Words as Wings of Love

I have always loved words from how they look on paper, how they sound to me and how they feel in my mouth. Some words are less popular than others and when they are used almost cut through silence. The slightest difference in tone or inflection can change the word. And many of them sound the same, yet are spelled differently.

I have been binding Baylee's Halloween Candy quilt. Its about halfway completed & will be ready in time to ship out off to her before the holidays. When she was born, her Mother made sure we all knew how to pronounce BAY- lee, which isn't the same as the more common Bail-ey. You can see how the Y and L switch places in the name and make it sound different if it is said correctly. Very subtle. 

Whenever I work on a quilt for someone, I cannot help but think about them, what my relationship is with them, where they are, what they are doing or plan to do.  So in those moments, the words I use to think about them or even say their name have a strong power in my room. Its almost like the chant of energy going in like a prayer with every stitch.

Oh I know that is the name of this blog, but it really is the way of life my quilting takes on.

This morning, I spent a bit of time organizing this desk top. My goodness, the clutter can get away from me so quickly.

I found in necessary to re-organize when a very tall stack of this and that crashed to the floor and an old familiar word made its way out of my mouth. It made me laugh to intonate it, to elongate it, to let it spill into my world the way the stack had spilled onto my floor. 

Sheeeee-it! I said. No matter how a person says it, the way I said it let anyone know what I meant. I did not mean she, nor sheet, nor even it. I meant that ca-ca-word, that smelly, stinky, close-the-door and open-the-windows word.

When I am in that frame of mind, I stop quilting, stop infusing my projects with stress, complexities, with anything at all negative. Its time for me to clean up my messes, to clear the air, center myself and come back refreshed or, in failing that, to get outside.

The world is filled with enough negative energy and hard words tossed at us from all sides. I've said my share of them over the years. My quilting and the prayers within the work are essential elements of my spiritual life, but themselves are not a spiritual life. They are the manifestations of it.

While words have power, I really think its the motivation behind what we say that holds the content. There is a cliche that teaches us we need to say what we mean and mean what we say. If we don't verbalize our thoughts and feelings so that we are heard, and that others can connect to us, we misunderstand each other too easily. That's where the pile up is, that's where the stack falls, that's where our tempers get triggered and the words stumble out whether we mean them or not.