I was born and grew up on a 90 acre working farm in Pennsylvania, along with an older brother, a younger sister, and both parents. My maternal grandmother came to live with us after her husband died. That's a whole 'nother story unto itself!
My parents were born into, and lifelong members of a sect known as the Old Order Mennonites. Similar to the Old Order Amish, they too use horse and buggies as a their primary mode of transportation, and have other peculiarities, idiosyncracies and superstitions in common. My sister and her family have remained with the sect. My brother and his family joined another more liberal sect of Mennonites a number of years ago. And, I live in Florida, happily sect-free.
My mother taught the three of us (including my brother) how to sew-first by hand, using a thimble. Next we were permitted to use the Singer treadle, and finally her electric sewing machine; working with cotton fabrics leftover from her sewing projects to make quilts, then on to other functional items. A grade school teacher gave me a bag of fabric scraps leftover from her sewing projects. I remember how delighted I was! I designed dresses for our dolls without patterns. At age 15 I began a 20 year business in furniture reupholstery. And now, more recently getting back to making quilts as art and home decor, etc. I get a thrill out of seeing the potential in things that can be recycled, repaired or repurposed rather than just throwing them away. Consequently, I'm almost always having to filter ideas.
Colors, textures and fragrances are a very big part of my life. One of my favorite memories of my grade school years is swinging as high as I could on the swing set, facing the sun, closing my eyes, and seeing all the colors of the rainbow. As a young girl I enjoyed experimenting with color combinations...you remember those little food coloring kits with tiny pointy-cap bottles? Once to my mother's great amusement I decorated cookies with grape and avocado green colored icing...those are the two colors I see in meditation.
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Things I value:
I value the freedom to seek out Truth about Life for ourself/ves. In our very own heart of hearts resides Truth. That Truth is the same from one person/being to the next, and is what connects us. Human opinions and interpretations about Truth are probably as many as the grains of sand on all the shores of the earth, and sadly they all too often separate us. But we each have to find out for ourselves what is True. The words of others can be pointers. Somebody can tell us what an orange tastes like, but then there is the actual experience of tasting an orange. Living from the Truth is very different than living from belief systems. In fact, Truth lives us...if we let It.
Truth is in everybody. "I AM the Way, the Truth, the Life". Say it...like you mean it.
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