artistic form works, and what we get from that is insight and healing from angles that might not have been approached if the senses weren’t involved.

~ Listening… the most wonderful kind of listening… is medicine. The kind where you’re not waiting to say the next thing, or thinking about your words as the other person is still talking. Slowing down and absorbing what someone is saying and letting it affect you or work on you in some way- this is true relating. And it doesn’t require hours, or even many minutes. It just requires deciding that the person you are engaged with is worth your time and attention. Can you imagine if we all treated everyone like that? And were treated like that all the time?

What helps us meet the people around us where they are, not where we want them to be? How do we maintain compassion, patience, love, and curiosity? The first thing that comes to mind and is the only one I want to focus on at the moment is self-compassion. Sometimes it’s just the truth that our cups will not be full before we give to others, and we can sustain that for a while. Sometimes we are tired and grieving ourselves, when we are at the same time showing up for others. And sometimes, we can’t give in the ways others want us to give or we wish we could, and we need to pull back and refocus that energy. That’s okay. It helps to remember and keep remembering that it’s not anyone’s job to take grief away from others or somehow fix the pain of it. And sometimes energy needs to go back into the self for a while before it can go out again. It’s just the way it is, and there’s nothing selfish about it. It’s okay to think about how you can show up for people at any given time, and be honest about.

How do you tend to yourself and nourish yourself as you go about life and relationships? Do you have ways you tune in and respond to your heart and body? Do you take the importance of this as seriously as you do your love for and support of others? And, when you can’t be there in the way you always have and feel worried about that, or stressed or resentful, do you have ideas about alternatives? Can you imagine communicating them?

Until next time,

Bradie


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Five Gifts of Weaving

There is something alchemical about handweaving. It connects us with ourselves, with others, and with our ancestors, recent and distant. Weaving is part of our ancestral DNA and when we allow our fingers to interlace thread with thread, we create connection and foundation. Weaving does not have to be expensive, and weaving should be accessible to all people. If we can apply resistance to threads and create a taut warp, we can weave.

I love the long arc of weaving and the incredible potential it affords. One can sit with a simple frame loom and weave wild art pieces as well as work on a multi-harness floor loom and create wondrous and complex fabric. There are so many types of weaving and looms. Multi-shaft, tapestry, backstrap, pin, circular, inkle, Rinny Tin-Tin. Over the last decade, I’ve been teaching fiber art and craft in schools and more recently at the Shelburne Craft School, and there are some thought jewels that I’ve gathered along the way that fuel me, inspire me and make me want to keep learning and expanding. I’ve shared some of them here as a way of inviting anyone who has an inkling, to try out weaving, or any art or craft you’ve longed to try but keep putting off.

People Meet Themselves When They Weave

On many occasions, I’ve had the good pleasure of hearing people say things like, “I’m usually __________ (fill in the blank), but I’m playing with being __________ (fill in the blank) as I weave this” … or “I’ve never played with so much color before and I LOVE it!” …, or “I never realized how much tension I hold in my hands” …, or “the process of weaving while I reflect on my loved one is bringing up thoughts and feelings I’ve not held space for in so long, if ever.”

When we let ourselves just be with our hands, our eyes, and our breath as we make, our spirit has a chance to catch up and settle into the space between our lungs and in all the chambers of our heart. We can hear our own breathing again. We can let our eyes linger where they want to, and then notice where that is. We can meet our inner judge and talk it down from fear. We can usher ourselves into new territory and have woven fabric to show for the journey.

People Benefit from Having Access to Colors and Textures and the Opportunity to Experiment

This may sound so obvious it’s laughable, but hear me out. Have you ever had the experience of being invited to make something, and are given a certain set of materials that everyone else has, and a series of instructions that everyone else has, and you make something at the end that looks like a weird, kind of close but disturbingly not-close version of the thing you were supposed to make? Or is that just my life? In my experience, nothing botches up creativity more than when we are in a circumstance that doesn’t let us feel and see our way through materials we want to touch and witness. I’ve been blessed with a bunch of students who “go rogue” on the regular. It’s hilarious, and it’s shown me that people have their own ideas and their own version of learning that needs to be honored and allowed for as much as possible. Yes, sometimes technical truths need to be thrown in the mix to ensure that people can weave the thing they want to weave, but I’ve learned that creative drive is strong and shouldn’t be stamped out by rigidity.

People of All Ages Need to Play

I think we all know this intuitively, but what I’ve found is that people of all ages need access to opportunities where they can experiment, follow their noses, see what happens, try this and that, on low-stake projects. As we age, many of us become concerned with how much things cost, how much “time is worth”, how useful something is, and whether there is value to whatever it is we are doing. It puts so much pressure on the creative part of ourselves that just needs a freakin’ minute to look at things, try things out, observe what happens when certain materials interact with others, and take notice of how we feel about what we are seeing and experiencing. We need the chance to just be and drop in to our flow. When teaching elementary aged people as well as folks in their senior years, I’ve heard many exclaim, “Oh wow, I get to use this?” and, “I can’t believe I can weave with all of this! It’s so much fun!”

That makes my day.

My friend and weaving teacher, Lausanne Allen, playing the fiddle while guests learned to braid using the Kumihimo method during an event at the Shelburne Craft School.

Weaving Can Be Very Simple and Very Complex

I’m hitting home runs here with obvious statements, but it’s worth saying that weaving is, at its most basic, the process of moving one material over and under and over and under another material. That’s it. Simple as that. From that foundation, we can weave the most complex and wondrous images and textiles imaginable. But it all starts with interlacing whatever it is we are weaving with. Isn’t that marvelous? Weaving is for everyone. It can be taught to people as young as nursery school age, and there is no age limit. In fact, weaving can help those dealing with the effects of stroke, dementia, and Alzheimer’s disease, as it has been shown to strengthen and encourage neuroplasticity in the brain.

When We Get to Do Things We Love, We Are Living the Universal Dream

Disclaimer: This is my view based on a whole lot of things. Feel free to take it or leave it.

If we are doing what we love at least sometimes, we can experience ourselves and share with the world our inherent gifts. There are no losers in this set-up. (Of course, I’m assuming that doing what we love doesn’t include hurting other people or living in a way that disregards others’ autonomy and integrity.) When we share what we love with others who are interested, we are giving from the place of our truest selves, because what we love is connected to who we are; the spark connected to our creativity is born from energy itself, and it interlaces with others’ creativity, like a cosmic dance. It’s amazing!

Whether it’s weaving, dancing, sculpting or singing, writing, building or baking (the list goes on and on), if we love what we are doing and sharing it with others in some way, we are putting some good energy into the world. And my friends, the world needs that big time.

Doing what we love = good medicine.

I hope whatever you are doing today includes you sharing the spark you have with the world in whatever way feels great to you. Until next time.


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Ways to Tap Into Your Creativity and Why It’s Important

I’ll share with you, right out of the gate, some positions I hold that are unshakeable:

  • It is my deepest belief that every person has creative energy within them.
  • Something wants to be expressed and realized in every human.
  • One does not need to go to art school to find and express their artistry.
  • We have a choice about how this creative energy is harnessed- generatively or destructively?

Where I live in the northeastern United States, summer brings a surge of energy that, whether felt by people or not, is always part of the environmental experience. We emerge out of cold winter. We make it through spring, which in Vermont is a weird conglomeration of less cold air, more moisture, thawing ground, a lot of mud, then a freeze, then another thaw, more mud, some warm days, then some cold days again. Finally, we make it to the time when it stays warm. The greens explode, flowers bloom, birds sing, farmer’s markets bustle, frogs fill the night sky with their croaky songs.

For me, this is typically when there is a powerful surge in my own creative energy, and in the last fifteen years or so, I’ve learned to harness it in an effort to create. What I didn’t really know before fifteen years ago, was that this is a distinct energy that needs tending to, not just when there is a surge of it, but throughout one’s life and throughout any given year, no matter the season. One doesn’t need to be an Artist with a capital A to do this. Many people know this already and live in accordance with their flow of expression. You might see it when you walk into someone’s home and they’ve decorated in a way that delights the senses. Or maybe you’ve known people who can prepare food that would make Julia Childs exclaim. Have you ever walked through a home garden where someone has lovingly tended to each of their plants and has bits of ornamentation here and there that makes you smile? In all of these ways, individuals express themselves and share what they love with the rest of us.

Of course there’s also painting, drawing, writing, weaving, knitting and crochet, sculpture, carving, repurposing, hand-stitching and sewing, dancing, metal work, singing, making music, playing… the list goes on and on.

Life for the majority of adults involves a whole lot of work, and these days, an astronomical amount of distraction from what’s right in front of us. Most heart crushingly, the thing that is severely neglected in this overstimulating culture is our relationship with ourselves.

We are someone we can get to know and have a relationship with.

This is incredibly important to understand. We can hang out with ourselves and get to know ourselves in ways that are very similar to how we hang out with other people and get to know them. How? We give ourselves time to follow our noses and let our creative energy lead the way for a bit. Julia Cameron talks about this at length in The Artist’s Way, and she specifically urges her readers to take themselves on dates. These can be outings that really don’t take a lot of time but that are just for you and you are just with yourself. This is crucial. Your date with yourself should not be time to catch up with phone calls or coffee dates. This is your time you give yourself in order to be with … you! The more you go on these dates with yourself, the more they become second nature and an important part of your life.

So, why is this important enough that I write a blog post about it? Here’s some reasons:

~ Creative energy is energy. When it is stuck, suppressed or unrecognized, it can shape-shift in ways that are not generative. Think abusive use of substances, depression, agitation, disconnection via distraction, sadness or grief for reasons that are hard to identify, living through other people and their creativity, and simply living life by going through the motions.

~ When we notice the creative energy in ourselves and tend to it, we allow for others to do the same, in whatever ways bring them joy and meaning. We learn about ourselves and others.

~ We slow down enough to engage in the moment that is right in front of us. For example, when I’m weaving, I’m only weaving. I’m not texting, doom scrolling, making dinner, talking on the phone… I’m doing this one thing that requires my full attention and I focus. Sometimes I can only do this for 20-minutes, but 20-minutes is better than 0 minutes, so I’ll take it.

~ We develop relationship with our selves. Sorry, as a therapist I’ll never not think this is important!

~ We allow the energy within us to flow up and out. I think about what one of my mentors said all the time when he was teaching. He talked about seeds and how a sunflower seed can only become a sunflower. It will never be something else, and when it is fully realized, it is wholly itself. It will never be a marigold, or a daisy or a tomato. This is how it is for people. Yet for us, many things get in the way of our original seed growing into what it is in its truest nature. Allowing for time to connect with our creativity is one way to clear the path for our true nature to grow up and into the light.

How Do I Tap Into My Creative Energy?

As promised in the title of this piece, I want to give you my go-to ideas for how to cultivate, reignite or tend to your creative life. This is not an exhaustive list and many books have been written on this. My favorite so far is The Artist’s Way, and if this topic is of interest to you, I highly recommend it.

But for now…

~ Accept the idea that you are a creative person with energy inside of you that is unique to you and is valuable to this world.

~ Accept that expressing your creativity is not selfish, meaningless or a waste of time. My teacher Susan Barrett Merrill said to me once that in fact, we do good for the world when we allow the gifts that we have to flow through us and out, and that when we take time to be with ourselves and create and make, we add that energy to our environment. She said that to me because I struggled with this one myself.

~ Make things easier for yourself. Here’s an example: If you like to paint or want to paint but think that the only way to paint is to buy all the expensive tools and materials you’ll need, and create a space in your home that is only for painting, and that you have to take a class before you start painting, and that you have to carve out a few hours every day to paint or it’s not worth it… guess what? You won’t paint. If you’re a busy person with a bustling life and lots of responsibilities that might be hard to stretch at first, start small. Twenty-five years ago, an artist friend of mine gave me these kinds of paints and this kind of paper so that I could delve into making things. He told me back then, “you are an artist”. I said, “no, I’m not at all an artist. You are an artist and I’ll leave that to you talented people out there.” Well, guess what? I still use those paints (a different set now because I used the set up!) and while I’ll not be exhibiting my watercolor paintings in any galleries, I love them and they inspire me to make other things.

~ Minimize distractions, but be realistic. One of the things that really gets in the way is the idea that “If I can’t dedicate hours to what what I want to do, then it’s not worth it.” This is a lie. There are ways to build in moments to connect with self via the creative path. Maybe there’s a day in a busy person’s life where settling in for some extended sewing isn’t possible, but a smaller handwork project is if you have a little basket with your bag of notions and some fabric. So is looking at books or magazines that inspire or teach. So is sitting on a front stoop or by a window and looking out at the world and gathering inspiration for a future project.

I wove this piece in 15 to 20 minute increments over the course of a month. It’s random and was an attempt to learn and play with color, as well as to make sure I wove “every *%$@ day”, to quote Tommye McClure Scanlin

~ Have at the ready small ways you can do the things you love. I’m taking this tapestry class right now with Rebecca Mezoff, and it’s wonderful. I now have a little bag with all the essentials to easily bust out a drawing, a note, or even a small weaving if I find myself in a place where I can create.

~ Make dates with yourself to do the larger things. And honor them. These are as important as anything else. (I think this is incredibly hard for many people.)

~ Avoid “killing time”. I wrote about this here.

~ Don’t compare yourself to others. This is top-shelf creativity energy kryptonite. Don’t do this. If you do find yourself struggling with these crushing thoughts, let your inner judge know, “It’s okay. I won’t (you fill in the blank with whatever your judge is saying). We are just playing and we are safe.” Sometimes our inner judge thinks it’s helping to protect us from something, so it needs to know that you are going to try to enjoy your creativity more and nothing bad will happen.

~ Visit local antique stores, art galleries, museums, flea markets, book stores, parks, outdoor art installations, open studio days, farmer’s markets… most of these are free and give you the opportunity to look around see what you’re drawn to.

Hopefully, if you’re still reading, I’ve made my case that it’s worth it and important to engage with your creative energy, and it doesn’t have to be expensive or unrealistically time consuming. You are a unique expression of life and within you are ways to engage with this expression so you and others can know it better. Why not go for it? Time passes whether we engage with ourselves or not, so in my view, we may as well make the most of it and see what we can create.

Until next time


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Letting Go of Normal

“I just want things to go back to normal.”

How often have you heard this refrain, or uttered it yourself when you’ve just wanted to put a pause on having new information or issues to respond to? I’ve been thinking about our relationship with normal. It’s like a thick, strong, orienting rope that runs through a life and culture, and where we are in relation to it is always up for evaluation. We talk about physical health in terms of normal. Behavior, psychological functioning, intelligence, too. And then there’s the social norms that dictate so much of how our school years and work and social lives go. Oh, and then there’s what many pay attention to as parents when kids are going through developmental milestones. Music, weather, animal behavior, family functioning are all up for grabs in the context of normal comparisons. Really, is there any part of life that is not subject to an almost immediate assessment of how it does or does not relate to normal?

Such a bland word that elicits a broad range of reactions from people packs quite a punch and I think it’s worth looking into a little bit.

From Merriam-Webster, normal means: “conforming to a type, standard, or regular pattern : characterized by that which is considered usual, typical, or routine; according with, constituting, or not deviating from a norm, rule, procedure, or principle; approximating the statistical average or norm occurring naturally; generally free from physical or mental impairment or dysfunction : exhibiting or marked by healthy or sound functioning; not exhibiting defect or irregularity; within a range considered safe, healthy, or optimal.”

Like any concept, it’s the case that normal is not all one thing. It is not all good, and it’s not all bad. What’s good about normal? Why do we need it and rely on it so much? Seems to me like the opposite of normal is chaos, and chaos is, taken in extreme form, the primordial ooze from which all things began. It’s unpredictable, unstable, volatile and confused. It’s the seat of creation and true creativity. It erupts and changes things. It can be exciting. It can be terrifying. It’s necessary and feared.

Chaos knocks things into a new trajectory, but then guess what? An ordering principal takes over and helps the effects of chaos fall into a pattern. Patterns are stable and predictable. They can be known and understood, unlike their birth mother, Chaos. This must happen. I suppose that normal lives in patterns and normal dies in chaos. Chaos and Normal dance and work together to keep things moving. They are both necessary.

In life, people can deviate from the mean of normal in either direction. Further away from this mean is when we start to experience some things that are different from what everyone hanging out in the middle are experiencing. Bowing at the altar of normal can stifle the emergence of any new or unexpected material in an evolving system. This leads to the death or oppression of anything that is novel, creative, and life giving. Yet, diving full-bore into the waters of chaos and staying there for too long can mean that nothing is able to materialize into creative expression. It takes discipline to make creative energy bear fruit, and discipline does not live in chaos.

You can see the tension here. This is some dynamic stuff.

But here’s the rub as I see it: We do a miserable job as a culture allowing ourselves and others to be changed by what happens to us. Let’s take the pandemic. Rest assured, the amount of times I’ve longed for things to go back to normal cannot be counted. But even with less restrictions and people getting back to life as it was before, it’s not “back to normal”. We are changed and we will never be, as a whole, like we were before. The pandemic was a long-term, slow motion perturbation to our system which created chaos and confusion. We are still experiencing the natural inclination of a system finding its new orbit around this new reality, yet I see more and more a distancing from viewing it this way. I am longing for a greater dialogue about how we are changed and what that means not from the point of view that we have to get back to where we were, but more that we need to understand more fully where we are.

Where are we? I’m not the same. Are you?

I think the urge to get back to normal when the landscape that existed before doesn’t exist anymore causes tremendous pain and anxiety. We can’t go back to something that doesn’t exist anymore. But we can try to more fully understand where we are.

This is true after someone we love dies.

This is true after having a baby.

This is true after falling in love or breaking up.

This true when childrens’ parents separate.

This is true after losing a job or relocating to a new place for a job.

This is true after receiving a life changing diagnosis.

This is true after war, natural disasters, or exposure to and experience of violence.

This is true after experiencing a spiritual awakening.

Can we let ourselves be changed without judging it, hiding it, or stunting it? Can we let ourselves just be with what is true and talk about it all, and let others talk without pulling the “normal” card out of our back pocket? Life systems naturally organize themselves into new, mostly stable patterns. We can trust that this will happen, so we can relax and be more gentle on ourselves and each other and not force the issue. It’s okay if your best friend seems different now and doesn’t want to do the same things they did before. Be curious about it instead of judging it. It’s okay if you look different after grief. Look at yourself and be curious and loving and notice the hard earned scars of living a life that is filled with so many things. It’s okay if something big or little shifts in your psyche and you find a new and unexpected road to walk down. Check it out and see what’s there. It became visible because something changed.

Take the pressure of “getting back to normal” off yourself because, that normal? It’s gone. There’s a new normal to explore and it’s got a whole lot of new terrain for us to get to know.

That’s interesting, isn’t it?


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All of it is Always Happening

I’m having a moment of just sitting for a bit and wanted to document here in this special place to me all of what is happening in my own little sliver of life that is housed in the much bigger picture. But first, I have to send out a deepest call of love to all of those in Turkey and Syria whose world literally just opened up beneath them, creating chasms of pain, fissures of searing heartache, and images of the most incredible grief, courage, love, determination, and exhaustion one can see. Nothing seems all that relevant in the face of that except love. It’s really the only thing that matters at the end of the day.

Actually, I think I’ll just leave it at that.


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The Long Grief Journey

I can’t believe it’s finally happened, but this week I received a box of books, all of them The Long Grief Journey: How Long-Term Unresolved Grief Can Affect Your Mental Health and What You Can Do About It. In spring of 2020, my friend Pamela Blair who co-wrote I Wasn’t Ready to Say Goodbye and is the author of several other titles, asked if I’d be interested in writing a book about long-term grief. I wrote about that moment here. And now, a month before its release (on February 14, 2023), I get to hold it and read it and show it to people. Wow. What a trip!

It’s been a long time since The Long Grief Journey was picked up by Sourcebooks and I owe a debt of gratitude to the wonderful editor who saw the value in making our work available to people and helping us to shape it and edit it well- thank you Erin! In the last year, the waiting for the book to come to print was starting to make it all feel a little bit unreal, and a little scary and then a little disorienting- wait, we’re almost at the release date?! I need to get a new outfit or something! But now, holding the book in my hands, I remember it all: the first invitation to join Pam in the project, the jumping into researching and brainstorming and writing, rewriting and collaborating, submitting and waiting and hoping and praying and now… here it is. And I am proud. Grateful and maybe even a little bewildered, too. To be able to use my own grief experience while being honored by so many people sharing their stories with us has in many ways brought an intimacy and more open heart to my day to day than ever existed before. Maybe the word is humbled? My heart feels tenderized.

If you end up reading the book, I hope you find it useful. We really are all walking this road together.


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Steadily Weaving and Learning Through Time

It’s been a minute. And not for lack of lots and lots of activity and making. Sometimes it’s hard to link together in a whole picture little bits of weaving here, some experiments there, and some growth elsewhere. One of the things I love about small format tapestry weaving, as well as weaving on unconventional looms, is that you can move them around, carry them with you, and finish them as you are able. That is the reality of my life these days. If not for moveable weaving, there’d be no weaving at all for me.

braided crone

I wove this little tapestry on a Handywoman small tapestry loom that I love so much. I take it with me most places and love it when I pull out that little number instead of my phone. It helps, to weave. Seriously.

house halved with a ghost house and a split house

I’ve had this piece going for a while. It’s part of what I hope to be a series of tapestries flowing from drawings I’ve done when sitting with the idea of moments that distinctly create a before and after. More on that at some point.

building
building some more
still building… more to come

I was on a drive recently with my daughter, soaking up beautiful Vermont autumn colors. I loved how not at all straight these grain rows are- I mean, isn’t that so reassuring? So beautiful and true?

inspiration

We always have a moment, even if it’s brief, to decide.

Decide on a sentence said or not said.

Decide on gesture extended or withheld.

Decide on a color, texture, or tension.

There’s always something to show for it.


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Gun Violence is a Scourge on our Humanity

I wanted to share with you a letter I’ve written to send to those in power in government. I’m assuming it will go nowhere, but aren’t we supposed to be able to share our passionate views with our leaders? I’ve been thinking about how, in my field (I’m a masters level psychologist), I had to go to school for years, pay many thousands of dollars for training, supervision, consultation, continuing education, licensing fees, etc., just so I can HELP people. Every two years, I have to prove and promise that I have no major afflictions that affect my ability to serve my community. And every two years, I must demonstrate I’ve participated in at least 60 hours of continuing education so that my knowledge base is up to date and relevant, and always ethical to its core. I must adhere to the strictest of ethical guidelines when I practice, and I value and honor these guidelines because I believe in the do-no-harm mandate that we commit to. Also, as a rule, we psychologists hold each other accountable and if we are concerned that someone is not conducting themselves ethically, we have a clear pathway to follow in relation to addressing our concerns. This is all so we can help people. Yet, in some states the laws that are in place that have to do with gun purchase and ownership make it so that someone doesn’t have to even have a gun license or prove anything other than that they are 21 years of age. In some states, there’s no oversight, no means of keeping tabs on gun owners, no requirement of continuing education, or a renewal of gun licensure requirement. Okay. This makes sense.

You might wonder how in the world these two things are connected and maybe it’s a stretch, but in my view, it strikes me as ridiculous that someone can very easily buy a very powerful weapon without any oversight or training mandate in some places. If guns were only used for hunting and in rare instances, self-protection, I’d feel differently. But already in 2022 there have been over 17,000 deaths from gun violence, and according to Everytown Research and Policy, of American women alive today, over 4.5 million of them have been threatened by a gun (I’d venture it’s a lot more than that because not every woman was interviewed), and every month an average of 70 women are shot at and killed by an intimate partner. Data indicates that in 2020, there were over 24,000 instances of suicide by gun. The statistics go on and on. More stringent gun laws wouldn’t wrestle guns from the hands of people who are using them responsibly. But they would at least chip away at the problem of guns falling into the hands of those who will use them for violence against others and harm to themselves.

Anyway, I have no fancy pictures to go along with this post. I’m so angry and so heartbroken that this is where we are as a country. I’m so angry that no shining star is emerging at the NRA convention that is taking place as I write this, who could call out the problems we face and ask their fellow gun-owners to participate in helping to solve this problem from the bottom up. I’m furious that the solutions that are offered include armed guards at points of entry of schools and training teachers to carry weapons to protect children. We’ve absolutely gone off the deep end. Our country itself is ill and I don’t know how we’re going to treat this particular illness.

Here’s my letter- it’s long but I figure if kids can wait for an hour for police officers to save them, even though there were armed officers there within minutes of the first 911 call, taking a few minutes to read this is doable:

“I’m writing to you the day after the shooting at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas. Nineteen children were killed as well as two adult teachers who were protecting them. I am sitting in my living room right now, thousands of miles away from where this horrific event took place. My daughter, who is about to turn twelve, is sitting next to me, focused on a game she is playing on her iPad. My fourteen-year-old son is about to come join us so we can watch a show together. This is a luxury that twenty-one families impacted by that school shooting will not enjoy with their beloved children. Perhaps you already know that in the US, only five months into this year, there have already been over seventeen thousand fatalities by gunshot and at least six hundred-fifty of those fatalities were children.

When I go to queue up the program we’ll watch, I will hurriedly adjust the settings on the television, so my young daughter doesn’t see news about the shooting. In case it sounds like we are keeping our children in the dark on world events, I want you to know that’s not the case. We talked to our children last night, knowing there would be conversation at school about it today. Teachers and administration had to talk to all the students just last week due to the shooting that took place at Tops Friendly Market in Buffalo, New York, where ten people were killed. They’ve gotten really good at having these talks with children.

We try to shield our kids from the onslaught of horrific gun violence news because it has already chipped away at their spirits and their feelings of trust and safety in the world, even in places where they should feel safe, like school. These horrors have, over time, done extensive damage to the nervous systems of so many in our country. Do you know that every time I hear screaming emergency vehicle sirens, I tilt my head to try to determine if they are heading to our local school? If I’m working close to the school when I hear the sirens, I walk outside and look, and I notice other parents doing same thing. We are always primed to run towards what most would consider the worst catastrophe to attack our community.

As I look at my children, I feel such tremendous guilt about the lack of power I have to make their world safer. I feel ashamed, and so angry. Each day they get on the bus or I drop them off at school, I feel a bit like I’m playing Russian Roulette with their lives. I quietly pray each time that it won’t be the day that someone forces their way into their school and unleashes their unbridled fury on innocent lives through showers of bullets. Have you imagined what children look like and how they sound when they are scared? I do. Do you know that children naturally feel responsible for so many things that happen in their lives, and that some wonder what they did wrong to deserve such punishment when they are faced with a terrifying event? It’s true. It’s called magical thinking. Can you envision children longing for their parents’ embrace as they listen to the gruesome demolishment of skin and life around them, or feel their own life ending? Can anyone? I can, and when I do, I weep.

And yet, I continue to send my children to school. Why? Why do we keep doing this? I suppose it’s a mixture of reasons. I trust it won’t happen in my town. We both know that’s absurd; that’s head-in-the-sand thinking, and sometimes it’s the only way I can make myself let them go. I also don’t want to pull my children out of active living because of my fear. I know that they love school and their teachers and friends, and they want to feel safe. School safety drills terrify them, but with time they’ve gotten used to imagining someone busting into their classroom and shooting them. The cognitive dissonance of this reality strikes me as emotional violence. Out of one mouth they hear, “you are safe, be safe, act safe, trust us”. Out of another, they hear, “lock the door, turn off the lights, be quiet, and hide”.

Here’s what else I know: teachers and school staff are made of the same stuff as children. Skin, bones, organs. They die when they are struck by bullets just like children and yet, we expect them to be superheroes and fight off an attacker. Why do we expect this? Why do we live in a country where we teach teachers how to recognize what could be used as a weapon in their classroom in the event of an attack? Am I the only one who thinks this is utter madness? Of course I’m not. Why are you and your colleagues not doing more, being more courageous, being the superheroes we need to stand up for us? You’re all like the officers that stand outside buildings when people are being shot inside; they have guns and are supposed to protect our country’s citizens! Why don’t they all immediately run in and save lives? You know why? Because guns are terrifying, and most people don’t want to die.

I’m a mother, and I’m also a psychologist. Every time I hear people say gun violence is not due to guns, but rather is due to mental illness and broken families, video games, movies, etc., I want to scream. Talk about kicking the can down the road. Do you know that every country has millions of people who suffer from some form of mental illness? All over the world people play video games and watch violent movies. Not one country is immune from domestic violence, sexual assault, murder, hate crimes and racist attacks. And every country must reckon with how it helps to support its aching citizens. It’s the most obvious statement in the world, that mental health is part of the problem. It’s not binary. It’s not guns vs. mental health. It’s everything, all together.  But making gun ownership so ridiculously easy and allowing most anyone to own high powered guns that destroy flesh and bone more severely than handguns do is just nonsensical. What is also true is that high powered automatic weapons kill a lot more people at a time than a pistol, a knife, or hands. Countries that have strict gun laws have fewer mass shootings and less death by self-inflicted gunshot wounds. It’s just a fact. Of gun related deaths in the United States, two-thirds are self-inflicted. Certainly, mental health weighs into this statistic as well, but again, guns allow people to succumb to rash and permanent bodily damage. Firearms accounted for more than half of suicide deaths in the United States in 2020. This bears mentioning because of how frequently guns are used for reasons other than hunting or self-protection.

Some people say, “well, there are other countries that have far more gun violence related deaths than the US does.” My answer to that is, So what? Is the tipping point for us as a country going to be when we eventually make it to the top of the list? Do we need to win that competition? Is it prudent to compare the US to countries that are ridden with gang violence, drug and human trafficking and deep political unrest for us to feel better about our statistics?

We need people to think! We need people to do research and understand brain development in people and know why selling a firearm to an eighteen-year-old man/boy is an astronomically stupid thing to do if he has not had to do anything to prove his maturity, responsibility, and intention for use, let alone a semiautomatic rifle. We need politicians and policy makers to understand that the frontal lobe of the brain isn’t fully developed until a person is approximately twenty-five years old, and that younger people are more prone to rash, impulsive and reactive acting out. We need to have policies in place that are tailored to withstand the pressures of reactive rage of any person, at any age. We need to frustrate the impulse to cause harm so that someone might have more time to think and move past a momentary bout of emotional pain. A person wild with distress might still enter a school, church, grocery store or club, but with their bare hands or even a less powerful gun, are likely to kill less people.  

At the end of the day, we must take responsibility for ourselves, for our loved ones and our country. All guns need not be taken away from all people, but we absolutely must demand that all guns don’t make into the hands of all people, and certainly, why can’t we even imagine following the lead of Canada, New Zealand, Australia, and many countries in the EU? We are not the only humans on Earth that are attached to their individualism and independence! But we do appear to be the most stubborn, selfish, self-important, fearful, and ignorant when it comes to making reasonable systemic change around an issue that kills indiscriminately.

What can we do? I’ll hope you have some ideas and the fortitude to push hard for gun reform. In the meantime, I’ll pray that my children come home from school tomorrow.”


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Weaving Air

Having several different projects going at a time is a habit I’ve gotten accustomed to over the years. I don’t have a schedule that allows me go to weave at my loom for entire days. Instead, I have bits of time here and there that I try to make good use of when I can. I used to judge this part of my nature, the part that flits from this to that. I wondered if I had a discipline problem, or some issue with commitment. Always the therapist, I’m often unpacking who I am and how I operate, and examining how my traits and tendencies impact my day-to-day life.

Well, in this case, I’ve learned that I really enjoy making things, at home, at work, on my loom, with kids, with adults, and by myself. I feel frustrated when the only thing I’m working on is not with me, leaving my hands idle and my mind clanking a bit. When I allow myself to indulge in the many-projects-at-once rhythm, I get to eventually enjoy what I refer to now as my creative crescendo; so often many things are finished around the same time and I have this wonderful experience of seeing multiple ideas and efforts come to fruition at once.

Right now, I’ve got this vibe going in full-force. There’s a curtain (hopefully) on my counterbalance loom, towels on my rigid heddle, a tapestry on my copper pipe loom, another tapestry on a small frame loom, and oh… that second mitten I’ve been wanting to finish knitting for months.

What I’m noticing about a few of my projects is that they are going after a feeling or sense experience that I can best describe as airy. I want my curtain to be as flowing and loose as I can manage weaving it, with bits of structure and form throughout. This is an experiment as I try my hand at weaving with 20/2 cotton as the warp and using inlay throughout. I’m not using a pattern or following any directions. I’ve already learned something. I have my 20/2 warp sett at 12 epi, and I originally hoped to use the same yarn for the plain weave weft; the inlay was going to be a thicker cotton slub yarn that has a yummy texture. Well, what I learned was that the fabric was just too loose. I was beating it lightly to maintain an openness and transparency. I basically wanted a curtain that blended in with air. But what I found was that if I even looked at the fabric funny, the weave drooped and flopped, making it look injured and offended. When I started considering finding a spray adhesive and shellacking the whole thing once it was done, I realized I’d maybe made a mistake, chalked it up to my steep learning curve, and switched gears. I am going to try to use the experiment to cover some beautiful handmade paper I have, so all is not lost.

Now, I’m weaving the curtain with the same warp, but with the thicker cotton slub yarn as weft, beat loosely (still finding the right beat and trying to keep it consistently). I can’t do the same inlay design I was doing because I’m using that yarn for the plain weave. I decided instead on this twine, jute-like string/rope/yarn I have and opted to just lay it in, leaving both ends exposed. This is a departure from the inlay techniques I was planning on practicing with this curtain, but that’s okay. I’ll get to them. I love the twine because you can unravel it and it becomes this wild grass-like stuff. It smells good, too. I’m hoping my curtain will still feel airy, but I suspect it will hang with a little more purpose and won’t be so vulnerable to the passing breeze or occasional handling as my original design would have been.

On my rigid heddle, I’ve got an actual pattern that I’m following. It’s another slub cotton project, this time towels. I love weaving with this yarn! It’s soft, gentle, light. Clasped weft is the main weaving technique utilized in this pattern, and it’s very satisfying to watch it build up. Getting the beat right on this project takes some doing. You can see on the bottom right that I’m beating too hard in the clasped weft section that is newly begun, but I’m working that out. I’m definitely turning into a person that uses a tape measure as a necklace! Ha! I’ll share pics of these towels when they’re done.

I’ll get to the tapestry work in another post, but for now, I hope that whatever you’re doing, there’s some room for creativity and texture, even if it’s just here and there. All those moments add up and make something, eventually.