Blog ~ Twin Willows

November 29, 2017

A Pot Luck Dinner

Our Tuesday night Knit group came to my house last night for a potluck celebration of our group and of the Yule season. I want to explain that I am not a Domestic Goddess, in fact I am a rather remedial case. Thankfully, my dear husband does all the cooking and prepares fantastic meals from scratch.

Bill was in Regina visiting his brother, and I had an option; I could either paint the dining room or throw a party! I considered doing both but that didn’t pan out. Throw a party it was,

I covered my bets by making it a pot luck – that way, we would not be forced to eat what I could whip up. Well, my beloved Tuesday Knitters really stepped up! I was not quite ready when my first guest arrived., Amelie generously offered to help out, and she has a great deal more skill in the kitchen than I! So did the next guests, setting out food, cutting up a baguette, cutlery. Eventually it was like a kitchen party. Next time, I’ll make sure a fiddler shows up and plays.Gina helped me get the music going ( I’m supposed to be a techie!) We had a fabulous veggie curry, a quinoa salad to die for, Jamie Oliver put in an appearance, a veggie quiche chock full of yummy veggies and the desserts were terrific. Christina lost skin in her baking adventures with brownies, there was delicious Sucre a la Creme and I produced a Gingerbread Bundt Cake from scratch against terrific odds. The recipe is in a separate post that will go up by tomorrow morning..

We had a yarn swap afterwards, and there were terrific treasures, We boosted Amelie, our new knitter’s stash with some pretty yarn; and i found some blue squishy stuff and some more yarn for a Mindful knitting Workshop that I will be running for Joanne. Every one went home happy and I am so, so grateful for my wonderful talented friends.

September 2, 2017September 2, 2017

Intention Attention and Attitude

September

Now is a time of gentle endings – saying good bye to summer time pursuits and getting ready for new beginnings. Perhaps another school year. Or just going back into your work or life with renewed vigour – brought about by the freshening winds. An opportunity to start again with new subject matter, to revitalize our knowing. It is also often an opportunity to meet new people, create new or change our existing relationships to reflect that we’ve grown.

Intention

First, what are our intentions in going into these relationships? Are these relationships in line with our overall values; are they nourishing to our spirit?
Are we entering into these connections for a mutually beneficial outcome?

Attention

Second, am I focusing my attention on this person(s) while in their presence. Listening with full attention is a gift that rarely occurs, since we are all coping with so many distractions. Have we brought a deep and penetrating attention to these connections?

Attitude

The attitudes we bring to our life and all the moments and encounters in it critically affect how we pay attention. Try practicing attitudes of acceptance, curiosity and warmth and you may discover a greater turning towards making new relationships and deepening of existing ones.

We may find that our connections benefit from a high quality of mindfulness, and our endings are not so final. These endings in fact may lead to new beginnings, chance encounters leading to great opportunities.

May 18, 2017May 22, 2017

The Siren Call of Spring

Wild Geese

Overhead the Canadian geese are chatting amongst themselves, as they move in with the warmer weather. Happily, there are a lot of options nearby for them to land and feed in. Their chatting voices are by necessity rather loud since they need to be heard above the sound of the rushing wind, and since their v – shaped flying patterns keep them spaced very widely apart. I wouldn’t think there are very many intimate conversations going on, just stories about how grandpa used to love this place or how that place dried up like a desert last year, and instructions to the young ones to note that particular landmark. I rejoice in their sound since it means that at least one other species thinks that the weather is going to get warmer.

Another sound of spring that cheers me is the pervasive sound of water trickling under the bottom of a plate of ice, of water whooshing through our downspouts, and rising in the ditches. It means that our blanket of 2 or 3 feet of snow is slowly, reluctantly, giving way to the sunshine. It is replenishing the aquifer gradually that flows beneath my farm, because we live in the country, and because this year it is melting slowly enough to be absorbed into the ground.

I realize that the majority of you who live in cities probably miss a lot of these water sounds. So much of the ground is “developed” and paved over that the spring runoff goes directly to storm water collection systems.

The smaller birds are getting noisy too – calling as they gather in large groups and then whizzing in twos to a new feeding patch. They’re getting ready for mating season, gathering energy for the frolicking ahead.

Spring is a wonderful season full of anticipation and excitement. Around our place it also comes with mud and lots of winter hair, given up by its original owners and now sticking fiercely on every piece of clothing I own. I will take the good with the bad, the hair with the sun. I will appreciate every small intimate change in my surroundings! Spring is here!!!!

January 21, 2016

Mindful Knitting Essentials

Healing

For those of us who knit, it will come as no surprise that knitting can be used as a therapeutic practice. A therapeutic process is one that heals our minds, bodies, spirits, or some combination thereof. Knitters will recognize that healing – in the joy we derive from most of our knitting experiences. Whether you are planning a project, fondling yarn, selecting just the right materials from your stash, or actually knitting, many steps of the knitting process bring about a sense of contentment and well-being. After all, that’s part of why we do it, right?

Benefits

Knitting can produce a host of benefits: creative inspiration, senses of accomplishment and self-confidence, community building, and the rhythm of a relaxing activity, to name a few. However, more depth is possible; adding the concept of mindfulness can enrich the experience of knitting and promote peace, contentment, and healing. Mindfulness is about paying attention to what is right with you, some of which you might normally take for granted or ignore. By paying attention in a new, more loving, and systematic way to what is right with you, you can discover a new capacity for understanding and growth.

Mindfulness for Deeper Healing

Mindfulness is well-researched and well-known to promote physical and emotional health. Techniques such as mindfulness meditation are widely used in treating cancer patients, anxiety, depression, and many other physical and emotional illnesses. The most basic explanation for how mindfulness practice fosters good health is that it lowers stress and helps with pain management, which helps the body and mind to heal.

Why This Course?

I’m offering a course on 3 essential aspects of mindful knitting for a few reasons. The first reason is because I think that combining mindfulness with a hobby that you love will encourage you to practice mindfulness more often – whenever you pick up your knitting needles. And it is the frequency of practicing mindfulness that ultimately provides the greatest benefit. The second reason is because the standard way that mindfulness is taught is in an eight week program – and that is a huge time commitment that many people do not wish to make.

So this course is intended to distill some of the essentials of mindfulness into a 3 part course taking place over a one month period.

I’m offering 2 different timeframes- Choose the one that best fits your schedule:

Course 1:
January 23rd – Enhancing Your Awareness 10 am—12:30 pm
February 13th – Dealing with Difficult Emotions 10 am—12:30 pm
February 27th – Self – Compassion 10 am—12:30 pm

Course 2:
February 20th – Enhancing Your Awareness 10 am—12:30 pm
March 5th – Dealing with Difficult Emotions 10 am—12:30 pm
March 19th – Self – Compassion 10 am—12:30 pm

3 Essentials

Enhancing your Awareness – deals with focusing on your skills of observation and awareness. Here you learn how to practice that focus again and again.

Dealing with Difficult Emotions – our natural tendencies are to ignore or repress unpleasant and difficult emotions. Here you learn how to approach and accept difficult emotions and thoughts – being curious about them. This can often lessen your fear of them.

Self – Compassion – our tendency to be critical of ourselves is harmful yet persistent. Here we learn about enfolding ourselves in loving kindness.

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January 15, 2016January 15, 2016

Beginning a New Year

Resolutions

For me, every new year brings me the hope that I can build on the wisdom that I have gained in the last year. The hope that I will remember that each tiny moment can be beautiful. The hope that I will be aware of the choices that I do have – the choice to select a right, measured response to pleasant and unpleasant events.

The understanding that each and everyone of us suffers, and that we are also connected and thus stronger for it.

I will remember this.

Finding a New Normal

We are all human beings and thus subject to the ups and downs of living – because not even the richest or the smartest or the most positive can avoid suffering.

Suffering is our reaction to what we perceive are negative events. Our reaction is often to run away from and ignore these negative events or thoughts in the misguided hope that perhaps they won’t follow us or will get bored and move on to someone more deserving. Unfortunately, these things seem to have the tenacity of toilet paper on the bottom of a shoe.

Once we turn around and acknowledge the negative event, and really look at it with curiosity, it can lose its hold on us and its ability to make us suffer.

Controllable versus Uncontrollable

Negative events can often be divided up into those that are largely controllable and those that are beyond our control.
Where we can exert some measure of control – then a problem-focused coping style is most effective. Thus if you tend to be late for work then doing something to solve the problem, such as getting up earlier, arranging your clothing and lunch the night before; is the most effective coping strategy.
Where the negative event is beyond our control, then an emotion-focused coping approach will be more effective. This approach will help us deal with the emotions the stressor brings up; since we can’t change the situation itself. Thus if we are waiting for hours in a doctor’s office, the best approach would be to notice our emotions, and choose how we wish to respond and deal with our uncomfortable feelings

Therapeutic Knitting

In our Therapeutic Knitting Group, we have recognized the wonderful ability of quiet knitting to fill up the hours of waiting time with productive and creative knitting.

Soothing — Soothe yourself with knitting

It is one of the tools that you can use to soothe and distract yourself in such situations. Another tool, that complements knitting, is the skill of Mindfulness.
Mindfulness allows you to become aware of your emotions, to reduce your stress and become better able to regulate your stress and emotions, if that is your intention. It allows you to adapt to rapid change; to know yourself better, and to transform yourself in the face of uncontrollable life events. Over time, it can adapt to your changing intentions, and allow self-exploration and ultimately transcendence. beyond the self to occur. It can strengthen your resilience.

“We don’t offer you mindfulness as a cure for your disease. Rather it holds the possibility of vastly enriching your life, helping you cope with symptoms and side effects, and improving the quality of your days. Mindfulness may also enhance your immune system’s performance and help reduce harmful levels of stress hormones in your body, changes that can only be beneficial.” (Ref: Mindfulness-Based Cancer Recovery, by Linda E. Carlson and Michael Speca)

May 18, 2015May 21, 2015

Warmth for Yourself

Prairie Smoke — The Pasque Flower an early spring flower

Waiting for Warmth

Spring in Eastern Ontario has taken its time in coming – the frost sank deep into the soil this past winter. We waited a long time for the days and nights to be consistently warm – so that the soil temperature could support new growth. It is much the same with our inner environments, many of us spend decades chilling our hearts with critical self-talk. In order for fundamental change to take root within ourselves, we need to warm up our hearts with a gentle acceptance of ourselves. No, we are not perfect, but that is what inspires creativity and variety in life.

One of the first steps in being kind to ourselves, is remembering how we speak to our own best friends. We are thoughtful, we want the best for them, we consider carefully before speaking potentially hurtful things. Consider forming an intention to treat your Inner Self as your best friend. She’s known you all her life, she moves when you do, she doesn’t walk away when the going gets tough. Who better than that for a best friend?

So forming this intention to be your own best friend, say to yourself:

May I be happy
May I be healthy
May I live in peace
May I live in safety
May I live with ease