Knit In For Breast Cancer Awareness

Knitters are joining up for a Knit In for Breast Cancer. In honor of National Breast Cancer Awareness Month in October, www.nbcam.org, promoting awareness of breast cancer and early detection, we are heating up our needles to make a contribution of hand knit hats to cancer patients, while creating consciousness about a subject that has touched all of our lives.

Use your knitting talents to express your artistic side and do something positive for the world. Be a Knitting Activist! Knit like crazy and warm the hearts and heads of those in need. Pick up your sticks, add yarn and have some fun. Knit fun and funky hats with super soft, washable yarn, then donate your hand knit creations to a local cancer center or hospice That's it! To join the Knit In for Breast Cancer and donate yarn and/or funds, contact fio7na@hotmail.com. An excellent book on Breast Cancer Health and Prevention the Wise Woman Way by Susun Weed: http://www.breasthealthcancerprevention.com/

Archetypal Knitting Activist: Charlotte

Charlotte A. Cavitica, a not so usual gray barn spider was an original. She was the first knitting activist, or so the legend goes. She had incredible creative powers, as she embodied Spider Magic, a great source of power. Charlotte was clever and crafty. Archetypally the arachnid is the incarnation of Grandmother Spider, the mistress weaver who is the source of the universe and the sacred and life giving process of emergence itself. Grandmother Spider kept and taught the mysteries of the past and how they were affecting the future. The spider embodies the infinity symbol and the mysticism of the figure 8, a sacred number of Isis. Weaving is the work of the three fates: Clotho, Lachesis and Atropos, who weave, measure and cut the threads of life. In India, the spider is associated with Maya, the weaver of illusion.

Wilbur the pig understood the code in Charlotte's web, and his fate was changed by the messages she spun in her web concerning his amazing, yet unseen qualitites. "Some Pig" , "Terrific" and "Radiant" read her weblogs. Spiders speak in a very specific, brilliant and layered code. Spiders are the guardians of the ancient languages and alphabets. The primordial alphabet was formed by the geometric patterns and angles found within a spider web. The spider is considered the teacher of language and the magic of writing. Because of Charlotte's ancient power, her weblog was embued with beauty, strength and truth. Charlotte's magic was that everyone believed what she said was so. She spoke from her truth. Because Wilbur believed that he was terrific, everyone treated him as the terrific pig he was. What Charlotte wove into her weblog was the truth that not all could see. People came from faraway lands to see what Charlotte saw. So Charlotte built her weblog. . and they did come.

Haute Heads: Knitters for a Cause

Haute Heads is Santa Barbara knitting organization about fun, funky and slightly irreverent solutions to "No Hair Days". Are you addicted to knitting? Is your yarn stash out of control? Use your knitting talents to express your artistic side and do something positive for the world. Be a Knitting Activist! Knit like crazy and warm the hearts and heads of those in need.

Pick up your sticks, add yarn and have some fun. Knit fun and funky hats with super soft, washable yarn some soft, washable yarn (BB's Knits in Santa Barbara has an awesome yarn selection, www.bbsknits.com, or for online shoppers, Berroco's Chinchilla is fabulous and can be found at Yarnmarket, www.yarnmarket.com) That's it! In honor of National Breast Cancer Awareness Month in October, we are heating up our needles this summer to make a contribution to hospice patients this fall. To become a Knitting Activist or to donate to Haute Heads, contact Fiona at fio7na@hotmail.com.

The Practice

"In the beginners mind there are many possibilities, but in the expert's mind there are few."

Knitting is a practice in mindfulness. Every stitch brings you back to the present moment, returning to awareness over and over. Thoughts arise and pass like clouds, returning to each breath as you knit, knit, purl, purl. Consciousness is in the pattern of the stitches. You can see in the pattern where you were not present. Missed stitches, like missed moments in life are unconscious, there is no awareness. Where we bring awareness to knitting the pattern is smooth and even. The wonderful thing about knitting is that it is forgiving. You can unravel and redo stitches with more care and attention. You can learn to be more mindful in each new stitch. The motivation to practice mindfulness is that each moment missed is a moment unlived. Missed moments are a result of automatic, conditioned thinking of feeling and doing rather than living in awareness.

It is a radical act of love to just sit down and be quiet for a time by yourself. Take a stand in your life as it is right now, however it is. Only love can give us insight into what is real and what is important. A radical act of love makes sense. A love for life and for the emergence of one's truest self.

Archetypal Knitting

Knitting is an archetypal activity, as it is an art given to morals by the great goddess Athena. For thousands of years, women have practiced the textile arts. Textiles are a language that all women share, a language that we store in our deep ancestral or cellular memory. Knitting is in our jeans. Famous archetypal knitters include: the Fates, Penelope, Vasalisa, Ariachne, Brigette, Scarlette O' Hara, Queen Elizabeth II and Mary, Mother of Christ.

Empowerment comes from connecting to archetypal energy. There is a knowing in the hands, the psyche and the soul of the feminine, nurturing, creating from a deep source. There is a re-membering in the feel of the yarn, the rhythmic click, click, click of the needles. Knitting is a re-connection to the divine spark within, the creative matrix. It is an invitation to be mindful, to be present, to live each moment fully. Knitting is a metaphor for living your life moment by moment, stitch by careful stitch.

As the knitter knits, she is knitting herself together and nurturing herself. She is not only knitting together a garment, but also the seen and unseen, the conscious and the unconscious and light and dark in herself. She is creating from her deepest self, the creative matrix of the feminine.

To create means to feed our deep creative hunger to write, paint, sculpt, weave, to say our piece, to stand up for, put forward hopes and ideas and creations the likes of which the world has never seen before. It is immensely nourishing to reintegrate into our modern lives whichever ancient feminine patterns and principles of innate sensibility and cycles that enrich our lives now.

Once you encounter the secrets of the Knitting Goddesses you become one with the ancients at your shoulder, you will create projects that will endow you with power, beauty and strength . When you go to sleep you can look at your creation with love and keep those things that your cherish and give you love, and unravel those things that you wish to let go. Surrender your knitting to the goddess in the stars,and when you awaken in the morning you get another chance to recreate, re knit your life.

Empowerment through Knitting

Women in Bosnia are knitting themselves to a better life. Bosnian Handicrafts is an organization helping Muslim, Croat and Serb women to empower themselves by knitting. The organization employs the women and gives them emotional support and hope. The group has entered the international marketplace - its products are sold at www.bosnianhandicrafts.com and in shops around the world. By purchasing a handknit garment from Bosnian Handicrafts you are empowering women across the globe.

What we can learn from these women is that it is possible to re-knit your life. Start anywhere. You don't have to have a clear idea of who or what you are going to be, but you have to create something for just for yourself. Like the knitting project that somehow went bad, frog it and knit the yarn into something new and exciting. Figure out what it is right now. This second. Try on lots of things to see what fits. Some things will, and some won't. It's like finding the perfect outfit. It fits. The interesting thing about this process is that while it seems as if you are searching for something in vain, that there is no method to your madness, something amazing is taking shape. The little things that seem insignificant begin to create a pattern. Just like the yarn that begins as a ball and turns into a magnificent one-of-a-kind creation, stitch by careful stitch can knit yourself a new life.

Grandmother Spider: An Archetypal Knitter

"The weaving way holds beauty"
"The weaving way holds power"

There are many Epic Knitters in mythology, literature, art, but Grandmother Spider was one of the first and most prolific.

Her tale, like her web is spiral, bringing more elaborate worlds and possibilities into manifestation. Her story, her web is the spiral of life. Her ability and joy in creation is woven deep into the hearts and destiny of mankind. We can all learn from spider how and what to create in our sacred roles of Creators.

Spider is the Grandmother of Creation. The center of each creation you weave must be strong and well anchored; the center must hold if a world is to rest upon it. The center of what is human is our ability to perceive beauty and the divine. A strong delicate shimmering world of light, beauty, truth and justice is ours for the creating. Spider lives in this inter-dimensional shimmering center.

Like her, the patterns you weave can be changed instantly. You can choose to be limitless, to exist in a formless realm where you can spin tales, worlds and patterns of your own. She tells us that humans live, between form and formlessness; our potential is unlimited. Grandmother Spider creates always in a circle; circles always in spirals, reflecting even within her tiniest creations the grandeur of infinity and the secrets of life. Within the patterns of her webs are the maps of creation, the cosmos, and the laws of the universe.

Grandmother Spider teaches, when we begin with something small but well chosen we are actually making the momentous magic that will lead us from the familiar darkness of potential and uncertainty to a new and newly ordered reality. The secret of the universe lies in those awkward places, those meek unexamined crevices where the mother of the world is in her element. Legend has it that if you find a spiderweb and rub it into your hands you imbue her magic in your hand. Bring that magic to your knitting and watch it shine.