Earth-Sky-Knitter

Enjoy this excerpt: (and go buy the issue!)

“Tara Jon Manning, author of Mindful Knitting and Compassionate Knitting, hosts weekend retreats to Vermont for “curious knitters.” Exploring the parallels between knitting and meditation is done through yoga, daily hikes, craft instruction, and other optional outdoor activities. “Yoga can offer a method for somatic integration of the Mindful Knitting experience, as well as ways to correct posture, integrate stretches, and bring energy and blood flow back to the body after a long period of sitting still. The focus on work on your needles, and the focus of your body holding an asana are of course very different, but each allows the practitioner to leave thoughts and distractions behind and focus on a specific object or action.” says Jon Manning. Whether you spend the weekend with Tara or relaxing in your own backyard, knitting can help still your mind and provide you with a unique memento of your own creation.”

Take a look: A Good Yarn By Victoria E

See the article in the September 2007 Issue or at Victoria’s Website. They only got my name wrong a little tiny bit.

Also, remember to check out the upcoming Mindful Knitting Retreat in Vermont’s Northeast Kingdom March 08 (at The Highland Lodge).

“Go moan for man. It’s the pathos of people that gets us down. All the lovers in this dream.”
—Jack Kerouac, On the Road

Moan Moan! I came across this beautiful list of Jack Kerouac’s “Spontaneous Prose Method” this past summer during Naropa University’s 50th anniversary Kerouac celebration. This special week of the annual “Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics” celebrated the 50th anniversary of the release of On the Road. The actual release date of this book, which no one would publish (I know that feeling), was in fact this week.

The following list is wonderful - not just if you are a writer, but if you are alive and noticing. Kerouac was part of the Beatnik Trinity that served as the structure of my creative perceptions - Beat Poets, Dharma and Jazz.

John Coltrane

My parents were pretty hardcore hipsters - okay, no “pretty” about it. As my mom read “Mediation in Action, “

like every early Trungpa student, my dad blew his horn, creating noises only a special few really understood, and Ferlingetti books were strewn about. (”Coney Island of the Mind was one of the first book titles I remember knowing by name. Not a lot of other New Jersey 5th graders were familiar with this one at age 10).

So this list is sort of like a fortune cookie. Whether or not you think it worked for Jack, that’s up to you. For me it’s a lot like the Buddhist practice of Lojong - a series of pithy slogans reminding one how to focus one’s mind and actions. Try picking a point, and see how that point might be borne out during one day of your life. Today I pick no. 4, “Be in Love with Your Life.” And for this day, I will also quietly add my own no. 4a. “and hand painted kid mohair.” Dig?

Spontaneous Prose method, the most concise would be Belief and Technique for Modern Prose, a list of thirty “essentials” by Jack Kerouac

1. Scribbled secret notebooks, and wild typewritten pages, for yr own joy
2. Submissive to everything, open, listening
3. Try never get drunk outside your own house
4. Be in love with your life
5. Something that you feel will find its own form
6. Be crazy dumbsaint of the mind
7. Blow as deep as you want to blow
8. Write what you want bottomless from bottom of the mind
9. The unspeakable visions of the individual
10. No time for poetry but exactly what is
11. Visionary tics shivering in the chest
12. In tranced fixation dreaming upon object before you
13. Remove literary, grammatical and syntactical inhibition
14. Like Proust be an old teahead of time
15. Telling the true story of the world in interior monolog
16. The jewel center of interest is the eye within the eye
17. Write in recollection and amazement for yrself
18. Work from pithy middle eye out, swimming in language sea
19. Accept loss forever
20. Believe in the holy contour of life
21. Struggle to sketch the flow that already exists intact in mind
22. Don’t think of words when you stop but to see picture better
23. Keep track of every day the date emblazoned in yr morning
24. No fear or shame in the dignity of yr experience, language & knowledge
25. Write for the world to read and see yr exact pictures of it
26. Bookmovie is the movie in words, the visual American form
27. In praise of Character in the Bleak inhuman Loneliness
28. Composing wild, undisciplined, pure, coming in from under, crazier the better
29. You’re a Genius all the time
30. Writer-Director of Earthly movies Sponsored & Angeled in Heaven

PS - Still getting references every day from the search terms “Naked Knitting.” I love it!

What happened to Tara, where’d she go?

I think you last heard hide and hair of me back around my birthday (early July). Just look at that smiley birthday princess down there.
I’ve been asking this question of myself frequently lately. First, a bit of overwhelm set in, then an inventory, which kind of cleared things up quickly:

Writing a book [I could stop the list right now, but no . . .]

(Hmmm, what’s this . . . maybe it’s in a new book?)

Mothering a 3 and 10 year old – boyz – each one of a very interesting age/stage of development that seems to require a unique set of relational and patience building skills. (That’s a really long sentence for saying I love them completely and everyday try not to kill them ) For my own gratification, I can pretend that having already lived through age three before I might have some familiarity with the territory. The ten year old – I got nothin’. And then we’ll just lump potty training in this big blob.

Got Jack to the 5th grade, and try to do so every day.

Migraines, a lot – yuck.

Making Art – well trying to. It feels so good – like breathing in pure oxygen. I painted for the first time since Zane was an infant. And, surprise, I seem to be painting and drawing knitting. Exploring textural themes, colorplay, ritual garments and textiles. Aahh, I’d love to empty everything else on the list and just keep this one for a while.

Jack’s Birthday party. Just 48 hours ago – who knew that four 10 year olds (three boys, one brave and moxie girl) were SO loud. (Like I said, new territory).  Zane and I made two dozen cupcakes for the 5th grade class. Didn’t you just love to lick the beater? It didn’t sound like too many until I frosted them all at 10 pm that night.

The big whopping Labor Day Weekend. This weekend includes – Jack’s birthday, one of my best girlfriends’ birthday, my dads birthday, and for the past two years – a wedding (this year my high school girlfriend Lisa – at 4 o’clock TODAY)

Okay, think I just found myself.

In other news - you know Nature Babies?  Of course you do!!

It just got a really nice review on treehugger.com. Have a look. And if you haven’t seen the book yet, have a peek at your local bookseller or the library. I think you’ll like it.

So do you know where you are? Now that I’ve tracked myself down, I think I’m gonna go get lost in some yarn or some paint for a while, and I promise to come back and visit sooner. Enjoy a safe and happy holiday weekend!