What is real time?

There are many kinds of time.
This stitch journal makes time visible, marking each day with a complete skein of embroidery floss.  It has been steady stitching since July 2010, nearly three years so far.

The panels here represent the day by day of January and February 2013.
But I stitched them in March.
I let eyelet stitching absorb me during the winter and my journal project fell behind.
But it's OK, because these new panels document a different kind of time.

The slow time.
Moving my hands, holding the fabric, repeating the stitch, I was able to let go of ordinary time.  Let go of worries of daily life and instead kept each present moment of sun in this journal.

The threads help me to net time.

When I look at the panel above,  I remember my vay-cay (as April calls it).

Even though the date says February, they read to me as that week off.
I think it is the power of touch.

Now I'm back with Dad in Kingston.  He's changed hospitals, and should be returning home in a week or so.  The panel in the background is propped on his power wheel chair.

Emotional time is different than real time.

Empty Room Meditation

I am in an empty room.
All the walls are windows except the one at my back.

I am in an empty room, in my stitching chair.
It is quiet.

The windows are just screens. The breeze is gentle, the air sweet.
I close my eyes, still my hands.

I rest.
It's quiet.
There is no thing in my head.

In 1992, I took a journal writing workshop with Christina Baldwin .  I've been going through some of the exercises this week and re-doing them.  The exercises are still relevant and push me in an emotional way.  Totally different emotions than those of twenty years ago, yet I am still me.

"Imagine the space between your eyes and ears as an empty room.  Take out everything except for one thing.  This is the message.  Thank the message."

Questions like these are in her books about journal writing.
Why is it a secret?
What would make it safe to tell?
Who else is this secret affecting in your present life?
There is usually a reason that things happen to us.  What was the gift or the reason that resulted from this event?
Have you forgiven yourself?

duality of temperature

Not to Know but To Go On, panels 47 and 48, found fabrics, embroidery floss, couching stitch Feb 10 - Feb 21, 2012 Stitched in Northern Ontario where it is cold. Feb 21 - Mar 4, 2012 Stitched in the Caribbean where it is hot.

I am home refreshed. Thank you for all your good wishes.

within blue

space is more important than time for the unconscious

Gaston Bachelard