Yarn Along ~ Sunshine Squares Blanket and Dakota: A Spiritual Geography

 And this is where I am with the blanket.

A bit bunched up by the middle of the 'sun' but

well, one thing at a time.

I have to continually let go of 

wishing for perfection right now.

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I've been thinking a lot about this.

How things are not perfect but they can still be good; 

a bit lopsided at times but full of love.

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So... reading.

I finished Kathleen Norris' book

Dakota.

I really enjoyed it.

I see it as a well written first book 

as it were;

her first book articulating where she is

now, or where she was in 1993 at any case.

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It is full of beauty,

of understanding that even imperfect or 

plain old deprivation within circumstances 

can be a place that a flower can grow 

or a word of life can come. 

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It's like she is examining the breeze:

how it can be stifled and how it can be let loose

to come unexpectedly and provide

blessed relief.

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It made me think of the farmers and there

yearly struggle and how good it could be for 

those who are the farmers wives to read this book;

or how it could be good to read when one is

feeling impatient within oneself,

still wishing for a more instant transformation of

what weights us down;

or if things in the job market are just not picking up

or things are just plain splintering everywhere...

it faces this;

it reminds one of the verse

possess one's soul in patience. 

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Well, I don't know if

Kathleen lives much on the Dakotas now,

though perhaps in summer....

Her husband and her father are gone.

I could see all of her books in this first one,

the themes that she took further and made

beauty out of in her books.

I can see I should read her book on acedia again... 

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She does a lot in this one;

challenging us to not become insular where we are

or to allow silence in our lives

or to see places we perhaps did not know, like

the Dakotas of 1993.

I had such an awareness of time,

reading this book,

years before so much would happen in her life...

before she published some of my favourite books

that often help me maintain faith when in difficult 

situations.

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So a very good and thoughtful read.

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What are you making and reading? 

Yarn along with us :)

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