“What’s Held Inside”, Contemplation Cloth, 2021

I created this contemplation cloth with an amazing antique Japanese mosquito netting (also called kaya) that was hand spun with cotton, hand woven and hand dyed with indigo in the early 20th century. I hand stitched the surface with Japanese Kogin embroidery thread over many months. As I stitched, I was subtly drawn into wonder what stories the soft fibers held inside of them, what they witnessed, what they absorbed over time…as my hands slowly moved the thread and needle back and forth, up and down, my mind wandered and contemplated not only what might be held in the cloth but what I was now infusing into it through my hands as I stitched.

This cloth, this practice, became medicine for me that I didn’t know I needed. It became a soft place to land, something to hold me as I navigated grief and loneliness, sadness and pain silently inside of myself. It helped me heal and release many layers of emotions that needed to move from inside my body. The cloth, the slow stitching, alchemized those emotions for me, transmuting them into beauty, into deep healing energy. I’m so grateful to have intuitively stumbled upon this practice, allowing it to show me what it needed to be.