I haven’t written much the last few weeks because the chaos has been insane.

However, the house is sold, and we’ve packed and moved all our stuff – a heroic effort. We’re both pack rats and we’d been there for 13 years!

Between the two of us we packed just under 200 moving boxes, gave away 30+ more boxes to Goodwill (the neighbors got plenty too!), and got rid of two BIG dumpsters’ worth of rubbish.

It is said that one learns a lot about oneself while moving, and this is true.

For example, I discovered that I have 28 boxes of yarn, weighing approximately 20 lbs apiece. That’s 560 lbs of yarn! And that’s AFTER selling or giving away another 80-100 lbs. That’s thoroughly embarrassing.

However, I must say….

I also discovered that I own 33 pairs of scissors (!). (Like tribbles, they appear to be born pregnant.)

Here are some of them:

The ones at top left are my favorites. They’re not great for cutting, but they are fascinating – a gift from a Tibetan lama friend, hand-forged in a small town in India.

Below is a better picture of those scissors. You can still see the grinder marks on the handles. Talk about “hand of the maker”!

I also found some “blast from the past” memorabilia. This, for example, comes from my trip to Southeast Asia in 2003. It’s from an adventure I had in Bangkok, where the best body painter in Bangkok agreed to paint me up as a barbarian warrior princess (and I wound up on the front cover of a travel magazine!). We had a photo shoot with various props. I’d completely forgotten about this one!

I also found wedding dress #1. I made this one myself, in 1994. It’s not bad, especially considering how inexperienced I was at the time. The beads have tarnished, but 30 years ago they were bright gold.

Doesn’t hold a candle to wedding dress #2 – but then, neither did the marriage. 😉

On the morning after we cleared out the old house, I returned before dawn for one last round through the house. To my amazement, the sky above the house was glowing a beautiful (and eerie) magenta, even though it was still quite dark. I have never seen anything like that before. Here is a picture – exactly as shot, and completely unenhanced.

This is inspiring a new series that I think I am going to call Pilgrimage. As I’ve currently conceived it (and this will likely change at least 30 times before I finish it, if it even gets finished), it’s a series of four pieces:

• Threshold – leaving the everyday normal and launching into the unfamiliar
• Wandering – exploring the new world (and maybe getting a bit lost!)
• Cocoon – musings on what I’ve learned
• The Way Home – settling into a new home and a new “normal”

So far I’m only thinking about the first two pieces. I am really struggling on the format and media – obviously I won’t have the jacquard loom, and probably won’t until the end of my journey, so weaving them on the jacquard loom is probably not viable. And I can’t fit too much equipment into my suitcase.

I’m thinking that the best format is probably tapestry, but I have not done tapestry weaving except for a brief one-month trial, and I wasn’t particularly fond of the process. That was twenty years ago and I might like it better now, so I am planning to put together a simple loom and maybe experiment a bit before leaving.

I have a vague idea that Threshold will start with that picture of the glowing sky over our old house (it really did seem like an omen!) and that the unifying theme across all the pieces will be a glowing magenta thread or path to represent the spiritual journey. The magenta glow will, of course, be handspun with a drop spindle on my morning walks, and will probably incorporate some sparkly stuff.

I haven’t had a chance to think it through any further yet – things have been way too crazy. This past weekend was the first breath of free time I had for over a month – and I spent most of it just catching up on sleep!

I am (hopefully) leaving for Mexico in exactly three weeks, so I don’t have much time to think things through. I think the most important thing to figure out is what tools and materials I should bring with me, and “wing it” later, within the limits of the things I’ve brought along. This is completely unlike my usual working style, so I’m feeling very rushed – and, frankly, pretty uncomfortable with the whole thing.

And that’s GREAT. The whole purpose of this trip is to explore new ways of thinking, doing, and being. This may not produce my best work, but it’ll engage me in a dialogue about my style, process, and beliefs – which is exactly what I am looking for, right now.