the Creative Healing Zone

My fine art and crafting have always sustained me through any big transition or crisis in my life. Currently I am in a major transition, and once again I am finding myself--and taking back parts of myself I gave away--by meditatively, quietly, calmly stringing tiny beads in intricate patterns.

Every night, I sit and string up new bead patterns, exploring different color palettes, and the feeling of being adrift---which has been with me since I was forced to move out of my home of 6 years--melts away and a feeling of well being grows as the string of beads grows longer.


I am stringing the seed beads on thread to crochet into bracelets---and after I have strung enough beads for a bracelet (about 40 inches), then I crochet a few inches to see how the pattern and colors I chose looks.

Like knitting, stringing the beads and crocheting the bracelets is a repetitive act---with a rhythm all its own, which puts me into a meditative state---the healing creative zone--is how I term it. Transitional states are always painful for me--and this one is especially painful and chaotic---but while I am stringing beads nothing else matters---just the beads and the pattern that is growing beneath my fingers. As I do this I meditate on letting go, and on some level I am putting all that I am letting go of---into each bracelet. For me, the process of creating something has always been more important and more satisfying than the end result.

I think this quote from a book I have been reading lately----THE KNITTING SUTRA Craft as a Spiritual Practice by Susan Gordon Lydon--- sums it all up nicely:
"...the purpose of craft is not so much to make beautiful things as it is to become beautiful inside while you are making those things."