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Writer's pictureShirley Riga

Weaving Our Way Through Life

Updated: Sep 16, 2020


“The more simplified and aligned we become in September, the smoother fall and winter will be for the light workers holding sacred space for the shadow exhausting itself with fighting as a means of attempting to end each struggle.” - Matt Kahn in a recent energy update.

“A Lightworker is anyone who devotes their life to being a bright light in the world. They understand that their actions (no matter how big or small) have the potential to raise the vibration of the planet. A Lightworker soul is awake, conscious that their presence matters and that they are part of something that is bigger than them.” - Rebecca Campbell

Obviously, we are all in this for the long haul. Today is Labor Day which denotes the end of summer, a change of season is upon us. Meditation is a tool I use to help me feel balanced, focused and present in this world. There’s a momentum to daily meditation. Our community has a weighty presence in my life and I witness the significance meditation has in yours as well. I value the connection, the sharing and insight.


Driving home yesterday from our vacation felt like I held my nose and jumped into a pool of collective unconsciousness. The highways are brutal at times with impatient people, scary close-calls all with these steel vehicles going at high speeds. Every vehicle is driven by a human being with a soul and a personality. But I don’t trust that every soul I encounter is willing to do the inner work to be a light worker, though at some point in their life they will as they live their journey. It’s inevitable.


I am grateful my week away was filled with ocean sounds and relaxation. The whole experience helped my perspective. The change in scenery was refreshing. I feel gratitude that my inner focus and alignment goes home with me as I continue my practice. My meditative practice is part of my recipe for survival through these tumultuous times.

Thank you for joining me on this meditative journey.

I am weaving the

tapestry of my life. I am spinning the threads of my past,

the odd and knobbly strands, the

smooth and soft ones, it is all flowing

like silk through my hands once I sit

down at my loom.

Only when it all blends together, I can

see the unfolding pattern I was blind to

see before. When bits and pieces

seemed like bitter blocks before, they

now turn into a manifold ornament, to enliven my life on a tapestry of

experiences.

The more I weave, the more I trust. Though sometimes I will bleed and

blister, it is inherent to the weaver’s

work and weave I must.

My tapestry is unique as yours, not

better or worse, simply mine and as my

tapestry grows, so do I. I weave and I weep, I weave and I laugh. I weave in darkness, I weave in light.

This weaving never ends.

Participants’ Reflections:

  • You are such a gentle teacher, Shirley

  • Thank you for the reading. I focused on the weaving and spider. Yesterday, I was at a family get together by a lake. My five-year-old granddaughter was there. She’s very small for her age, like the height of a three-year-old. And she’s always loved Spiderman. She got all her clothes wet, and someone brought her a Spiderman outfit to put on. This outfit had muscles on the chest and arms. When she put it on, at first, she was very embarrassed and shy, and huddled in a corner behind a tree. We let her decide what she wanted. And she came out and she made a muscle pose with her arms up. And she stood on the edge of the dock and she kept posing every once in a while. To see that transformation in her, and all of a sudden to own that strength and spider energy. During the meditation, I reflected on the weaving I do. It doesn’t seem so significant some of the time, but just remembering, for me, each strand is so important. As an elder, I have a unique kind of weaving I do now.

  • I heard that when a spider weaves their web, they throw themselves out onto the web. On my morning walks, there is a place where the path is 8 feet wide. And if a spider is throwing themselves out, it’s quite a leap of faith.

  • Thank you for sharing. During the meditation, I chose the word ‘light’. The small contributions that I can make, that all of us can make—it seems so very small. But if we’re walking in the light, projecting the light, and we’re staying positive, those things can be really, really important. I lost a member of my community this past week unexpectedly, very young. And realizing all the contributions that person made, it’s baffling. We’re probably not even aware of all the impact we have, but just doing small things with great love is my meditation today. Going out in this dark world and being light is not pleasant all the time. But responding with kindness and restraint, we are making a huge contribution. A lot of us are elders and have a unique contribution with our life experience and not getting blown about by every wind. I’m glad to be here and to be part of this community of light, growth, and connectivity.

  • I’m reminded with your reading that women are the inventors of weaving. Many, many goddesses are depicted with whorls and shuttlecocks, and we are the weavers of culture. I think what we are talking about and visioning is the reweaving of our culture. As it has been and so it shall be.

  • Reminds me of the Dalai Lama’s words, “The world will be saved by the Western women.”

  • Speaking of weaving, I learned something today I didn’t know. In the women’s suffrage movement at the beginning of the 20th century, they created signs through embroidery and weaving. It was a powerful visual using women’s skills, cultural constraints within what women could do, and political activism to participate the marches, which women didn’t want to do. They held up these embroidered signs that had women authors’ names, organizations, women of note. Women weaving together, built and built, the power of women, this underground force under the patriarchy. That word weaving was so powerful.

  • During the meditation, the potholders that are woven—I pictured one of those, with bumps in it, smoothed out. But then there’s this large bumpy knot that represents a really difficult part of my family’s life I am in now. I don’t want to say hopeless, but it is so difficult—how are we going to get that bump smoothed out? What I tried to do, I pictured a little angel that I once saw with purple and pink light—I ask her for help as we need help.

  • I focused on the weaving aspect and how weaving never ends. For me, weaving is trying to figure out what my life means, what I’d like it to mean. I’ve been in a women’s journal writing group since the early 1980s. And we meet weekly and we weave our stories together, our understandings, which often feed one another to that next step. So it’s very powerful.

  • It occurs to me that we can all be lightworkers. I love that image. What would it be like if we approached each person we meet as a lightworker? It seems some people are dark workers, but we know that there’s always light in darkness. I just love the idea of lightworker in all the senses of the word light.

  • I also liked the phrase the weaving never stops. I’ve been working on an embroidery project and I will finish it today. It’s taken me four months to do this piece. I was thinking last night, how I’ve ripped out pieces I didn’t like. It’s not a smooth process, it doesn’t go like that. I try this, it looks good by itself. And when I put things around it, I say, “oh, that will never work.” How can I fix that? So I start ripping it out a couple of times. It takes making mistakes, trying things. Not getting upset when I make a mistake. I know I’ll just do it differently. I learn from the process of what I’ve done wrong to go forward. And it’s not a matter of just getting it done. It has to feel right. Similar to life lessons.

  • You know, Thomas Alva Edison learned 999 ways to not make a lightbulb. We learn from every experience.

  • During the meditation, I combined the idea of spreading the light with the weaving. And the weaving was coming out of the tendrils of my hair and spreading out a tapestry over all my loved ones, over the world. Kind of undulating out. And I wanted it to cover me as well. But I realized, it’s coming out of me. It was a wonderful feeling.

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