hopes and dreams

This colorful swirl of a quilt's center is a signpost of hope for me. I have been struggling lately with how to balance the reality of difficult and painful circumstances with the desire to focus on what is positive. I am fully aware of how attitude impacts behavior, and even decisions, and I have had one foot firmly planted on the ground of optimism for many months. That posture has served me well, kept me centered even in the midst of uncertainty and chaos. At the same time I am beginning to feel that the reserves of my strength, though substantial, are being drained to a point that is dangerously low.

As I evaluate how to care for myself I look to the things that restore and replenish me. Why am I not surprised that I am being drawn toward the world of creativity? Through the myriad threads of connectivity that facebook offers I saw a quilt created by a relative of my friend Genie. I was taken with it immediately, and began to search out sources whereby I might create one like it myself. Having tracked the source, I raided a stash of emergency cash to buy a book that details how to make this quilt, and others like it. The pattern and its creation are more difficult than the quilts I have made in the past, and I don't think I am yet up to taking on doing one of my own, but I now have the means to do so when that moment comes. In the meantime there are smaller projects that will serve as a vehicle through which my spirit can plunge into the creative process. Through those my experience tells me that the tears in my soul will begin to knit together toward healing, and strength will begin to accumulate once again in the vault that is my being.

The image here, then, serves two purposes. One is that is represents creative effort, a known balm to my hurting soul. The other is that the spiral, as shown here, has light at the center radiating out. That is where I find my hope. No matter how dark the days have become in the past, at the center there has always been light. It is that light, with its power to radiate out through the darkness, that holds me steady and serves to ground me in the spirit of peace and wholeness. Even when the best of days dissolve into tears of confusion or fold under the weight of burdens, the light holds fast, and hope, like the phoenix, rises from the ruin.

I will bide my time with the spiral quilt. As I do so, however, I will move toward its future reality by warming up with other creative efforts. As a portion of St. Patrick's Breastplate proclaims:

I arise today
Through the strength of heaven:
Light of sun,
Radiance of moon,
Splendor of fire,
Speed of lightning,
Swiftness of wind,
Depth of sea,
Stability of earth,
Firmness of rock.