Amy Palko

I am knitting shawls. I find that I am becoming rather obsessed with them…. their links to ancestry, tradition, legacy, heirloom… the way they evoke the sacred, the holy, the mystery, the numinous… the possibilities woven into every stitch as a new fabric, a new text, is fashioned from spun fibre.  And as I knit, I find that I am dreaming up whole new expressions of my own creativity. I am learning to trust the unfolding of my creativity in this way. I don’t really know what it’s leading me towards. I can’t see what it is that I will be creating in the months and years to come. And…

Returning to my sacred selfie practice after a bit of a break, and I’m rediscovering my love for it all over again. Here I am, hand on heart, dissolving into soft light and deep shadow, my strength and my fragility dancing together in this one captured moment.  This is the gift of sacred practice – when you return, it meets you where you are – without remonstration, without shame, without blame, without punishment. Only the gentle welcoming embrace as you come back home to yourself. 

We drove past the harbour today. And as we did so, I felt a near-overwhelming wave of homesickness wash over me. My island. My river. My breakwater. My lighthouse. My gulls. My far-distant ships. My haar. My home.  Except, of course, it’s not mine. And it never was. I am being taught a lesson in non-attachment, I think. But as I told my husband as we drove past, our old apartment building receding in the wing-mirror, I haven’t felt as “at home” as I did by that harbour either in the years before or since.  I miss it. 

So, I’ve spent most of this weekend offline. As I mentioned before, I was coming off the back of a ridiculously busy and very full week of readings, client calls, tending to family and the opening of my latest Goddess Self Circle. My desire for this weekend was to feel a bit more spacious, a bit more grounded, a bit more centred.  There have been meanderings around Morningside, breakfast at our favourite cafe, a new knitting project, catching an opera performance with my youngest, watching the opening of the 6 nations tournament from my sofa, and spending time with loved ones.  And now, here we are, Sunday evening with the…

Tonight we went to Scottish Opera’s performance of Kafka’s The Trial. Thought-provoking and beautifully performed. Oh, and I made this image while I was waiting for the curtain to come up, composed of the program cover and a photo of the theatre. I actually think it speaks to the main theme of the story – the impossible maze of societal systems in which the individual becomes swallowed, lost, condemned.