Knitting Meditations?

[RaheemsMusing]

I'm doing a lot of knitting this Christmas, and it has occurred to me several times that while I'm knitting could be a good time for meditation. I'm just not entirely sure what type of meditation would be best, especially as I'm only really proficient in two types of meditation, and neither seem to really go well with knitting. So I was just hoping that someone might be able to recommend a good meditation to practice while knitting?

Thank you!
Tahni

[wolf]

Offer a prayer with each stitch?

I find crochet very meditative, especially when making doilies, which is as close as you can get to building a mandala using textiles.

I do look for correspondences between the number of stitches of various types and elements, Gods and Goddesses, sync the stitching to a chant, stuff like that.

[Arinya]

Maybe it's because I'm a new knitter, but I can't imagine meditating and knitting. I have to concentrate too much already as it is! Magical knitting is rather effective though, imo. Good luck with the meditations!

[Windsmith]

Be sure to check out the name of the color of yarn you're using. You would be amazed at how many of the yarns in your stash have very Naturey/Pagany color names. Then perhaps you can meditate on the meanings and correspondences of the herb, stone, animal, whatever, and how it connects to what you're knitting.

[la tortuga]

Offer a prayer with each stitch?

I find crochet very meditative, especially when making doilies, which is as close as you can get to building a mandala using textiles.

I do look for correspondences between the number of stitches of various types and elements, Gods and Goddesses, sync the stitching to a chant, stuff like that.

I do this when making baby blankets, most especially. Once your mind fixates enough into the pattern you can knit something nearly entirely without looking at it, it's almost like you're in a trance.

It all depends on what you're doing and for whom. I'm making a scarf for my mother this Christmas and when I knit I consider the need to keep warm during the winter, especially the respiratory tract (my mom's a more than habitual smoker so she needs all the help she can get). It's a lovely maroon red so it's helpful on that count, as well.

[Annorah]

I have used this chant when knitting scarves and the like:

Feel the magic
Keep her (or him) warm
Keep the owner
Safe from harm

[Beemer_Man_Wong]

I feel quite strongly you can meditate while doing anything. Mindfulness is the necessary element. You can practice mindfulness while you are sitting, standing, walking, drinking tea or any activity. Doing an action, you are aware you are doing that action. This brings you to the present moment. Meditation does not require mantras or ritual, or complex visualizations. It does not require anything more than your mindful attention to the here and now. Mantras, ritual and visualizations may be useful at some stages, but if you are unable to focus on one thing, how will you be truly mindful of many things?

Making a stitch, I am breathing in, finishing a stitch I am breathing out.

More simply, you can think "Making a stitch I am aware of making a stitch."

If you infuse your actions with mindfulness the mindfulness and all the qualities that go with mindfulness becomes part of what you make. :)

[RaheemsMusing]

Thank you everyone! I definitely plan on incorporating everyone's advice - thank you again. :)

Arinya - I love your icon, it wins. :D

Before I start knitting I always pull the yarn out of the bundle it comes in when you buy it and wrap it back into a ball - for me it's always easier to work with. I started kind of making up meditations while I was doing this - I hope no one minds my sharing them. I always write down my meditations right after, so I'm just going to paste what I wrote for two of them:

I lit two candles and turned on Trillian Green, and I sat on the bed with a huge knot of messy yarn in front of me. First and foremost, I took the yarn that was still in its packaging and, unraveling part of it, I began to roll it back into a ball, rather than one of those oblong shapes they come in. I closed my eyes and as I wrapped the yarn, I envisioned myself in the center of it, and I envisioned that the yarn that I was wrapping around myself was a string of energy. I kept wrapping until I hit the next half of the original, oblong-shaped yarn, and I proceeded to unravel the rest of it. As I unraveled it, I closed my eyes and envisioned that I was stripping all of that energy off of myself, and when I began to roll the yarn into the ball again, I was wrapping myself back up in it.

My back tingled as I continued to wrap the ball of yarn, all the while imagining myself in the center of it, getting bigger as the ball got bigger, like a fetus in the a womb. When I was done, I turned to the next most organized yard and I unraveled it, once again imagining peeling all of the energy I’d just wrapped around myself off.

At last, I ran out of pseudo-organized yarn to unravel and wrap. So I turned to the knot of yarn sitting before me and carefully began to disentangle the different yarns from each other. As far as I’m concerned, that’s meditation in and of itself, especially in the dim light of the candles. Once I had several colors away from the angry knot, I continued my prior exercises.

I’m down to a few more colors left to be organized, but I’m stopping for the night. I’ve been going for about an hour and twenty minutes, and it has really kicked my ass. So I’m going to have a yam and take a shower.

***

In my physical world, I sit with calming music playing and two white candles lit in the dark room before me. In my hands I hold of ball of yarn, still in the shape in which is came when it was bought. I am going to unravel it and roll it back into a ball, which is far easier to work with than this oblong shape. My meditation tonight, however, is going to be different than my meditation over a ball of yarn prior.

In my mind I sit in a place where everything is the color things are on clear, starry nights where the moon is full and bright: that pale, blue-silver color that it is, only here the shadows and the lines of things are sharper in focus, the blue is darker. There are trees, which have no leaves on them, and the grass has receded into the earth, as it is the dead of winter, but I do not see my breath. I am the color of my surroundings, barely distinguishable except for my shape and the flow of the lines that form me. There is a shallow pit in the ground beside me, completely black.

As I begin to unravel the yarn, taking it in my hand and extending my arm out to the side and letting it drop, returning my hand and repeating the motion, I begin to unravel myself in my mind. I pull away from my form a cord of yarn and drop it into the pit beside me. I continue to unravel myself, pulling out the cord which is energy, and filling the pit beside me with it. As I unravel further and the pit becomes fuller with the bland colored energy, my body is unraveling as well. When I am done unraveling the yarn, I am a naught but a skeleton.

Taking up the end of the yarn, I pinch it. I begin to roll it back into a ball, squeezing all of the heavy, filthy, negative energy out and pulling around my skeleton only purified, white energy. The black, dirty energy falls back into the pit. I wrap the yarn into the ball and all the while wrap the energy around my skeleton and rebuild myself. When I am done and there is no more yarn left to wrap, I am left with a ball of yarn. I take it between my hands and in my mind I dip into the pit, which if filled with a bunch of hard, black and gray pieces of crumbly energy, not unlike gravel. I lift the ball and most of the negative energy sticks to it. I begin to roll in between my hands, sliding the pure energy which I rebuilt myself with into the ball, transforming the hard, dark bits into white energy. When at last, every piece is white and fluid, I place the ball in my lap and I envision my root chakra absorbing it, taking in all of the light energy and pushing it up to my next chakra, which absorbs it and then pushes it to the next, and so on. When at last, the last bit of energy reaches my crown chakra, I turn to what energy is left in the pit. I plunge my hands in and stir them in a circle in time with the music, and I pour light energy into the black shards, transforming them until they, too, are liquid white energy. I pull it up my arms and hold what does not climb my arms over my head, letting it fall down over me. I envision the cleaned energy spreading all over me, covering every inch of my skin, and my crown chakra opening up to swallow what is left.

Then I sit for a moment, quiet, and open my eyes.

[Vagabond]

My suggestion would be mindfulness meditation as well. Just concentrate on every motion, the feel of the yarn, smell, etc.