Share and Cher alike

today has been so ordinary (so far) that there really isn't much to say. i needed an ordinary day really bad, so i guess in it's dullness, it became extrordinary. little dog is feeling sick - tummy rejecting all manner of matter. she sounds like she's wheezy, but my husband says he thinks it's doggy purring. she got a new brush today and is very pleased about that, diva dog that she is. this creative surge is still going and i am grateful for that. i've done a really nice felted wallhanging, with plans in my head for another. working the felt is the most backbreaking, laborious thing. and i love every second. to feel the roving begin to harden and mingle and turn to felt under your urging, well, it can't be beat. the colors are yummy. just the smell of Dove for dishes sends me. you have to really really love felting in order to work with it. the rolling and turning and more rolling and yet more turning...the process is tedious and tiring, and oh so rewarding. i learned to felt from a woman who defies description. she and HER teacher are two of the most exceptional people i have ever met. they are similar yet seperate. my teacher is...well, how to describe her? earthmother - grounded and close to the earth. confident yet not in the brash, in-your-face way that passes for confidence these days. quietly confident. an aura of rest and peacefulness around her, yet charges of energy and creativity light her. i was surprised that her feet actually touched the ground! and her soup - oooohhhh - food of the gods. i went to a 4-day workshop over the summer that was not so much life-changing as it was life-affirming and reinforcing and urging on in the same direction. i met people there who's skills and creativity far surpassed mine, and some who were just starting out. creative women from all over the U.S. and Canada. creative women who'd traveled to every part of the world. every age and shape. how enriching, how exciting, how charged the atmosphere. 15 of us stayed in a fabulous house on Skaneateles lake. right on the lake. we shared meals and stories and ideas. hard to believe, but i was struck dumb. i was like an electrical socket with too many appliances plugged in. overload. i never wanted it to end, and yet to have continued would have been exhausting! all that wonderfulness was almost too much to bear in such a small amount of time. and in the midst of it all - these 2 incredible women. sharing freely of their creativity, generously helping each of us as we reached out to the next creative level. it was like meeting nobility. that's the only way I can describe it. beautiful and passionate in their art and their lives, in a quiet unassuming way. but the intensity and appreciation for the important things rippled beneath the surface. to be able to come away with new artistic ideas was wonderful. to be able to come away with the fragrance of these women's lives lingering just a bit in the fiber of my life's experiences was most wonderful. each of us is a thread in the larger fabric of one another's adornment and lives. each of us has the opportunity to affect the warp and weft of the total garment. each of us weaves through and throughout the lives of others, sometimes unknowingly, not realizing that the kind word or held door made the difference in their life. a moment here and gone thoughtlessly - a needle pulled through a hem and back to the other side. each stitch affecting the entire fabric. be nice. live mindfully. practice random acts of kindness. L.