Tag Archives: diversity

Honoring Diversity, Cultivating Empathy prayer flag #8

1 Feb

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I’ve named today’s prayer flag Honoring Diversity.  

It’s a cloth made perhaps 7 years ago.  A time when I was experimenting with free motion machine stitching as well as natural dyeing.  The linen background, as I recall, was dyed with golden rod.  The right hand corner isn’t washed out as it seems.  And the oval is a combination of free motion stitching, hand stitching, pastels on cloth and machine work. Four diverse methods for creating a whole cloth.  I pulled it out of my scrap bag this a.m.  Relegated there because at the time, I didn’t know what to do with it.  It’s not beautiful, not really pleasing, not what I expected, but clearly diverse.  Sometimes that’s messy.  And now it’s stitched onto linen and sending out the need for honoring others.

Originally my intention was to honor the four directions and the elements of fire, water, earth and air–elements essential to life as we know it.  Elements to be revered, to be protected–honoring diversity.

The other day, grandson and I were discussing the value of diversity.  The concept of empathy came up and he wanted an explanation.   Wondered if it was the same thing as feeling sorry for someone.  To be honest, I had to dig.  Finally I said I thought that rather than feeling sorry for someone, empathy is more like feeling sorry with someone.  Maybe not the best answer but he seemed to get it.  So…sending this wish out on a wing and a prayer.   May we honor diversity and cultivate empathy.

cubest

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HB 2 and Mollusks

6 Apr

Now I don’t claim to be an authority on mollusks or clams.  In fact I had to read up on them.  This morning I was contemplating the very wonders of this shell–a shell I called a  IMG_3208-001

clam.  It’s beautiful to behold.  And I wondered what the white patch was, figuring it was an attachment point–and then wondered about its genesis.  I began seeing a finger–a pointing finger and I listened to what it was asking of me. Heard a whisper of the lesson wrapped up in this fragile remnant of life.

How had it come to be, this what-was-once a luminescent creature?  Where had its life begun?  Where had it been?  And what were the odds that from inception to now, it would end up on my sitting bench?

From mollusks to humans, isn’t it clear that some higher energy/force/being (whatever name you put on it) creates miracles, not mistakes?  Tell that to our legislators.

There’s a correlation here between the perfection of creation–be it mollusk or human– and the arrogance of the NC General Assembly.  If there is any doubt, just check out NC HB2.  Discrimination at its best.

 

 

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