Documenting Transitions & Poncho Knitting Pattern

To tell The Tale of Two Years that unleashed Moving to the Mountain, I have to go back in my journals and to memories of seemingly insignificant, nuanced events I did not record.

While growing into a new life, freedom is my food. My spirit is buoyant, floating, and my physical body emulates that.

The right change, undertaken at the right time, with the right energy and attitude, is helium. From this higher altitude we see our life, the figurative landscape we live in, differently.

Listen, Focus, Relax

Before lockdowns punctuated our lives, I went once a week to a sacred singing group.

The woman who coaxes voices out of tunnels and hidey-holes knows everyone should sing, and believes everyone can. Christina is not fazed by how many times you fall flat or fail to keep time.

You can do it, and you will, she says. Just listen, focus, and relax.

She is firm. She is with us, for us, feeds our confidence, plumping out our stringy, faltering offerings. One of the tricks Christina shares is: think down to your feet when shooting for the stars i.e. take your awareness to your feet when aiming for an intimidating high note.

Try it, it works.

I believe I speak for many of those who attend when I say it’s a rare treat, feeling safe enough to sing without being muted by our hang-ups. We harmonize when we…

listen, focus, relax.

I sing songs that caress my heart. They are musical prayers.

Now I Walk in Beauty, can only be good for me, and anyone else who sings it.

Help me ground and root in the place within me where only I can go, the place only I can know are not the exact words of Chloë Goodchild’s On the Other Side of Here, but that is what it means to me. We sing it faster.

Hearing my voice soar allows the rest of me to follow. I tilt my head to listen, close my eyes to focus, breathe deeply to relax.

This singing group changed me and, inevitably, my life.

Journal Entries

4th June 2019

“Yesterday, at 4pm, I went to meet Christina…I’m going to go to Christina’s singing group and give it a go, and hopefully I won’t get kicked out for singing flat…I’m coming back to my life, to my dreams, to my joy. Thank God (and I really mean that).”

It wasn’t easy…

8th July 2019

“Despite old insecurities, self-consciousness, and the fear of making a fool of myself, I didn’t chicken out of going to singing group tonight ~ I had to push aside the haunting, hostile, critical voice that mocks my attempts to break the chains of restrictions and perfectionism, and just go!!…There certainly seems to be a bunch of new people joining!”

27th July 2019

“It takes all my courage not to chicken out of going to singing on Monday nights…I have to remind myself why I’m doing it. It’s not about being pitch perfect; it’s about doing something I love despite not necessarily being good at it. It’s about overcoming trepidation, conditioning, self-consciousness, and negative beliefs.”

28th July 2019

“Thought of a way to sum up why I go to Monday night singing ~ I’m there because I love singing (always have), not because I’m good at it.”

But it got better…

5th August 2019

“Loved the singing group tonight ~ really learning to let go of performance anxiety and self-consciousness, and enjoy the experience.”

I was practicing listening to my heart, focusing on my dreams, and relaxing into the arms of the Universe.

And here’s a realization I penned, unrelated to singing…

22nd July 2019

“Something I had to learn was: curiosity versus compassion. People are often curious about my life, but that does not necessarily translate into, or indicate, compassion. Curiosity can be cold and judgmental. Interest does not = warmth. To be discerning is the course of wisdom. TMI is ‘too much information’; TMT is the way to go: ‘take more time’ ~ don’t share yourself indiscriminately.”

My blog is the exception (wink).

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This Week’s Happiness is…

Answering the call to share a pattern for the poncho I knitted and then flaunted in the first Documenting Transitions post I published.

I am not a top-notch knitter, and I never use a pattern, so figuring out how to make sense of what I did, and convey it in a sensible fashion, stretched me. But boy! did I have fun, and so will you, because it’s a simple, sassy knitting project.

You can download and print it. And thank you, Natalie, for stoking my left-brain logic and my right-brain creativity. Mpwha.

Toodle-oo, I love you. Let’s knit-knit-knit the whole world new.

xxx ❤ TeaShell Michele