Wholeness

"Everything you need you already have.  You are complete right now, you are a whole, total person, not an apprentice person on the way to someplace else." 

-Wayne Dyer

Accepting who you are in this moment, in this place in your life can bring you serenity.  That doesn't mean that you don't keep growing or moving forward it just means that at each step of your journey you are content that you are where you are for a reason and the lessons that you learn are precious treasures.

I begin the day with an affirmation/meditation to be open and to flow with the prosperity in my life.  Prosperity isn't just money it is a trifecta of blessings: abundance, happiness, and healthiness.

I can love and appreciate my body at this moment yet want it to be stronger as well.  I feed it healthy food in sensible portions and walk and exercise.  In truth, there is no goal but the choice to be healthier.  

When I started exercising again it was because I couldn't clean the cat box without my back hurting.  This simple daily task to honor my cats should not have taken such a toll on me.  I knew that I was out of shape.  So, I vowed to my body to do better by it.  I have loved it at each part of its transformation.  I have celebrated each achievement with it and continue to thank it for every moment that I get to experience because it took me there.

Now I can clean the cat box without pain because my core is stronger, the muscles around it are stronger...I am stronger.  I can sit longer at the computer now without feeling fatigued.  I also sit straighter with better posture.  I feel taller and can pick up heavy things again that I could not a year ago.

Being stronger has allowed me to feel more capable.  I have taken on many of the tasks that I would ask others to do for me and I know that I can do them.  This is something that I took for granted years ago.  Now, I see everything I can lift as a gift my body has given me.  I see that working together as a body, mind, heart, and spirit we are truly powerful and anything is possible.

Mental strength is another thing that I have been cultivating.  I can love myself right now and I appreciate my self and what I have accomplished.  I still want to find harmony between me and my fears and anxiety.  

Just like getting up and exercising is a choice.  Being happy is a choice.  One chooses happiness.  If you are waiting for something or someone to change in order for your happiness to begin then in most cases you will keep on changing the goal, which will be always just out of reach.  

What would happen if you decided to be happy right now?  You can still have goals that you are working towards.  If you are not working towards something then there is no growth.  Growth means you are living and thriving.  

What would happen if you smiled right now and really felt it?  Think about something that makes you absolutely happy and hold onto that thought.  That is what happiness feels like.  Smiling releases endorphins that encourage that happy feeling throughout your body and help to lower your stress.

Every day I do at least one thing that makes me happy.  I laugh and smile when I am doing it because when you learn to cultivate happiness it spills out of you easily.  I have a sentence I say, which is like a mantra, it is all mine and it is pretty silly, but I can't not smile when I say it.  "I love rainbows, unicorns, magic, cherry blossoms, the smell of rosemary, sage, thyme and oregano, rainstorms at night, the ocean, the stars and the feel of drapey, soft, yarn."

I love myself and accept myself when I struggle with creating happiness.  I still have anxiety and fears but much like strengthening my core, I find it easier to recognize that my emotions are unbalanced and I work to find out what is the cause before they get too out of wack.

It is okay for me to have to work through these feelings.  It is part of growing and learning about myself.  It seems that lately, I have been uncovering things about how and why I think or react the way I do that never occurred to me before.  The reason is I am listening to my body, my mind, my heart, and my spirit.  I am taking into account the reasoning behind my fear and working with them instead of banishing them or ignoring them.

It isn't always easy.  But I am learning and growing as a person as I walk this journey with my fears and anxiety.  We are learning to choose happiness together and there are many things that used to cause me to panic that now I can do easily.

I try and remember those times when I could not do things that seem so easy and comfortable to me now so that I can encourage myself and see how far I have come since last year...and that always makes me smile.

Abundance is something that a lot of people feel is lacking in their lives.  Abundance, for most people, equals how much money they have.  A lot of people have all kinds of ideas about how money flows into their lives based many times on how they grew up.  For instance, someone who grew up feeling less abundant might now work extra hard to create a life full of abundance so they never feel that lack again.

But an abundant life is more having a lot of money.  I knew many very rich people that were never truly happy.  Their wealth did not buy them happiness.  

Abundance is about feeling joy in just being, having a mind to dream and create in some form, being surrounded by people who love and accept you for who you are and looking around at all you have and realizing how blessed you are, and in this moment that is enough.

Again, this doesn't mean that you can't dream and have goals.  It is accepting that the you in this moment is whole, there is nothing you can buy, obtain or earn that can give you what you already have.

I've told you about my little mouse issue in the basement.  For some reason, this whole thing turned into fear and I had total anxiety over even stepping a foot down there.   But I have been working through the fear by listening and I am super careful with gloves and a mask and tons of cleaning supplies and I have been slowly working my way through the basement again reclaiming my yarn.

I am actually enjoying the process, even if I have to throw some beautiful yarn away.  The basement is slowly getting clean and the fear that I have is now supportive of reclaiming my yarn room.

I have been storing yarn up here for three years to keep it safe and I have a lot of it.  But when I started to clean up down in the Basement, I realized how I had just put all of it out of my mind.  I have scads, of yarn.  I am totally abundantly blessed in yarn and i haven't even cleaned up all the bins yet.

I keep having to buy another container to keep it in every time I begin in a new area and that room is not that big.

It is so easy to take the things that we have for granted and look at the things we don't have.  But what if you looked at the things you do have with gratitude you would start to realize how abundant you are?

What would happen if you looked at all the friends you have, your support system as it were, and saw them for the amazing treasures that they are?

I'm sure you know this story:

One evening an old Cherokee told his grandson about a battle that goes on inside people.

He said, "My son, the battle is between two "wolves" inside us.

One is Evil.  It is anger, envy, jealously, worry, regret, greed, arrogance, self-pity, guilt, resentment, inferiority, lies, false pride, superiority, and ego.

The other is Good.  It is joy, peace, love, hope, serenity, humility, kindness, benevolence, empathy, generosity, truth, compassion and faith."

The grandson thought about it for a minute and then asked his grandfather: "Which wolf wins?"

The old Cherokee simply replied, "The one you feed."

Choose wisely.

Bright Blessings!

****************
I realize that not everyone reading this blog will be at a point where your life is even near a feeling prosperous, and to those people I ask the powers that be to bless you and uplift you and grant you a safe, happy, abundant, healthy place to live where you can thrive and find happiness in the mundane.

****************

My math teacher bestie in her Pi shirt.
Also, a shout out to her for helping me understand Pi formulas.

In honor of Pi Day on March 14th, (3.14) I have been working with circles.  

This is a baby blanket I made in 2006.  It had picot edging. 
This is an example of a circle constructed in a spiral.

In knitting making circles is not something we do very often.  I'm not sure why because they are super fun to knit.

We will look at two of the many circle construction methods today, the spiral and the Pi circle.

Spiral Construction Example

Spiral circles use a spiral to increase and shape the circle and you end up with a lovely snaking design of yarn overs.  

In the above example of a spiral circle, you would cast on 8 stitches in the round; you will have 2 stitches on 4 dpns.

Here is the formula for my spiral example.

Round 1:    *YO, K1, YO, K1* repeat ** 4 times
Round 2:    Knit all stitches
Round 3:    *YO, K2, YO, K2* repeat ** 4 times
Round 4:    Knit all stitches
Round 5:    *YO, K3, YO, K3* repeat ** 4 times
Round 6:    Knit all stitches
Round 7:    *YO, K4, YO, K4* repeat ** 4 times
Round 8:    Knit all stitches
Round 9:   *YO, K5, YO, K5* repeat ** 4 times
Round 10:   Knit all stitches

By this time you can see a trend.  You can continue in this manner making a circle as big as you desire.

This circle has spirals that bend to the right.  If you were to change the pattern to:

Round 1:    *K1, YO, K1, YO* repeat ** 4 times...etc then the spiral would turn to the left.

Also, you don't have to do yarn overs if you don't want to.  You can use another increase method as long as you follow the formula.  An example of this would be to use kfb or knit in the front of the stitch, without taking it off the needle and then knit in the back of the stitch before taking the stitch off of the needle (one increase made).

Round 1:    *kfb, kfb* repeat ** 4 times
Round 2:    Knit all stitches
Round 3:    *kfb, K1, kfb, K1* repeat ** 4 times
Round 4:    Knit all stitches
Round 5:    *kfb, K2, kbf, K2* repeat ** 4 times
Round 6:    Knit all stitches
Round 7:    *kfb, K3, kfb, K3* repeat ** 4 times
Round 8:    Knit all stitches
Round 9:   *kfb, K4, kfb, K4* repeat ** 4 times
Round 10:   Knit all stitches


Another way to make a circle is the Pi Circle.  Elizabeth Zimmerman's Pi Shawl was one of the first round shawls that I had ever seen.  If you haven't read any of her books or watched her DVDs...you might find a lot of enjoyment in seeing one of the pioneering spirits of the knitting craft.

In making something round you have to take in to account Pi, which is the ratio of a circle's circumference to its diameter.  For knitting, this means that the circumference will double every time your row doubles.

In building your circle there are two different calculations that need to be made: 

• the number of stitches on each round
• the number of rounds in-between each set of increase rows

For instance, if you cast on 8 stitches then you need to follow it with 1 plain row with no increases.  Then you will double the number of stitches to 16 with 2 plain rows.  And so on.

The cats helped me pin this so it was hard to get it totally round.

This circle was made by casting on eight stitches:

8 stitches                   1 plain row

16 stitches                 2 plain rows

32 stitches                 4 plain rows

64 stitches                 8 plain rows

128 stitches               16 plain rows

and so on...

You can increase with yarn overs or kfbs.  You can use both.  You can just have eyelet rows or use the long plain row sections to included lace that maintains the row count.

The one I made for a sample uses all those techniques together.  In the first three increase rounds, I used kfb.  I used yarn over increases for the next round followed by some lace that kept the round count at 32.  Then I used kfb again to increase to 64 stitches.

Pi circles are very versatile and are a lot of fun to knit.

Remember to always use a stretchy bind-off because I once knitted a huge circle with thousands of stitches that I bound off way too tight and it was more of a jellyfish when I was done then a blanket...and I was very, very, very, sad.

Next week we are going to go back to fixes and look at fixing an unintentional hole in your knitting.

Thanks for reading!

If you have any questions regarding this or any of my other tutorials, please feel free to leave a question in the comments.

Happy crafting!

Ruinwen

😀