The path of heart is never a straightforward deal!
after a month of attempting to take two variations of high blood pressure medication and feeling totally strange and disorientated I said to the GP the drugs were not my way and asked my Tai Chi teacher for a transformational counselling session. It was a dance, she circled, I side stepped for quite some time til finally I allowed her into the heart of the matter, “what have I lost besides Old Man Crow?” I closed my eyes and felt deeply, searching and realized my third eye was closed, clouded with a saddened burnt sienna red! She helped me spin that cloud in my mind’s eye until it turned into a flame, in the centre of the flame was a diamond so I drew that and stitched it into the long cloth of grief
I started stitching this beautiful length of Japanese hand woven indigo dyed hemp on February 1st, it will take the rest of my days…
& have stitched and unstitched this Memory Keeper made from an indigo moon backed with red silk from Glennis Shibori Girl since the Equinox in March
On Monday with magical timing Susi Bancroft wrote “The ‘mark making of grief’ I would love to see. One mark or small step at a time and one day you will take that line for a walk – walks can be tiny steps to big leaps, side steps and take you in circles and even backwards sometimes…. “
Yesterday I took Free for a ride to the Wind Eroded Caves near Anvil Rock and made my first foray down the track down into the Blue Gum Forest from Perrys Lookdown
Magic Days!
It's Crow Time 
MC – just sending healing vibes to you as you find your way through grief and a new chapter. B
(((Barry))) this morning I am feeling more whole in my spirit than I have since Roderick left the stage in January. I will miss him for the rest of this lifetime but there are so many good memories & I have his recordings to listen to, he wrote a line for every ocassion! Just reread an excerpt from “Earth Grief: The Journey into and Through Ecological Loss” by Stephen Harrod Buhner and loved this;
“As Parkes says . . .
‘The process is difficult, time-consuming, and painful. It seems that emotional acceptance can be achieved only as a consequence of fine-grained, almost filigree work with memory. It requires what appears to an observer to be a kind of obsessive review in which the widow or widower goes over and over the same thoughts and memories. [However] If the process is going well, they are not quite the same thoughts and memories, there is movement – perhaps slow – from one emphasis to another, from one focus to another.’ ”
There’s no rush and there’s so much yet to explore on this trip!
Ah (((Mo))) – brave and beautiful
(((Susi))) thanks so much for the encouragement!
We always have to search out the best medicine ❤
(((Jude))) this is the strangest trip I’ve ever taken… but there’s magic happening & it’s worth the ride.
There are days we wake up with grief, and close the day with grief… times when it seems to always walk ahead of us until there comes a day when grief and memories walk side by side, until one day, Memories become our marker and the signs point to simply living as best we can…Time is the medicine…honoring ourselves by what we know intuitively will help and then of course, the land you call home holds such healing and love because my dearest Mo, your love is more than a memory and Roderick is all around…
(((Marti))) your beautiful words went straight to my heart and the tears are flowing free, you are a powerful healer!
Beautifully said Marti ❤️
Marti – I have copied your words and emailed them to myself … sensing they will be needed some day
(((Mo))) The Susi Bancroft quote and the photos of your beautiful “back yard” came together for me. How such a place must require small steps sometimes, and great leaps other times. And that both grief and place do not necessarily follow a simple plan of small to large, but the changing landscape of each determines the step needed.
(((Faith))) walking in these beautiful Blue Mountains is the best soul food!
(((Mo))) your stitching — May it become the filigree of memory and bring peace. You are an extraordinary spirit and seem to have found a landscape as expansive as you are. May that too bring you peace.
(((Dee))) it’s so good to be able to see well enough to start exploring that “filigree of memory”!
Today of all days I heard an old quote from Elizabeth R which is totally appropriate I feel. You, my friend are equally as regal and the quote was ‘Grief is the price we pay for Love’ and the love you and Roderick shared was immense. He was your Prince and you were his Queen. The space around you is huge and so was his presence so I do not think he is far from you at any time. How clever were you in taking a different route re your own healing.
(((Eliene))) “Grief is the price we pay for Love”, such a true line deep into the heart of the matter, thank you dear friend!
(((Mo)))
(((Nancy))) Love is the Answer!
Mo, so lovely to see your Beautiful work and your Beautiful surroundings.I’m so glad you have those things to comfort you. Hoping you can get your medication sorted. Lots of love to you. Marg oxox
(((Marg))) thank you for all your encouragement over the years, you are such an inspiration & so good to see you are showing your beautiful work at your daughter’s new gallery!
Mo…………. it’s all love and beauty……
(((Martine))) namaste
Stitch by stitch stories / lives are told . . .
What a BEAUTIFUL country you live in, Mo !!!
(((Els))) it’s so good to be able to see again with my eyes hands and heart all working together for the first time this year!
Slowly up, in good memories, Mo !
you live in National Geographic…..so so incredible a Place
but the missing of the Old Man….
i have a long friend mentor who has communication with those who are
on the other plane…i hope he gives you a sign, if it’s “right” for him, the
continued contact….a sign for it….
I love you
(((Grace))) last weekend I had the most beautiful dream, Roderick visited me and it was so real when I woke up I was surprised he wasn’t there, then laughed & knew what I was doing with the Memory Keeper moon cloth, it’s moving right along since the healing on Tuesday & may even be finished by the Spring Solstice (your Autumn) , Magic Days!
Ah Mo, it is indeed the strangest of journeys. Your stitching is marvellous and a beautiful marker and companion. The wonder of the mountains is such a place to heal. I love those words on grief you have found – every now and again somebody gets right to the heart of the matter. Go gently, and go well.
(((Fiona))) I found that quote back on the 8th of December last year before Roderick left the stage, just discovered it again the day after the healing session, then this morning had a look at when I had first saved it… isn’t it funny how I have been groping around in the dark all year trying to feel my way through the layers of grief not realizing this thought was embedded all along & now I have a path to follow for the time I have left- stitching drawing twining knotting sketching carving holding The Filigree of Memory
Finding a way… 🙂
(((Deb))) so good to be able to see the way is open both physically and spirit wise, the world feels so much brighter and it’s spring!
you have been so much in my thoughts … I continue to be comforted by your posts which hold such quiet joy in the land, even as they resonate with the sadness of loss …
and I wanted you to know I got some red linen thread at long last …
(((Liz))) the red linen thread, I gave The Stole of Bandaged Hearts to my nurse friend Penny who helped so much as Roderick was leaving the stage…
I love knowing you are on the other end of this thread of words … and that you are already dwelling in our tomorrow … may your day be a gentle one and may your stitches hold comfort
I’m sure Penny treasures The Stole, even as I treasure the red heart that accompanies The Illustrated Lyrics of Old Man Crow
red thread is so potent, it carries a lot of weight, Penny is the only one who can wear The Stole of Bandaged Hearts as lightly as Old Man Crow did, she looks after everyone with such deep hearted compassion and grace !
Big love to you {{{Mo}}} Your photos so wild, but the hand rail! A lifeline of sorts. There are places in the Shawnee National Forest south of me where there are rock steps to go down into ravines. Vegetation is different but your photos remind me of it. These are healing places.
(((Beth))) the paths are wild but safe enough when walked with caution, those hand rails help a lot!
Mo you’re work is stunning and inspiring 💗 as is your vulnerability and honesty Thankyou for sharing 🙏 I really love your posts…
Annie EBurns (we met @ India Flint’s Indigo workshop on Tambourine Mt many moons ago….) from SYBLUE currently in Fiji 🇫🇯
Ps 💗the photos of your bushwalking too x
(((Annie))) good to reconnect, what are you up to in Fiji?
Cruising exploring growing & learning stitching creating appreciating life… like your doing…living with Mother Nature… 😍
Yay good to hear you are in such a beautiful place!
Mo, you are surrounded by such love, may it help you heal one day at a time.
(((Peggy))) these are Magic Days and it’s Spring here in the Land Down Under!
I am so glad you are working through the grief and tumult of your life in such constructive and beautiful ways. I hope clearing your third eye will lower your blood pressure….I’m certain that the stitching on your cloth of grief will help too. Thank goodness for the expansiveness and beauty of your new surroundings. What a spectacular place.
(((Dana))) every day feels like a new adventure! Today I went out west to the Orange Regional Gallery &Museum with a group from the Tai Chi class to see the superb charcoal drawings of Catherine O’Donnell’s review show “Beyond the Shadow” & Mulaa Giilang Wiradjuri stories of the night sky was magic
The stitches on the backside of your cloth make me think of all of the unspoken heart aching things that there are no words for…Dear Mo, you are your own best healer, oxo.
(((Hazel))) I am really good at distracting myself with circuitous routes exploring all those interesting asides glimpsed in dreams and out from the corner of the eye but this also means I’m often not feeling or seeing what needs to be looked at and felt, have just started reading Earth Grief: the journey through ecological loss by Stephen Harrod Buhner bringing attention to all those moments of disassociation…
I do love the wildness of the reverse of the Memory Keeper Moon Cloth, I thought it was going to be a bag but that would hide the back so it’s becoming a cover, a holding place, a wrapper for a series of future moon cloths that have yet to be stitched, maybe they could be the pages of a book to be read with the finger tips from the front and the back a bit like last year’s “River of Moons”