Update on Fragments: A Tiny Meditation Cloth

I made this small panel from the collection of tiny fragments that had accumulated over the spring of 2014. They were in the last post. To make this little panel, I laminated them with stitch onto a light blue linen napkin, bordered with my very last scraps of a red and blue silk tie-dyed sari I've had for twenty years, a thin band of marigold yellow Fair Trade sari silk and framed with blue linen I coloured with my own indigo vat three years ago. I'm going to cut it down and finish the edges, and hang it up.

Here are these tiny little bits again:

I decided to make this a mediation panel, or to call it such, composed on the model of a Buddhist mediation panel mounted in a brocade border. I meant really for this to remind me, like the Bird Rescue Cloth from last summer, of a single moment. In this case, the moment was finding the scrap of singed printed rayon- it has a block printed leaf on it, in blue- centred below.

I found this scrap in May as I crouched down beside my beloved dog who had just collapsed while we were out on a walk. From that moment until almost precisely twelve hours later a series of perfect circumstances conspired to save her life. She almost died, but the interventions of strangers, acquaintances, family, friends, other animals, all came together. Circumstances rose to meet her decision to live.

I have to laugh that I actually picked this scrap up. And, yes, I was fearful it might be something I would need as a memorial. I must have decided it could instead be to remember something we got through. Rag of the Day exists because this dog likes to go for long walks. It is fitting we found something on a hard day.

So I don't know what to say or think about, well, why I picked up a raggedy little scrap at an overwhelmingly frightening moment. I'll think about that, too.

Thank you for stopping by; I have an update coming on the Windhorse, too.