Beautiful and generous, supportive and enthusiastic Special Friends,

We are finishing week two of my now-dearest-soulsister friend @kesityu.fashion 's creative visit to The Arthouse in south Italy: we have immense heaps of clothing all round, and are buzzing and stitching multiple garments, making alterations and repairs, and planning our first (slow) fashion show... next week??

It is incredibly enriching to have a co-creative artist in my home; it is so much easier to move forward in every sense, and to have ideas blossom and thrive, rather than peter-out and flop!!

We have been weaving and visioning about it for just a couple of days, but already we have the sense that setting up a spontaneous event would be imminently possible. I love how much energy is freed-up by having four hands instead of two, two minds playing and dancing, two spirits expressing and manifesting: the energy is exponentially increased and activated. I recognise where I have been dulled at the edges, accepting limitations or imagining impossibility - it is VERY refreshing to instead be diving into the literal infinity of possibility, when there are two equally bright imaginations collaborating: the cosmic aperture opens, and the spirit-full juju POOOUUURRRSSS in!

My sense of wanting to travel is also suddenly widening: I've been feeling that I needed to be super-rooted in this old town in Italy, and even superficially worrying about the resources I 'don't have' - which would ultimately allow me to get a big journey underway. I'd never have had the confidence to step out of my comfort zone (just sewing and sewing, never presenting or selling, and thus never expanding my horizon!!) if there wasn't someone egging me on - widening the conversation and tripping happily forward into what would be most beautifully and succinctly good for us all...

Our sewing has become more confident - and wild! - and free! I look back at the first garments I made in recent years, and remember how tight my energy was around them, sitting hunched over my machine, arguing with the threads, and generally feeling defeated before I began... Thinking back now, too, to earlier times when I sewed, freely and spontaneously, but no-one was encouraging me - throughout education being criticised banal-ly and told that I was inferior, that I shouldn't be what I Am, and that I 'should' instead do what they think I should do... Pffffff! It is amazing how long these dull words and directions can sit with us - quelling the productive power and the vibrant trajectory that we are SUPPOSED to be inhabiting!

And so... the blanket coat!

I just took some nice photos down in the street below my house, of the very-almost-finished coat: I am really really really pleased about how she turned out... and perhaps she needs a good silk (or similar) lining to neaten it all up.

The last aspects were the collar, the sleeves, the lower border, and the re-stitching of the back seams: a lot of that was a lot of hard graft, pushing edges together which in places were clumping quite intensively - it is thick wool, and quite a loose knit.

Overall, the combination of texture, colour and weight have been a joy to play with, even with all the fiddling and wrestling it took to make it into this form!

I love how every garment I make is a new thing entirely - a new fabric and a new adventure in learning... There is perpetually less effort involved, and each piece I create has a more harmonious vibe, as I holistically master the materials.

This is Living In Gift! The Divine Inheritance of being able to work with our hands-and-heart, without any external pressure or limiting influence; the purity of immersion in our True Nature as Creator: letting it just flow, and being at peace without ego...

Though there seem to be near-continuous moments of delicious perfection, Instagram-able treasures of light-colour-atmosphere - nevertheless, we are immersed and it is not all for sharing.

I felt a huge pressure throughout my life, to EXPOSE myself: initially as an Art-ist, but then through social media and mailing lists and the like: 'having to' bare oneself in an unnatural way, in order to be 'valued' - though this often wasn't the case! Often, the kinds of attention I was getting, were very negative - and this has worsened as time is passing.

Now, I am super-selective about where and how I share, and much of the magic that happens in my LifeWork goes on behind closed doors. Not having to explain myself: just showing a window and a snapshot of the creative expansion which thrums and vibrates in the everymoment. Because of letting go of my surveilling of self, and my documenting of activities, I can be much more present and fulfilled: MUCH more in the mastery and the transcendence!

It is a joy and an honour to share always here, in the NeedleworkMonday community, of course!

Being able to show the workings of our mind, our heart, our soul - held in the secure arms of friends and co-creatives: this is a form of Heaven On Earth. The warmth of the heart, the heart, the core of the community and the Art. Mmmm: yum!

Huge love to you all, and may the Cosmic Wave rise up to meet your feet!

And thank you always for your wonderful support and encouragement!!

www.claregaiasophia.com