Heads Up!

I spent six days at a workshop and retreat in the Oakland Hills. The place is Holy Names University's Sophia Center and the topic was "Nature and Soul". It was a special kind of opportunity to stretch my mind, to spend time with my daughter, and to reevaluate "Me in this World." Some absolutely fabulous speakers/facilitators such as David Abram, Thomas Moore, Paula D'arcy, Jim Conlon, Stephen Dunne, Barbara Holmes, Brian Swimme made my head spin and stirred my enthusiasm.




I think the long term lesson I took home is: we have wandered off too far into the field of fact and observation and have lost some of our intuitive and poetic thinking which allows us to be part of nature. In order to save our planet we must feed our souls so we can embark on putting our knowledge to good use. Another aspect: less capitalism and more spirituality. I am not religious, but I do believe in the divine in all of us, and I was eager to inhale good vibrations and thoughtful exchange of ideas. Later, after I was home again, somebody asked if I had been brainwashed. "No," I would like to answer, "only sprinkled with stardust."








In the mornings and in the evenings I knitted. I knitted six Bear heads.
It is easier to read when I knit only heads. I spent early mornings just below the chapel with a cup of coffee from a machine (cafeteria didn't open until 8) and I played with my iPad drawing apps before lectures.




I had sent out all finished Bears before I went on the retreat and after I came home I became obsessed with putting bodies on the heads. More "Gelato in the Piazza" with the addition of a multicolored yarn that sped up the process.




Bear 260 - Arabella, Bear 261 - Bastienne, Bear 262 - Carmen, Bear 263 - Daphne, Bear 264 - Elektra have been shipped.




Bears 265 - Froh, and Bear 266 - Gutrun are finished.

Hanna is awaiting her face.



Three more heads expect bodies and names.

P.S. Thinking of My Hero, Nelson Mandela.