The Knitting Sutra: Craft as a Spiritual Practice

Susan Gordon Lydon

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Language: English

Published by Broadway Books (A Division of Bantam Doubleday Dell Publishing Group Inc), 2004

0767916336 / 9780767916332

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Seller: World of Books (was SecondSale), Montgomery, IL, U.S.A.World of Books (was SecondSale)

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The purpose of meditation is to quiet the mind so that it can sink down into contemplation of its true nature. You cannot stop your mind by an act of will any more than you can stop the beating of your own heart. Some cultures describe mind as a drunken monkey, reeling from place to place with no rhyme or reason. Like meditation/ knitting calms the monkey down.I believe that in the quiet/ repetitive, hypnotic rhythms of creating craft, the inner being may emerge in all its quiet beauty. The very rhythm, of the knitting needles can become as incantatory as a drumbeat or a Gregorian chant.-- from The knitting SutraKnitting as prayer? Craft as spiritual path? In this wonderfully allusive story of the quest to master a craft, Susan Gordon Lydon's love of knitting and her search for spiritual insight become powerfully and lyrically intertwined.Lydon's journey begins when she knits a turquoise chenille sweater to help a broken bone in her arm knit. In pursuit of a perfect silver button for her sweater -- and a medicine man for her arm -- she ends up on a Navajo reservation where a community of women live by the proceeds of their craft in a unified cycle of livelihood, art, and spirituality. They remind Lydon of the women on the Shetland Islands who developed classic knitting patterns and of the women who gather at her local yarn shop. From old-fashioned quilting bees to the hundreds of knitters who communicate on the Internet, she recognizes in craftspeople the confluence of self, community, creativity, ritual, and the urge to beautify the everyday.Each new knitting project she begins and every new skill she masters bring her closer to serenity and insight that have sometimes eluded her through years of spiritual explorations. In one passage, her arm healed and her passion for knitting rekindled, Lydon finds herself selling old books and clothes to buy a particularly extravagant yarn. The red sweater it becomes represents the lessons in daring and self-trust she learns while crafting it. Even a bout with cancer (I particularly didn't want to die because I wanted to finish my Alice Starmore sweater) and the hiatus from knitting a tendinitis diagnosis demands guide her to take the lessons she has learned from knitting -- sitting still, focusing the mind, asking for help -- and apply them to the rest of her life.Dedicated to all the women who knit too much, Lydon's rich insights will delight and inspire all who seek the extraordinary in the everyday.…

Seller Inventory # 00097348125

Title
The Knitting Sutra: Craft as a Spiritual Practice
Author
Susan Gordon Lydon
Publisher
Broadway Books (A Division of Bantam Doubleday Dell Publishing Group Inc)
Publication year
2004
Condition
Fair
Binding
Paperback
Language
English
ISBN 10
0767916336
ISBN 13
9780767916332

World of Books (was SecondSale)

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Founded in 2002, World of Books is a leading online destination for buying and selling both preloved and new books, committed to making sustainable reading accessible to all. With a mission to help people read more and waste less, World of Books offers a huge range of affordable, high-quality books — giving both new and preloved titles a second life. The company also operates World of Books – Sell Your Books, an easy-to-use platform that allows customers to trade in unwanted books for cash, helping to keep books in circulation while promoting sustainability. As a Certified B Corp, World of Books is driven by a vision to become the world’s largest and most sustainable dedicated online bookstore. The company measures its success through the positive environmental impact it creates, the value it provides to customers, and its ability to operate profitably while supporting its sustainable mission …

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