Roadblocks, Accidents, and Synchronicity:
Surrender Creates Victory in the Creative Process and the Rest of Life
After lucking out by acquiring gorgeous, large, old turquoise beads, I decided to make myself a somewhat monochromatic necklace. Sorting through my other beads, I found perfect pieces, but needed one more style of beads for the necklace to really kick, so I started making them, by felting.
I made six felted beads. I wanted them to be just plain turquoise-colored for the monochromatic look I’d envisioned. But the Corriedale Turquoise wool fiber I’d bought from Living Felt was temporarily hiding in my very messy crafting area.
I love it, though, when something limits me in my creative process, since whatever I do to circumvent the problem usually produces something better than my original vision. It always affirms that I needn’t let blocks stop me in any endeavor, whether creative, romantic, spiritual, financial, magical, or other.
The only pale blue wool I had from Living Felt (LF) was more like a baby blue, probably LF’s Corriedale Ice. So I needle felted that, using one of LF’s pink-handled needles (I think pink handle means their 36 triangle, but you can check that on their site). I needle-felted around a shish kebabs skewer, to make the beads’ holes.
Once the pieces were very roughly felted, I took apart yarns of various greens and blues and wrapped them around the beads, letting a lot of the pale blue show through. Luckily, I had a tiny bit of turquoise yarn, which I think made a difference.
Then I added wisps of one of LF’s dark greens, probably their Fir Merino top. Next, I wet felted, rounding the pieces into balls and firming them up, keeping the skewer in them to stop their holes from closing.
I’d hoped a portion of each bead would be turquoise-colored, and hadn’t expected what happened instead. Imagine my delighted shock when the colors and patterns that emerged made the felt reminiscent of turquoise. The resemblance was not strong enough to make the felt beads look like sleazy imitations of turquoise. Instead, the felt mildly echoes the necklace’s real turquoise, highlighting it. I mean, this is one of the necklaces I’m most proud of having made. And I feel elegant wearing it.
This happy accident was a wonderful reminder for me about how to deal with blocks in any part of life: instead of getting all frustrated, I went with the flow. Feeling frustrated is natural. But sitting in my frustration endlessly instead of going with the flow is unnecessary. Remembering that is always so freeing for me.
Going with the flow does not mean being a doormat. For example, often, when I surrender to the flow, it opens the door for the Goddess to create a pattern better than anything I could’ve come up with, whether it’s a pattern on a wool bead or a pattern for living. Going with the flow when a challenge hits any part of my life might help me come up with a pattern for overcoming that challenge.
The creative process informs the rest of my life.
As a witch, I strive to align with the flows that course through my day because there’s much magic in them.
Even when I almost died from multiple sclerosis in my early years of it—my utter feebleness and impending demise like a nightmare from which I just could not wake—leaning into that horrifying “flow” best I could (which was not very well, I’ll be honest) and trusting there was a Divine hand in it, brought me to a much happier place in my life than I’ve ever been in before.
Going with that flow, even though I couldn’t do it well, also helped create a mindset and events that made my health bounce back and will allow me to keep going well into my late senior years. I intend to enjoy every magical moment of it.
2018 note: this piece was written in 2016, but I hadn’t the chance to post it yet. Then I came across it today. It served as a good reminder for me. I’m not a pacifist. I fight for my rights and for the rights of all people. And I need constant reminders that spiritual surrender makes me a better fighter.
