Evil Seamstress at work

They say people are contructing false personas for themselves on Facebook; that they are just inventing themselves as anything they want to be. What a good idea! What's not to like about it? Was life ever any different anyway? Sure we'll cope.

Be afraid.

Dr Who is getting a new companion, it says in the Radio Times. Of course, they have not yet trumpetted my own role as the leader of a newly discovered evil empire. I'm going to be the Evil Seamstress, with pincushion punishments lined up for sinners. My army of Facelesss Cats is going to take over the known universe. The Stitch Police will be out there checking to see if anyone does any stitch which is malformed in any way and not properly spaced. No-one will ever be more than 15 feet away from one of the Faceless Cats, who will operate underground. People will come to dread appearing at the Chequered Tablecloth.

I slept about 9 hours last night, after falling alseep twice yesterday. The Evil Seamstress puts a lot of effort into her operations; windsurfing has nothing on it in terms of the energy drained. I'm working on Ps 104, in which Leviathan takes centre stage in a subversive way.  He's a valued part of creation, representing chaos, which has a rightful place in the grand scheme of things (glad to hear that). He is 'God's rubber duckey', there to play. See Arthur Walker-Jones 'The Green Psalter; Resources for an Ecological Spirituality' where these observations are made. The poetry of this psalm, he says, 'portrays a world similar to that described by modern ecology - abundant, diverse, interrelated and independent.' You can see the launch of this book in 2009 here: Green psalter book launch . Even before I read his comments, I had organised a green ground to be the starting point for this effort. Success is not guaranteed, but it will have to do. An embroiderer's life is never easy; there's the hand of God in there, several hands in fact, meant to be holding out some kind of wheaty food, and it has turned out looking like flowers, or perhaps we could think of lemon jellies or custard tarts that God is ready to throw at us. Purple-headed flaming mountains, and creatures of darkness, and destructive flames for sinners are all there.

But there are some writers who can do much better art than I can, getting a picture straight into the brain of the reader with no need for messy paints or anything. Artur Weiser in mid-20thC wrote of Ps 104 that poetically it is '..one of the most beautiful in the Psalter. The relation of this nature-hymn to the story of creation in the first chapters of Genesis is like that of a coloured picture to the clear lines of a woodcut.'

It's very dry here, undoubtedly drought has set in - so if you read this, please put out some fresh water every day for the birds, even if you don't put out food for them. It's the least we can do, whatever the cause might be of the world of Ps 104 being a bit messed up now.

Psalm 13 cont'd: crossing the line

Psalm 13. Mmm. I was musing further on it and thinking how in representing it, I've given a much bigger space to the last two verses of  'my heart rejoices' than to the first four verses of crying out 'How long will you hide your face?' Was this deliberate? I think it was a case of my hand telling me what is going on inside me, and thankfully it tells me that my life is more joy than of anguish. I feel for any bi-polar-ish person for whom the opposite is the case.

A friend spoke about how the cloud of the first 4 verses can suddenly lift all  by itself, or sometimes by the help of a friend's word or understanding, and she wondered about the theological basis for it. It made me think about how my exegesis of this psalm started with a theological or liturgical understanding - the possibility of the psalmist receiving assurance of God's presence or help - and ended with treating the move as a psychological one. I suppose biological things have to be added to the list of things that can lift that cloud, or make one cross that yellow line of satin-stitching in the cloth version; I remember a very sudden experience like that when expecting our Jez, how I experienced a very dramatic mood-lift, which I knew was heralding the onset of labour, and I rollocked about the place, going for fast walks, and playing the piano with great gusto, and never mind that bit about packing a bag, it didn't seem to matter. If I could bottle that hormone, I'd make a fortune!

Typing stops, as I try to fathom out whether crossing that line is something one can make happen oneself; if only! Sometimes it seems to be just a matter of time, of waiting patiently and trusting that it has happened before and will happen again. (Crikey - it is all in the psalms, isn't it? Psalm 40:1 etc 'I waited patiently for the Lord; and he inclined to me and heard my cry.... he hath put a new song into my mouth...) King Saul, who seems to be one of the Bible's depressives, seems to have used the young David's music to help. If you would like to meet more companions who would nod vigorously to Ps 13:1-4, then just Google for 'accidie' where you will find explanations such as this:
http://mindyourmaker.wordpress.com/2008/10/03/aldous-huxley-on-accidie-aka-melancholy-boredom-ennui-despair/ 
including the idea that this kind of melancholy can be caused by  a demon that has the audacity to walk about in the daytime, unlike most other demons. There's an awful lot of writing on the subject! It's rather good that the psalmist tackles it in this very succinct way, as I don't think  it's a good thing to dwell on it for long. The good old psalmist, who by Psalm 15 (maybe) has us setting off on pilgrimage, where you just have to get on with life; and surely (my mind runs on) making 'stories' (as in 'dismal') rhyme with 'more is' (as in 'his strength the') is surely one of the great rhymes of all time. (See http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HbNbXxQwFws It's not the camino, but I tell 'ee, tha'll like it.) That and 'I will smite 'em - ad infinitum' (Jonah man Jazz: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OZX54yRc-kE  (Ah, the nostaliga! I know it word-for-word!)

But God has made us with our moods - this might be the theological angle - and I'm sure that the right way forward is for us to put them to use... I really believe this....

and so to move to something that I must have done in a Ps. 13:5-6 mood, which is my desk. It's just a plain IKEA thing that I hunted down when I wanted something to spread out on. It was plain when I got it, but then it needed sealing, and so I decided that it needed a little design on it too. I was teaching at the time, in about 1999, and reading up on the apocalyptic literature of the Old Testament etc, and I was alerted to a distinction between two kinds of apocalypse: the 'vertical apocalypse' in which 'the "secrets" of the cosmos are made known', and the 'horizontal' or historical apocalypse which is a 'survey of history often leading to an eschatological crisis in which the cosmic powers of evil are destroyed.' (D.S Russell in Metzger & Coogan's Oxford Companion to the Bible). Somehow I got fixated on the first one, the idea of an otherwordly journey, and the desk started to look like a flying carpet. I'm used to it now, but at first I could only use it by covering it all over with books, as it was a bit... de trop. But now I love it, and it is growing old with me. Its slim silvery tapering legs only add to my feeling that it's going to take off at any time.(Oh crikey, where is this blog going???) Come with me!

The psalms to the rescue: Psalm 13.

The psalms to the rescue! I always wonder what exactly it is that people have in mind when they say that the Bible 'helps' them. What sort of help? I can only say for myself that it provides what I call 'mental furniture'. It's the equivalent of the ancient pieces you have, not antiques which have been bought specially to be old, but rather the pieces of furniture which have gone old while you have owned them, that you can't get rid of, however shabby or even ricketty they were to get, because they symbolise too much. And what a burden it is to be a person who lives in symbols! I have known some people who can travel light in that way, just discarding and getting new as they go. But I find it hard to get rid of so much as a sock belonging to someone, as there seems to be something of them in it. It's a burden, I tell 'ee! And also an odd kind of materialism that I don't like in myself.

But I meant to talk about mental furniture, not the physical stuff. So this morning, we sang psalm 13, which is one of those where the music really does have to reflect the mood, and so it is sung in a minor key for most of the time, and then at the end there is the up-turn and it swings into major. It's really the BP's psalm, the cry of the bi-polar, who feels forgotten by God; 'he takes no notice of me at all'. It's as though he has something like I have on this blog set-up, a 'stats' facility, thus I can count how many 'hits' there have been in a day, i.e. people reading my blog. (I try not to be obsessive, of course.) It looks as though the psalmist is doing this with God; he feels to have had no 'hits' from God at all, and he wants God's consideration, both for its own sake, and also because he doesn't want his enemy to be gloating over his cast-aside status.

But then there is a change in the last two verses of this six-verse psalm, and all of a sudden it's about trusting, rejoicing, singing, because of what is really non-information - God has 'dealt bountifully with' him. ??? There is no indication at all as to why this mood change happens; some of course speculate that the psalmist has been lamenting in the temple, and a priest has stepped forward with words of assurance of God's blessing, whose words are not recorded here, only the psalmist's response. But we don't know this; all we know is that a psalm has been written which is full of misery in the first 4 verses, and then in the last 2 there is a complete change of mood, a cloud is lifted. I think it's much better that we don't know why he feels different all of a sudden. It means that there is a psalm which reflects the experience that I sometimes have (and don't we all?) of feeling 'out of sorts' (oh I love these English understatements!) and then of feeling the start of the cloud lifting, for no apparent reason. There is a psalmist who shares my experiences, even shares my character.

For some reason, finding ourselves (and I mean that almost literally - like in an old photo - 'oh look, that's me!') in the Bible is reassuring. Why? Perhaps because when that 'me' is reassured by God's presence, I can share in the reassurance he experiences there and elsewhere.  John Rogerson says of psalm 22: 'It was the cry of someone who could pray, not in a general way to any God, but to my God, who was sustained by the memory of past mercies and nourished by the traditions of a community of faith; the cry of someone who had experienced God's faithfulness and who had come to the inner assurance that that faithfulness would never prove to be an illusion'. (The Psalms in Daily Life, SPCK 2001.)

Midsummer: Psalm 121

Mmm, how to celebrate midsummer's day? I didn't have any trouble: it came to me that I must do a bike ride, though it didn't help that I fell asleep in the evening until 8.45! But I set off, thinking 'I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills; from whence cometh my help(?)' which no doubt is a bit of a mishmash of versions. But that '?' is crucial: it is not found in the KJV, but the revisers of the 1880s decided that it ought to be there, as is correct. The difference it makes is huge! (Actually, my help comes from an 18-speed gearbox on the boybike.)

1) KJV, no question mark: implies that it's the hills that are friendly, that help comes from there. "The ramblers' psalm."

Catbells across Derwentwater

2) With question mark: If one wonders where help comes from when one looks up to the hills, it implies that the hills are to be feared.Some think the psalm is relevant to pilgrims to Jerusalem returning home through mountainous terrain.

 I think my recent experiences have a bit of both in them! Lake District hills do bring help, refreshment etc; but they are also to be feared. As someone said, there are old mountaineers, there are fearless mountaineers, but there are not many old, fearless mountaineers: mountains are rightly feared, however friendly they may seem. That pointy bit at the top of Catbells had me worried when I got there.

It's the top of a hill, honest!

I got down the pointy bit!

But tonight in North Lincolnshire, hills? Well yes, actually! We have our little bit of the Wolds tapering down to the Humber bank; an excellent ride if you like puffing to the top of a hill in order to ride down it. Psalm 121 was probably in my mind because I'd done the talk on my Psalms Skirt last Wednesday, and one of the ladies present said she was hoping I'd have done a square to illustrate Ps 121, as she tended to fall a lot, and that psalm comes to her mind. I haven't got to that one yet, but I assured her that I would do one that made some reference to her. It was so easy to think up how this will be done, as it will depict hills, with a zig-zag path that makes a 'Z' shape, and her name begins with 'Z'; look no further than to the right! I hope that everyone who sees their path through life in any way as forming a zig-zag will see it as for them too. Praise be for the zig-zag path that gets us there.

The Ruth 'object' awaiting fleshing out.

It was one of t'owd man's perpetual joke-themes that the only contribution I made to preparing for the camino was to work out which coloured pencils I was taking; in fact I didn't take any! But next time I will. So the sign to the pencil museum is not to be sniffed at by me. Some of us find coloured pencils essential, and tomorrow I'll be colouring in a printout of the book of Ruth in order to illustrate its symmetry. There are so many echoes of that book in the here and now, for example in the recent news that funds do not allow all old people to receive the care they need, so that carers sometimes have to make a hard choice as to whether to wash them or feed them. But see how Ruth and Boaz both make sure that there is plenty of food for old Naomi, even though they are busy courting one another. How to get across that aspect in the Ruth 'object' I'm making... a challenge to find generous-looking colours, shapes and textures. I'm thrilled to be participating in a symposium '7 Strands: Challenging the Boundaries Between Fine Art and Making" at "Grimsby Minster" (the re-vamped Grimsby St. James; and doesn't that phrase just remind you of the catchphrase in that Tony Hancock episode '"Grimsby pilchards!" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ja4gHvDKEwM for background see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strand_%28cigarette%29) in July in which I hope I'll gain some extra oomph to help me in all of this psalmic and Ruthic enterprise. See http://www.womanwithafish.com/Home.html and click on '7 Strands'. Witty Jewish Netherlands textile artist Tilleke Schwarz http://www.mrxstitch.com/2009/07/23/the-cutting-stitching-edge-tilleke-schwarz/will be taking part; I'm soooo excited!

Sleep!

Luttrell Psalter, Psalm 4 line decoration.

Psalms skirt version based on the above.

Sleep! I haven't had enough of it lately, which you will sense if you notice the time I've been posting. When on the camino (I say, Viv, I thought you were going to shut up about that?) we went to bed very early - about 9.30, as we had to be up at 6 with a long day of walking ahead of us. Strangely, although walking 17 miles a day on average, we didn't sleep like logs every night, far from it. The night we walked 24 miles and had a room-for-two in an inn was one of the very worst, even though we had velvet coverlets and all comforts.

I was introduced to the little 'Anon' poem below a few years ago by a dear elderly gentleman who has since gone to his everlasting sleep.

The somewhat incomprehensible Psalm 4 has 'Commune with your own heart upon your bed, and be still' and ends 'In peace will I both lay me down and sleep: for thou, Lord, alone makest me dwell in safety.' (Comprehensible bits which make up for the rest.)

Quite what is going on in Psalm 149:5 I don't know: 'Let saints exult in glory: Let them sing for joy upon their beds.' Could this be a 'Fresh Expression' idea for those of us who find it hard to get out of bed in time for church on Sundays?

'Luttrell pilgrim', putting it all into practice immediately on arrival.

Sleep well!

Camino bore: hula hoop moments (2)

Friday 4th June, Cherves Chatelars.

"And did those feet?" (Yes)

I suppose pilgrimages have ended like this from time immemorial, feet in a bucket of something, in this case the best eau de France (actually this pic is of Chartres 6th June, the tent guy line a giveaway, so it isn't strictly in order). The Caminella reports me 'lying down a lot' too. I've said a few times before that there is just (for me) 'one pot' of energy which can be used by brain or brawn, but once the daily amount is used up on one of these, there isn't any left for the other. Thus it happened that 4th June 2010 was a bit of a hula hoop day, and the Caminella reports 'interesting new ideas come unbidden', just as they did today in 2011! in 2010 an explanation of My Life's Work emerged onto a Caminella page, and it goes a bit like this:

You know how when you have visitors, they look around the house and look at ornaments and all the bits of junk that you keep, and ask you 'Where did this come from?' or whatever, and you say 'Ah, well, there's a story attached to that'. It came to me that the Bible is full of stories etc, and that I could make (and already did make)  objects that could be attached to them; simple as that! I was glad of the enlightenment, and it gave me a much-needed something I could say when people ask me at parties 'What do you doooooooo?' Thus there is the Ecclesiastes doll (= 'Cloth Q'); the Psalms skirt; the Ruth 'object' (work in progress); the Sarah and Hagar.... (work being conceived). The Paper Camino must be the object attached to the camino, I suppose - so far.

Tree wearing a skirt

In 2011, I went for a stroll around the garden and saw a tree, the walnut tree, and it appeared to be wearing a skirt (I hope you can see it too), and so that was my first 'good idea' of the day; a skirt made of some tree-bark-like cloth, with lime green Golden Hop leaves appliqued on, as well as Himalayan Musk roses, and round the bottom maybe the blue flowers of the Green Alkanet.

I can explain everything!

Then I thought about other 'good ideas', some of which have been simmering on for a while, but they seemed to bubble up with new urgency. Thus, I'm thinking about the Psalms Skirt, and how the idea for Psalm 23 came last summer, and here it is. I can explain everything! While in Najera, the pot of energy was not being used for walking as I was invalided out with the foot, and I wrote a camino-slanted commentary on Psalm 23. Thus it came to me that the textile thing for Psalm 23 must be the Council of Europe camino sign on its blue background. It's a watery background because the idea came when I was resting after a session of windsurfing (as I am today).

 Santiago Holy Year 2010 poster

There's a space waiting for Psalm 24, and this one has been simmering in my head for over a year now. Please be patient if I say that there is something deeply camino-ish about this psalm, and I'll explain. I'm indebted to David Clines who points out somewhere that there is a lot of 'de-construction'*  http://bcs.bedfordstmartins.com/virtualit/poetry/critical_define/crit_decons.html
going on in Psalm 24; the worshipper or pilgrim is expected to have 'clean hands and a pure heart', and yet the hands of Yahweh are covered with blood, he is 'the Lord strong and mighty in battle'; this reminds me of the two faces of St James we see at Santiago: there is James the gentle with his hat and scallop, and there is Santiago Matamoro, 'Moor-slayer'. One gets the feeling that 'Lift up your heads, O ye gates' will be to allow both Yahweh and the pilgrims to enter, and so ever since early on in the camino we saw this poster, I have thought how it made me think of Psalm 24. Thus the textile piece for Psalm 24 will contain some visual reference to this poster, and I really want to get it done very soon. What is more, Psalm 24:6 says, 'This is the generation of them that seek after him, that seek thy face, O [God of] Jacob'. Words in brackets not found in the Hebrew, and 'Jacob' is Hebrew for what becomes 'James'. I know, I know, the psalms were written long before Jesus and St. James, and long before Santiago de Compostella, but that is not the point... (See more on this kind of comment). Incidentally we never managed to buy this poster, so we asked in the pilgrim office where we got our Compstelas, and they gave us it; thus it is priceless. To be framed next.

* "Deconstruction is not a dismantling of the structure of a text, but a demonstration that it has already dismantled itself. Its apparently solid ground is no rock but thin air." Or as in Psalm 24:2, the earth might seem to be on solid ground, but 'He hath founded it upon the seas'. (Clines again.)


It was ascension day two days ago, and we had exactly the right preacher for the occasion. She spoke beamily (I invented that word - I hope you know what it means) about how Jesus was taken up to heaven in a cloud, and afterwards told us how she, a Methodist, thoroughly enjoyed the clouds of incense & music which wafted about St. Mary's during the service. During the gospel reading I had already in 30 seconds come up with the sermon that I'd have preached (on Luke 24:44 where it talks about the law of Moses, the prophets and the psalms being fulfilled; I'd have said that the psalms were not written as prophecy, but since they dwell on both suffering and victory, then they can be said to be fulfilled in the life of Jesus). Smiling Enid's sermon was just what I needed; she appeared unconcerned about what might have led the gospel writer to describe Jesus' ascension as he did, and I wouldn't want to suggest that she never thought about that. But I'm not aware of any theologian having come up with a convincing 'explanation' of 'what really happened'; thus, some of us sometimes quite like just to be left alone to think of the picture at times like this:


http://www.google.co.uk/search?q=ascension+%2B+art&hl=en&client=firefox-a&hs=aab&rls=org.mozilla:en-GB:official&prmd=ivns&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ei=sHXqTdDqEtGEhQfS1bW6Bg&ved=0CEcQsAQ&biw=1280&bih=615

Why spend good sermon-time telling people what you don't believe? Tell them what you DO believe, it takes much less time, as someone once said.

DO judge a book by its cover

What is really taxing me these days is how it came to be that St. James comes to be depicted as a pilgrim to his own shrine. We have this lovely book on the scallop shell which looks like it might address this question, written in 1957: 'The Scallop. Studies of a shell and its influences on humankind' by eight authors, ed. Ian Cox. Published by 'Shell' transport & co (they would, wouldn't they).

The camino map arrives home

Today I went out to collect one of the several things we're gradually having framed that are to do with the camino. Today's offering is a reproduction of an antique (1648) map of the camino and the routes it takes through France. Oh I LOVE living dangerously!

Paper camino complete

The Paper Camino is complete, and just needs to be properly flattened out for a proper pic, and then I'll fold it up and it won't take much room up. It probably needs a small container making for it decorated with a scallop shell. You enter the camino by the middle square in the 3rd row from the bottom. It depicts the Portokabin we stayed in (turn your head 90 deg clockwise). To continue the journey, follow the squares going clockwise (go up three and turn right, and so on, ending at the square top left).

Paper camino folded

'Good ideas' (oh dearrrrrr!) went on and on today, including looking out of the back door and thinking how much I'd love a back door that opened onto a garden, and so could be left open to let the smell of roses waft in. You can see that this back door is not one of them, despite there being a lovely good-sized garden that could be opened onto from the kitchen, full of many 'old roses' like the one above that is growing into the walnut tree. (Vicarage architects of the early1980s, not moved out of the 1960s, lost opportunities, don't get me started...)  (I can't leave it open either as leaves gather there, ideal cosy place for mice to lurk.) For us, the camino 'began' at that Portokabin in Roncesvalles, but in the end we, like most pilgrims, arrive back at the door into and out of home. But not yet in 2010.... we still had unexpected parts of the camino to come!

Hula hoop moments (1)

Ooooh, that was a bit hippy! 'Mind games' and all that! Thinking about empty spaces in the head, and there came upon me a HULA HOOP MOMENT, yea, which lasted overnight and is still with us, and I had to get a notebook to write down all the good ideas I started to have before breakfast! (OK, friends, I know that means 'before 4 pm'). There'll be more about this later.... but I don't think I have such moments quite on the scale of this, which arrived in 'Bible Society Newswatch':

"A Dutch builder has asked London mayor Boris Johnson if he can bring his ‘Noah's Ark’ to the capital for next year’s Olympics. Johan Huibers claims he was guided by a dream to create the £1 million life-size replica of the biblical boat. Both model and real animals will feature on the 450ft by 75ft vessel, which sits on 25 barges wrapped in a steel frame. Huibers was inspired to undertake the project 20 years ago, but actually started building it on the river near Rotterdam three years ago – against his wife’s advice. ‘It is to tell people that there is a Bible and that, when you open it, there is a God,’ said the 60-year-old construction company owner."

I MEAN! I know just where he's coming from! But at least MY hula hoop moments are a bit... SMALLER  in their effect, you know, like little squares 6 x 7 cm.

More anon..... it's a sunny day... let's have Psalm 17:15
"As for me, I shall behold thy face in righteousness; I shall be satisfied when I awake, with thy likeness." (KJV)

Psalms skirt

Here is one I made earlier! This is some of the ongoing work on the Psalms, small textile pictures which get turned into - er - a skirt, the 'Psalms skirt'. Although I'm working from Psalms 1 onwards, now and again I have to do one of the later ones, such as 65 and 131. These are fairly self-explanatory. Others need a good deal of explanation! Ps 132 was the psalm for the Sunday evening when David was trying to erect a greenhouse, and part of it shattered. Thus 'Remember David in all his troubles' had the choir girls falling about, and you can see the shattered glass here. Ps 65 is homage to Samuel Palmer's harvest etchings. Eventually, the whole skirt will be covered, and my textile skills will have improved with practice. It's a great way to combine exegesis, bike riding, bookbinding, gardening and - er - posing. Most of my hobbies in one go!