Handwoven Perception Scarves

Take a good look at these scarves.

What is your first impression?

What thought or feeling came up when you saw them?

Do you think they took a long time to weave?

Are they well crafted?

Do you admire anything about them?

Would you buy them?

Would you wear them?

Would you give them to someone as a gift?

Does knowing I wove them bring up any thoughts about me? What “must” I be like if I’ve woven these?

Now, what if I told you these scarves were woven on a potholder loom?

Many remember those little frame looms – a square with 18 or 20 pegs on each side – that you stretched cotton loops across. Then you wove more cotton loops over-under-over-under the first ones to make a square. And if you got tired, a parent or other long-suffering adult would finish the edges for you.

How many kitchens did these squares adorn as potholders, maybe stitched together into placemats or trivets for protecting the table from hot dishes?

Are these scarves made from potholder loom woven squares inferior to my
Transformation Scarves?

Maybe, if you think the others were woven on a “real” loom. Or if you have preconceptions of what small frame looms can – and can’t – weave.

But it’s all in your perception. And therein is the whole “secret” of life: How we think of, feel about, and experience things is all a matter of our perception.

And the best part is, we can change our perceptions at any time! Feel bad? Then change your perception to one that feels better. Feel good? Great, then it can only get better.

Your perception is your responsibility. You can’t blame anyone for anything – well, you can, but that’s still just how you believe it is. Doesn’t finding something better, feel better than being stuck in blame?

I speak from experience when I say it absolutely does! But don’t take my word for it… After all, my perceptions are my own, and not yours!

What is God?

This “simple” question has filled volumes and will probably continue to fascinate humankind for our entire existence.

I am not a theologian and don’t intend to be. However, I know universal truth, aligned with the Law of Attraction, Metaphysics, and New Thought. Similar belief systems include Unity and Religious Science. It is this absolute truth I present here as what God is.

God is source.

God is life.

God is lifeforce.

God is energy.

God is everything.

God is Spirit.

God is love.

God is cause.

God is abundance.

God is peace.

God is joy.

God is truth.

God is light.

God is beauty.

God is power.

God is goodness.

God is unity/oneness.

God is flow.

God is consciousness.

God is understanding.

God is awareness.

God is all.

These are not attributes of God. Attributes, or characteristics, are adjectives. They describe what God is like: loving, compassionate, etc. In contrast, these are nouns – concrete things, though abstract to our understanding – that you could substitute for the word God: God is beauty.

It is no less accurate to say God is beautiful. But God is not only beautiful, but is beauty itself. The very idea of beauty is the same as the idea of God.

I’m not going to give definitions of all the things God is, here. Just remember, when you feel peace, you are experiencing God. When you feel aware of something, you’re feeling God.

Also keep in mind that this is not an all-inclusive list of what God is! If you find a list like that, let me know! 😀 Rather, this is a sampling, and in fact just my own limited human understanding, of what God truly is.

When contemplating this and articulating your own beliefs about God, think on this. If you believe that like attracts like, then you must also believe that whatever you think God is, will attract more of that to you.

For example, “God is love” attracts more love to you. But “God is angry” attracts anger. Many traditional religions believe in an angry, punishing, vengeful God. And they are perfectly welcome to believe that. Just consider the ramifications of your own beliefs about what God is. If you like those ramifications, keep believing what you believe now. If, however, you don’t like them, know that you’re free to change your beliefs at any time and adopt more positive ideas about what God is and about anything else in your life.

Because as you believe it is so, so it is in your life.

Namaste – 2 Meditation Affirmation Poems

Two poems and a harp meditation to affirm the truth and see love in everything. Recite “Namaste” silently or aloud, to anything or anyone troubling you, and you will see love instead of negativity.

Prayer to the Subconscious

You know my thoughts, and you obey.
My word sets you upon your way.
Because you always carry out
Intentions from my thoughts and mouth,
I choose to plant the perfect truth
Within the fertile law of you.
–And so it is!

Namaste

I offer you a Namaste!
I know your greatness in all ways.

The love in me sees love in you.
My highest self affirms your truth.

I recognize your perfect soul.
I know that you are always whole.

No matter what the world may say,
You prosper by this Namaste!
–And so it is!

LEARN: Life Expanding and Revealing Notions

When we think we “have to” learn something, we think too much about it.

Needing to learn something implies lack. If nothing else, we believe we lack knowledge. Otherwise, we wouldn’t be seeking it – we’d know we already have it. And we don’t like lack. We resist lack by default. But by virtue of the Law of Attraction, that lack persists.

Why does lack persist? Because like attracts like, and therefore, what we resist, persists. It must. If we feel resistance to lack, and like attracts like, then we attract more… More resistance to lack. And more lack of knowledge.

Now we’re consciously aware of what’s going on here. And we can create new beliefs about learning.

First, what is learning? My own definition is simply this: Learning means gathering conscious awareness.

And these are the true characteristics of learning:

* Abundance: Embracing the knowledge that is already everywhere.

Knowledge may appear to come from books, other people, etc. But the universal truth is that all knowledge, like everything else, is within each of us already. We’re just consciously tapping into it now. These things and people that seem to be “the source” of some knowledge, are just tools to bring us the conscious awareness of our knowledge.

* Joy: Feeling the excitement of new awareness.

For many of us, learning is a struggle. (Why do you think I’m writing this? :D) However, struggle is how we perceive it, and this can be changed, like all perceptions. When we believe learning – the gathering awareness of knowledge – is joyful, we experience that joy.

* Expansive: Broadening the personal mind.

Q: Does learning mean cramming, studying, pouring over something, trying desperately to remember things, feeling bored with constant repetition… Only to forget it all at some point and need to go back and learn it all over again?

A: Only if we want learning to be this way!

If you’re ready to knock out these beliefs for good, and I do mean forever and for good beliefs, decide for yourself that from now on, learning is different for you.

Now, learning is an opportunity to fill your personal mind with more of the universal, spiritual, or God-mind. It’s not just knowledge or experience you’re gathering when you learn. It’s an energetic connection to more expansion.

Once again, like attracts like. When you intend to expand your mind, while feeling joyful and abundant, you attract more expansion, joy and abundance!

And this, blessed be, is why we learn! What a
life
expanding
and
revealing
notion!

Imagine – Song to Attract what you Want

This is a live performance from May 20, 2012, at Unity of Reading, Center for Spiritual Growth and Positive Living.

The album version adds recorder and hand percussion to this simple but inspiring song:

Crystal L. Howe: And so It Is, Vol. 1

Inspiring Quotes

“Anything the mind can conceive and believe, the mind can achieve.”
–Napoleon Hill

“Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you.”
–Matthew 7:7

“Whatever you can do, or dream you can, begin it. Boldness has genius, power and magic in it.”
— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Imagine – Lyrics

Instrument: Lady – Tenor Flea ukulele

1. Just imagine
What you can do in life.
Just imagine
How you can feel inspired.
Just imagine
The greatest you can be.
What you ask for,
In faith, you now receive.

2. I imagine
What I can do in life.
I imagine
How I can feel inspired.
I imagine
The greatest I can be.
What I ask for,
In faith, I now receive.

Free – Meditation Affirmation Poem

Harp meditation and prayer-poem to feel and live as free as you already are in Spirit.

Inspired by
Daily Word
for October 28, 2010: Free.

I recorded the harp outside, and you will hear a child’s laughter and maybe other sounds. I left them in because they brought me joy.

Free

God the good is all there is,
The one and only cause,
The peaceful, perfect freedom
Extended to us all.

I am within that freedom.
It is my very soul,
The brightest light of being
As me is pure and whole.

I realize my freedom
From this one earthly plain.
I’m in it but not of it,
For Spirit in me reigns.

Releasing lower ties now,
I’m bound to nothing more
Than Spirit’s freeing likeness
That pulses at my core.

I know this glorious freedom
To be my essence whole,
And so, in grateful peace and love,
I give up all control.

I float among the beings
That live on earth with me
And demonstrate that love
And truth will set us free.
And so it is, namaste!

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Blessed Independence

In the United States today, we celebrate our independence. But how independent are we? The following questions are meant for personal reflection. Because only when we reflect personally can we accurately reflect on our country, and our world. Fortunately, it follows that when we have personal realizations, Ah! Ha! moments, and positive changes within ourselves, they also come to fruition in our world… Even if they don’t seem to!

Take a few moments to answer these questions for yourself. Answer intuitively – don’t “think” about the answer. These immediate answers, your very first thoughts about the question, are the answers that are really true for you.

1. Are you free? Or are you in bondage?

2. Do you feel free? Or is something holding you back from being who and what you desire?

3. Are you independent? Do you consciously, knowingly express your free will and ability to choose what you want? Or do you choose things unconsciously, or because others think you should?

4. How does it feel to be truly free?

5. Is freedom a gift? Why?

6. Do you celebrate your freedom? Or has it lost its luster? Why?

7. If you knew you were free in every way, how would you feel? What would you do? Who would be in your life? What kind of life experiences would you desire?

8. What can you do to make freedom a personal reality in your life?

Some ideas:
* Positive affirmations
* Visualization of the life you deserve
* Lovingly releasing what you don’t need in your life
* Accepting that, yes, you do deserve only good in your life
* Overcoming guilt
* Giving yourself love and being willing to receive it from yourself, rather than the approval of others

Don’t you think it’s time to make true freedom a reality? If so, then start with yourself, because yours is the only life you have the power to create. And what you create in your life, moves outward from you and touches the world around you.

Create discord, and you share discord. But create freedom, and you share a priceless blessing that, in its purest form, not the definitions we give it, can never be taken from you or anyone else.

Centering Practice

Harp meditation to re-connect you with your true center – a place of calm, peace, stability and pure joy. Give yourself the gift of “calm” that is not dependent on outward circumstances, people or events. This centered state is the true meaning of serenity. Get there using this meditation, and you will be able to bring yourself back at any time, living more and more consciously in this peaceful place that is always within you.

Gratitude

 

Exclusive Recording Updated 2015

Instrument: Brio – Red Cedar Concert Ukulele

Album Contains Celtic Harp

 

1. I feel gratitude
For my life in God the good.
(x2)

 

2. I appreciate
Being one with all there is.
(x2)

 

3. In my growing truth,
I love others as they are.
(x2)

 

4. I sing joyfully
And I offer thanks and praise.
(x2)

 

Repeat 1.

 

Check out the album on CD Baby!

Crystal L. Howe: And so It Is, Vol. 1

Shuttle: A Tool for Change

As a weaver, I really value my shuttles. They make weaving easier and faster by carrying yarn or thread across the width of the cloth, and they can pack the yarn in place. But it strikes me that shuttles are a symbolic tool for change, not just in weaving, but also in life. Here’s why.

Organize colors. If a piece has many colors, shuttles keep each one neatly wound until it’s needed.

Like emotions, different colors can tangle easily. But when the shuttle holds them – when we step back and look at all our colors-emotions, then we can decide which one we want to weave-feel next. We can lift ourselves from one color, from one emotion to the next, until the cloth is as beautiful as we imagine it.

Carry threads. The shuttle carries threads back and forth through the warp, creating cloth. Back and forth, back and forth. Sometimes it’s monotonous, but with each pass of the shuttle, we’re moving upward. With each pass, another tiny amount of cloth is created.

In the same way, we sometimes feel like we’re experiencing the same things day after day after day, or year after year… But really, we’re moving upward. With each experience, we learn, grow and change, creating more life, adding to the tapestry of our own journey in this lifetime.

Beat cloth. There should really be another term for this… Beating is simply pressing threads into place after the shuttle carries them across the cloth. Though some looms have beaters just for this, shuttles can beat as well. When the beat is even, the cloth has a smooth, balanced texture and the same drape throughout. Otherwise, there may be thinner or thicker sections, unstable areas, or other differences.

It’s important to have a balanced life, like a balanced cloth. If we focus too much on career, for instance, we may not experience the fullness of a picnic, spending time with friends, or just learning something new. Balance isn’t always easy to achieve, but it’s worth the effort to create a fulfilling life – not just a few pleasant areas.

Who knew we could learn so much from a simple notched stick? Well, they don’t call it weaving for nothing. It’s called weaving because everything, in cloth and in life, is inter-connected. And whether we like it or not, it always will be. So use the shuttles of your thoughts, words, actions and choices to weave the best life you can right now.