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Your Brain on Knitting - Cast On with Brenda Dayne
So, the hot water cozy download is not going as smoothly as expected. While you are waiting for the master knitter to try to figure out problems in HTML code (ie – big mess), you can listen to Brenda Dayne interview me on the current episode of CAST ON (http://www.cast-on.com/)
As I have told friends and family – if you are still wondering what it is that I do, listen to this. But it’s not just about me (just sayin’). This episode wraps up Brenda’s brilliantly themed series on ALCHEMY and we discuss what Mindful Knitting is, who I am, and why being present in the current moment is so much fun and so damn hard!! This show talks about the brain, creativity, sympathetic and parasympathetic brain reactions and magically makes it relevant to knitting. Bless Brenda’s amazing magic.
Have a listen, Let me know what you think.
Love and Kisses -Tara
A quote from Trungpa Rinpoche, through the Ocean of Dharma Quotes listserve.
Yeshe Tsogyal
“Feminine inspiration projects a world which it can regard as workable and friendly since it is its own creation…..An aspect of feminine inspiration is regarding what you have created as sacred. You have created Buddhism, Christianity, Sufism — it is your production. Since it is fully yours, respect it, work with it. These teachings did not come from somewhere else; your own openness gave birth to them. Moreover, you gave birth to pleasure and pain. You built Paris, London, New York City. You produced the president of the United States. These things are the product of feminine inspiration.”
From “Femininity,” in THE COLLECTED WORKS OF CHOGYAM TRUNGPA, Volume Six, page 564.
About Yeshe Tsogyal (wikipedia)
“From the mouth of a lotus was born
The swift goddess, heroic liberator
Who went forth in human form
Amid the snowy mountains of Tibet.”
Among lay Tibetans she is seen as a Buddha who takes the form of an ordinary woman so as to be accessible to the average person, “who, for the time being, do not see her Vajravarahi form as a fully perfected deity.” In fact,
She displays whatever emanation form will tame
Any given [person], just as, for example, the full moon in the sky
Emerges as [various] reflections in different water vessels.
For Mr. Zimmerman
Photo by Richard Avedon
Update – with thanks to super sharp reader Peg Alexander, and much chagrin on my part -it is true – Yoko is CROCHETING! Cross fiber love here, people. Now, I know I have never crocheted while blindfolded – I can hardly crochet with my glasses on. We do not discriminate here at Earth Sky Knitter.. For the Love of Yarn and Karma and John.
With great thanks to my friend Waylon Lewis at Elephant Journal (please check it out – The Mindful Life baby!), I offer you this. It’s the best. It’s a video of the recording of the single version of the song – with John on Piano, Mal Evans (Beatles long time roadie/manager) on tambourine, and Yoko on KNITTING NEEDLES Crochet Hook- Blindfolded. WDYT? Which is the best part, the knitting crochet or the blindfold? I thought I was the only one who knitted while blindfolded. (still true)
There is absolutely no doubt that this is one of the best stick-it-to-ya songs, but to know that knitting needles are yarn is included amongst the instruments, worth another hundred or so listens (I can hear the yarn, can’t you?):
In other news:[this is still true to the best of my knowledge] I just signed up for NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month). I wonder if I should have checked with my literary agent first. Anyway – it’s a challenge to write a 50,000 word novel (in all it’s unedited ugly glory) between November 1 and November 30, with uploads beginning November 25. What the hell. And, one of these days, very soon, I will do my year in review – My experience with Shambhala Art and becoming a Shambhala Arts instructor, my return to painting, my studies with Japanese brush master Kazuaki Tanahashi - magical. Oh, and I started learning Little Wing on my Stratocaster last night (thanks James!). I feel like I’ve recieve the transmission for the secret Stratocaster Handshake. What’s on my mind: Okay, I have to go knit a Kimono. Enjoy John and Yoko.
So, by posting this video on my blog, I am hoping to share this with more than five friends – maybe six. There must be at least six of you because I’ve gotten like 20,000 hits this year, so someone is looking – Watch the video- Register to Vote – an important thing made more important by some of Hollywood’s eye-candies – enjoy. PS – this is the uncensored version – please note “language” is used.
