the ripples of love as the pennants and talismans fly home

So good to see Martine’s beautiful pennant has arrived home in The Netherlands safe and sound! The circle is complete, the spell is cast, all the pennants and talismans are on their way back to their makers around the world. Making the dream was the most beautiful ride on a huge wave of love that has now brought me gently to shore. The circle will keep rippling with love for our beautiful broken world.

I will keep updating this post as everyone sends back photos of where their pennant or talisman has settled to keep the dream alive!

Nanette Gilbert’s talisman has arrived safely in northern NSW
“I’m just sending this pic of the talisman with the lace and tulle, that for now, I’ve draped and pinned to a couple of my small art quilts, otherwise it all disappears into the cream wall behind. (Actually, now that I look at the photos again, I really like the red hearts showing through from behind) I have an idea of making them into something more permanent, stitching them to a backing so the fine lace and tulle can be clearly seen. I have some silk scarves my son brought me from Darjeeling, that he was given when he stayed in a Nepalese homestay, and I feel to give substance and depth to the finery will be a good use of these.
It was wonderful to be part of The Dream, and for my talisman to be in such good company, soaking up the love and energy, and now returned home.”
Namaste
Nanette

Els put this photo of her pennant and talisman up on her blog today along with some beautiful early spring flowers & wrote in an e-mail;
“Yesterday your package arrived safely here in Holland, Thank you so much ! The piece feels like it brought home lots of vibrations and good will of all the other pieces that surrounded it during your wonderful exhibition and of course of YOU ! I’m so happy with the extra pieces you included : they will surely find their way into other pieces I will make ! LOVE the piece of the blue branch and the many stars it surrounded !!! I will find a special place for them too 😉 You did a wonderful “job”, with your idea, the binding of the stitchers in a loving circle all around the world, and the realization of the artwork itself … magic !
(and I’m proud and grateful that I could be a little part of it)
Lots of love for you and Old Man Crow,
Els
PS Today daughter was here and saw that the pennant was back : she LOVED the heart-talisman with your WONDERFUL tiny stars around the blue branch .. I gave it to her 😉 She has a kind of small altar at home where she keeps several objects that mean a lot to her. She is a “Fire-Keeper”:
makes and tends to the fire needed for ritual sweat-lodges (Indian style) It is a good place for the heart to rest !

Tina Zaffiro’s beautiful talisman is back home, she just sent these stunning photos along with this note;
“Everything about this from start to finish has been magical. My heart is filled with such joy right now looking at how lovingly you have packaged all this OMGOODNESS .. by far being part of this journey has risen me to new highs in ways I cannot find the words for.
Thank you .. thank you!!
Love and Blessings galore to you and all who traveled this journey with me.”
Tina

Elizabeth Bunsen’s talisman has arrived in her lake house safe & sound, she wrote over on her instagram page
“deeply honored to be part of this”
Elizabeth knows how to photograph light!

Louise Watson’s beautiful pennant is home safe and sound in England she posted these photos over on her blog;
“Thanks to Mo the Mending the Sky pennant has come home on a tidal wave of love with some extras that will be cherished and the lace will be incorporated into my work at some point. So glad I took part in this amazing adventure. Thank you so much Mo!”

Dee Mallon’s pennant has arrived home safely too, she posted these photos over on her blog today
love the reflection in the mirror

Michelle Slater’s rose pennant & promise ring have arrived home safe & sound,
she posted these photos over on her blog

Marti Weisbrich’s pennant is home and flying in the winds of New Mexico
she sent these beautiful words & photos
“On this extremely blustery day, winds clocked at over 50 mph last night and almost there today, my pennant has arrived back home and Spirit is full circle. When I received the wedding dress piece, I took it outside, tied it to our ornamental pear tree and let the spirits of New Mexico surround and permeate the cloth. It hung on the tree in sun , in rain and in blustery winds because New Mexico is the land of unbelievable sky and fierce dancing wind. When my dyeing and stitching was complete, I again tied it to the tree to receive a benediction from this place before sending it to you. How fitting that it returns today, to the same windy conditions. After taking a photo of all that was contained in the package, I took the pennant outside to return it to its place, on the limbs of the pear tree but but this time, my pennant has been embellished because I stitched the wondrous little star and bit of blue armature to it and it danced in the wind, with joy, spirit and gratitude.”
“To my eyes, my pennant seems so much larger because it is filled with the love and connections from all who made up the Gathering. Wanting this to be full circle, besides hanging the pennant to the tree, I also hung the lace gifts on the backside of the pennant, completing the ritual forming the Circle of inclusion. We all connected and shared, guided by your vision Mo and now all across the globe, pennants and talismans are filled with an incredible magic and for that, I send you my deepest blessings: Below are some photos showing the return, the placing of the pennant to the pear tree and in one photo, the pennant has been whipped around by the wind as if to embrace the joy of gathered spirits. Thank you so much for the invitation Mo- you shine so much light and love in our world. Blessings from the spirit winds here in New Mexico”
Marti

Liz Ackert’s Mended Shell has arrived home safe & sound, she wrote with these beautiful words & photos over on her blog
“May the circle be unbroken…
The torn and tattered heart that journeyed around the world to be a part of Mo’s dream …
has returned to the nest …
Thank you Mo, for your vision and great heart … I will treasure the memory and the beautiful pieces you sent.
And thank you, Rod, for your music and a heart to match Mo’s.”
Liz’s beautiful pennant with all the words to I dream of a world where love is the answer stitched on the back will make the perfect birthday present for the man in June
thank you (((Liz)))!

namaste

The ripples of love as the pennants and talismans arrive home are keeping the dream alive
here’s links to
ripples post 2
ripples post 3

Dee Mallon’s pennant – a map for love to find the way

Dee Mallon’s pennant arrived on the doorstep yesterday afternoon
(magic is afoot it was New Year’s Eve and on a Sunday!)
Dee is a passionate writer and stitcher for social justice
her pennant is a map for love to find the way to shifting our beautiful broken world
into a place where love is the answer
as she said on her blog late last year
“I can’t see “the answer”. Somehow that is fitting. “
she asks the hard questions,
looking them straight in the eye seeking truth, as she said in this reply on her blog;
“The map idea works for me for this reason too — the sense of disorientation that this administration has provoked has so many of us looking around and wondering where we are and how we got here. Is this bottom? Is this former norm a red line anymore? If these norms of decency and adherence to the constitution are currently dispensed with, is there any getting back to them? How much more seismic can the destruction get? ”
Dee has written about her journey making this pennant on her blog
“In two places, I carefully ripped open the top silk to more clearly represent injury. Like the blood-red beads, the bands that resulted from the long tears suggest that our wounds are a permanent part of the American psyche. Stitching the edges gave me the hands-on, hopeful sense that maybe there is some vantage from which our nation’s wounds show up as things of beauty. ““I used red seed beads to represent the blood of Africans who were kidnapped, transported and sold here. Their blood is a permanent feature of our landscape, as is the legacy of their labor. There is heft to this history. The fruits of enslaved labor are visible in many, many features of our built landscape, so it’s fitting that the lines of red beads are prominent and that they define whole areas.”
“The stitches took on the attributes of surgical repair in some places and of tailor-repair in others. I like how the stitched-down folds created texture when top lit and beautiful shadows when back lit. Imaginatively, the stitched repairs and the resultant shadows came to sometimes resemble a map and at other times, a scarred body. The act of integrating the dark cloth with the light cloth seemed at times to mimic the kind of healing process we all long for.”
the red thread and the star bring such hope that love will find the way
thank you Dee you are shining bright in these strange days for our beautiful broken world!
The Gathering 2018
I dream of a world where love is the answer
mending our beautiful broken world stitch by stitch
with deep gratitude to this magic circle of makers
Liz Ackert
Fiona Dempster
Barry Smith
Dee Mallon
Jude Hill
Judy Martin
Hazel Monte
Els Sneider
Dana Webb
Susi Bancroft
Wendy Watson
Bronwyn Berman
Martine Bos
Beth Brennan
Nancy Erisman
Susan Kapuscinski Gaylord
Grace Forrest-Maestas
Louise Watson
Michelle Slater
Margarita Sampson
Jane Bodnaruk
Susan Hemann
Roz Hawker
India Flint
Yvette Dopheide
Patricia Spangler
Kathy Dorfer
Glenda Jones
Arlee Barr
Ulrike Bogdan
Olga Cironis
Doris Perlhuhn
Saskia van Herwaarden
Carol Cantrell
Jana Cironis
Christina Haggart
Marti Weisbrich
Tina Zaffiro
Kristin McNamara Freeman
Rene Walkin
Margaret Johnson
Donna Hinchcliff
Eliene St. Romain
Cathy & Sarah Wright
Glenda Chamberlain
Jane Stapleford
Judy Lemezis
Jane Milliken
Linda Summers
Penny Vickery
Dotti Dauter
Maggie Brown
Nanette Gilbert
Aileen Jordan
Lizette Campbell
Gabrielle Bates
Shona Wilson
Joy Banks
Sharon Peoples
SharmonDavidson
love will find the way!
namaste

Dee Mallon is making a map for love to find the way

Dee Mallon’s pennant is making a map
for love to find the way to shifting our beautiful broken world
into a place where love is the answer
as she said on her blog a few weeks ago
“I can’t see “the answer”. Somehow that is fitting. “Dee’s fierce love & passion for social justice ask the hard questions,
looking them straight in the eye seeking truth, as she said in this reply on her blog;
“The map idea works for me for this reason too — the sense of disorientation that this administration has provoked has so many of us looking around and wondering where we are and how we got here. Is this bottom? Is this former norm a red line anymore? If these norms of decency and adherence to the constitution are currently dispensed with, is there any getting back to them? How much more seismic can the destruction get? ”
She hung the pennant out on the washing line for summer;
“New England rain consecrated its weave. It hung out with the dog and with disintegrating but lovely curtains on the line. It mingled with hosta stalks. It received late summer sun and the shade of a catalpa tree.”
“Then it turned into fall and more walnuts than I thought possible for two trees to produce fell.”
“I boiled up some hulls and dipped in some cloth that I’d bundled ’round spools years ago and then abandoned. The dyeing came out okay, but what truly excited me was to discover that once unbundled, this reclaimed piece of silk shared the shape and dimensions of the banner — almost exactly! So of course they belong together.”“The light walnut-imparted lines on the recently-discovered top silk, when stitched, reminded me of a map. So it got me thinking. What instructions might there be to a sane, peaceful world where love is the answer? Is there such a place? Why does it seem so unreachable?”
The gap between cloths is prompting some thoughts, too — thoughts about the divides that seem to be doing us in here in America. Seething, toxic, destructive divides. How do we cross or bind the yawning gap? Is that the right question? Should we be trying to learn how to live with our differences, tattered-edged and unsettling as they are? In the United States, it’s no exaggeration to say that we have not been this divided as a nation since the Civil War.
Think about that.
I do.
All.
The.
Time.
“I am thinking of adding lines of red seed beads.
To represent wounds. Unresolved history.
The map becoming the body of the world.”love the thought of touching each of the red beads as a form of prayer like a rosary,
a meditation mala for finding the way
such beautiful stitching made with deep intent
Dee sent these photos today
& I have quoted from these posts over on her blog in chronological order
umm sugar
Gathering the Dream
Can’t see
Next
thank you so much (((Dee)))!

dreaming into being

Liz Ackert has finished her magic pennon for the dreaming
have a look over at more photos and words on her blog
and Dee Mallon is mapping the way to finding love is the answer
here’s the link to more words and photos on her blog
Gathering the dreams  for our beautiful broken world, we simply have to mend our ways, all 7 billion of us, love is the answer
these pennants give me hope that we can

The Blue Moon Talinistic Dilly Bag (aka everything I know about the moon and the sea)

The Blue Moon Talinistic Dilly Bag (aka everything I know about the moon and the sea) by Mo 2014
front
back
inside
detail of the air moon
detail of the fire moon
many thanks go to all the cloth conjurors who have contributed materials
Glennis Shibori Girl indigo moon on sheer organza & indigo dyed silk threads
Arlee Barr  indigo & rust dyed silk
Patricia Spangler indigo dyed air moon on linen & rust and indigo dyed fire moon
Dee Mallon indigo dyed cord that finished the top edge
Margaret Johnson vintage Silkworm thread and a wonderful ecru thread for all the free hand netted lace
the supporting exo-skeleton is immature stems of a Bangalow Palm infloresence
other materials are African clay, bone and myrrh beads, burnt ivory, shells, feathers, printmakers mull, flax, nettle and hemp string
you can see this piece in process widdershins here, here, here & here