Do Not Stand at My Grave and Weep

Do not stand at my grave and weep
I am not there. I do not sleep.
I am a thousand winds that blow.
I am the diamond glints on snow.
I am the sunlight on ripened grain.
I am the gentle autumn rain.
When you awaken in the morning's hush
I am the swift uplifting rush
Of quiet birds in circled flight.
I am the soft stars that shine at night.
Do not stand at my grave and cry;
I am not there. I did not die.

Poem written by
Mary Elizabeth Frye in 1935


In Memory of Clay, who lost his battle with life this morning...and for his wife, Pat...my dear quilting friend, here in Salem.

The skies have shed their tears, and the rivers have flooded over, but the true self of his spirit now rises up in the glory of a sun that will shine again, and the promise of the many colors of the rainbow.


Michele Bilyeu Quilts With Heart and Hands for the Alzheimer's Art Quilt Initiative (AAQI) Join in my Liberated Quilting Challenge and buy, or donate a quilt, today. My dear friend's husband died with the challenges of end of life dementia that caused months of grief to his loving family. I wish it could have all been so much easier for, and on, all of them.

Waterlogged

There is nothing better than wearing warm pajamas and sitting and sewing all day long. But there are days you have to practice your Girl Scout skills with Three Alarm Fires and days you have to face the fact that the cupboards are bare and someone had better go shopping.

For reasons having to do with my current obsession with learning to battle multiple challenges in my life, the cupboards, pantry and the refrigerator decided I needed to go shopping on the very day that Salem was later declared as having the most rainfall, and the worst flooding day since 1996.

Of course I would go out in the rain and shop for groceries, then. You can't learn strength wearing pajamas by the wood fire without being up on a chair and trying to decide which alarm wire to cut, and cut now!

As soon as I headed down our driveway, I knew the water was very high. It had crossed over our main road, flooded the lower half of our property and I was actually reconsidering our decision to not have purchased flood insurance back in 1996, as well as having picked this day to run and get groceries.

Now, these photos are taken after the downpour, after the shopping, after the safe arrival home again..and well, "Bilyeu Bayou" looks very quiet and peaceful. But to be honest, I wondered just how high the water would rise...it never made it up the hill to our house and with 2 acres in front of me to rise upon, I felt pretty safe. But it was still nice when DH made it home from caring for his mother, and home for a few hours. We have two canoes and a kayak....but when it comes to rowing a boat, I sing a lot better than I paddle, and that is not saying much!

Of course by then, I'd done all the shopping, unloaded all of the waterproof, and recyclable shopping bags, made a fresh batch of potato salad, friend up sausage with onions and green peppers, and was back in my cozy clothes and sewing again.

Flooding was much worse in Turner a few towns over from my MIL's...their entire main street was under water....and hundreds of families were evacuated. In Salem, many, many houses and parking lots and roads were flooded and had to be cordoned off and evacuated and one person drowned in a nearby lake. But in Albany, a half hour drive south, a beautiful 18 year old mother and her 20 month old child had their car taken over the edge of a overflow culvert drainway... and theyboth drowned, trapped in their car, as well.

My heart aches for their families, and suddenly I realize that my challenges are nothing compared to those of so many others. I may be home alone, and I may have to build my own fires and put them out too, but I have food to eat, a car to drive, and a sewing nook with lots of fabric, and projects to keep my mind, and hands busy, and my heart full with good thoughts, as well as sad ones.

Let's all count our blessings today and think about sewing something for someone who has far less than we have. You just never know when the gift of a quilt, or a simply sewn or quilted item, might just brighten the gloom of someone else's day.

I was blessed with a Christmas Angel in December and her card and generous gift meant the world to me. But I also realized that we should all practice the art of being Everyday Angels, even when we feel like we are walking underwater....we know we can still come back up for air....and not everyone has that ability or that blessing.

I am grateful for so very much, how about you?


Michele Bilyeu Quilts With Heart and Hands for the Alzheimer's Art Quilt Initiative (AAQI) Join in my Liberated Quilting Challenge...and buy or donate a quilt, today!! We are changing the world...one little quilt at a time.

Three Alarm Fire

Being a quilt whisperer, I just love it when a quilt quietly whispers its sweet name to me. But sometimes, a quilt doesn't whisper...it screeches...and sometimes that screech involves me building the morning wood stove fire.

Because of life's challenges, DH has been staying with his mother as much as 17 hours a day. He's been amazing with her..and can lift and otherwise carry her..when I cannot. He can also build fires in the wood stove with ease.

And while I grew up in territorial Alaska, and was both a Brownie and a Girl Scout and earned many merit badges......well, do I even need to mention they were all in sewing and wildcrafting and not in camp fire activities?

In my childhood, no one camped out except if their car broke down on the Alcan Highway, traveling through Alaska and Canada for weeks at a time on a gravel road to head south to Seattle or north, back to Alaska. And my memories of that experience are 14 flat tires on one trip alone, and my father having to wait days to catch a ride with a long haul trucker, and hitchhike to the nearest garage hundreds of miles away.

We slept..absolutely freezing...in the back of our station wagon...five little kids and one frantic mother who was convinced my father had already been hit by a truck and died. Because of bears, we weren't allowed out of the car ..except to ...well..... maybe put out a fire if we could have found one ;)

So, now when I wake up freezing cold and put on my rubber boots, hat, two coats, a knit muffler and head out into the pouring rain to get wood from our woodpile..well, more than my hands are frozen, soggy, and not working up to par. I not only set the copious amounts of newspaper, kindling, and logs on fire...I try my best to make the whole house warm up in a hurry! I open all of the stove drafts and pull out the ash drawer to speed things up.

Three smoke alarms all blaring at once later, and me not having the slightest idea of which wires to pull free from their connections on the two wired (and not battery powered alarms)......well, you can only imagine.

The sound of three smoke alarms at once is so loud that it made my tinnitus goes into hyper drive and my brain into a hyperbaric chamber of what to do first, much less next. I didn't think I was actually going to burn the house down...although I did realize I hadn't read the directions on the smoke extinguisher in years, and would no doubt need a magnifying glass(at this stage of my life) in order to read it.... should that need actually arrive.

Just finding a chair to stand on that wasn't piled decoratively with quilts or cradling a cat, or was too heavy to pull into the hallway, much less too soft to stand up on, was challenging enough. Do I bring the darling wood rush chair with the sagging seat and two short and two tall legs? Or maybe the antique chair with the embroidered seat? Or wait, how about the rocking chair..it only has one quilt on it and the rocking back and forth might soothe me as I stand on it to inspect all of those wires and melt my brain with sound waves.

Thanks heavens all of my country neighbors sleep in past 3 am...unlike myself, who is up long before the chickens...or I'm sure the screeching from my house would have necessitated a call to 911. And of course, that would be me screeching... and not just the alarms.

Yep, I'm moving right along on my orphan blocks quilt and its sheer vibrancy is enough to light up the house and shove the gloom of my morning trek along our flooded driveway to the mailbox and soaking wet pajamas..yes, I wear pajamas, two coats, a hat and my scarf to check the mail, too.

Yep, country living is the place to be...green acres is the life for me!


Michele Bilyeu Quilts With Heart and Hands for the Alzheimer's Art Quilt Initiative (AAQI) Join in my Liberated Quilting Challenge...and buy or donate a quilt, today!! We are changing the world...one little quilt at a time.

Quilting in Remembrance

When January 15th comes around, I pause to think how I best want to spend my day.....the day that my father would have turned 95, his birth day. A day that is now spent in remembrance, rather than in the joyful celebration it should still be. A celebration of his life, and all that he meant to our family, and those who loved, and cared for him.

It is always a bitter sweet day for me, because I miss my dad so very much, and because I have spent so many of his last birthdays in Alaska......celebrating with him and with my mom. I always made giant construction paper numerals of their new birthday age and taped them up on the kitchen walls along with a big "Happy Birthday" cut out of construction paper letters and candles. "Out with the old and in with the new"...the turning of a new number and a new age....one of us would say, and we would both laugh.

It is always Martin Luther King's birthday as well, and a day when we both celebrate, and honor his life and his work, by giving and doing for others....a national "Day of Service."

So, today, I chose to do what I often do....I will work to finish a quilt for donation to the Alzheimer's Art Quilt Initiative in honor and memory, of all of my family members (both sides of my family) who faced and died from Alzheimer's Disease and in memory of my own surviving mother, who faces its advanced challenges, still.

My little quilt, peeking above was made of some of the bits and pieces from my sewing room. It is filled with browns and blued grays and gold. Blue and gold for my home state of Alaska's state ...the land of my father's birth on our little Douglas Island home, where I also grew up...and grays and browns for the color of our last name, which even as a derivative name still meant "earth and clay"...the basic substances of symbolic creation.....whether one is a pioneer, an outdoorsman, or an artist.

It was my father's birth name, of course, and mine. And we took in and carried the dreams of many different kinds of gold as we went through the wondrous spiritual alchemy of turning that iron ore of the mountains, the clay of the earth, and our pioneer hearts and hands, into dreams of alchemical gold. Threads of gold ran in his veins, nuggets of gold in his heart, and shimmers of gold covered almost everything that any of us ever dreamed of.

Born at home to pioneer Finnish parents, growing up on this little island as one of many young children and learning to treasure the importance of family as they all worked together to live off of the land as much as possible while my grandfather literally mined for gold. A land that my Dad passionately loved and treasured, a land where he learned to hunt, and fish, build, draw, paint and photograph.

Working as a paperboy, he met and was mentored by a well known Alaskan photographer when he was only 11, given his very first camera by this man who recognized the passion and drive and talent that my father carried so deeply. He built his own darkroom, and printed his own black and white photographs, and went on to take many correspondence classes in photography and art and music, electronics and construction and history and science. Class after class beyond what he could glean from our small public schools. And lessons learned from experience, as well as bought up North on big barges. as he poured over freight 'wish lists' of things that could be ordered from afar.

He fought in WWII...one of five brothers who went off to war, and one of the four who lived to return. He was lucky, after having fished the oceans for so long, he was well versed in the ways of the sea, the ocean currents, and hidden dangers in its' depths, and was given the job of skippering a supply ship in the Aleutian Islands. Oh, how he loved finally being the captain of his own ship and perhaps even the master of his own destiny....yet still serving family, and country, combined.

He acquired a beautiful French penpal in Louisiana..my mother.....fell in love and married her after the war, and took classes at Tulane University in New Orleans in art and medicine and anything he could fit in,a life long pioneer spirit filled with the love of learning, and love of land, country, and family.

Love of Alaska and family called him back and all five of us children were either born or grew up there...on our little island with all of the hardships but also all of the fun and freedom, as well. Oh, what a challenging, but wonderful life we all had...and so much of it because of him...this hard working, outdoorsman with the soul of a poet, and an artist, but one who was carrying the innate strength of iron ore, the catalyzed and burnished spirit of metal, but still with such a heart of gold beneath it all.

A little quilt filled with remembrance of all of those early dreams, and all of that searching for gold and the creation of my grandfather's perpetual motion machines. Men of their times and yet so far beyond them, as well.

And then a bigger quilt filled with the brightest vibrancy of life...in honor and in service for this other holiday, and other day of remembrance.



One little quilt to make a difference for one great dad, and one big quilt to make a difference with service for Martin Luther King's birthday. Here, vibrantly colorful orphan blocks are being combined into a much larger (perhaps a throw or even a twin sized) comfort quilt for some needy child in my community. A quilt to wrap up those dreams in, and perhaps dream of even bigger, and better ones than they might otherwise have had..... without all of the love put into it and all the energies of creation and manifestation as I seek to bless it, and some future owner, as well.

And so, I sew! Back and forth...little, than big and big, then little. No room for sadness, or loss, just vibrant remembrance when the heart is full and the hands stay busy.

How can it not be a good day, today and again, tomorrow? And if I get them both done by the end of the week...a very good week to look forward to, as well! I come from a long line of dreamers, so I can dream too, can't I?

Michele Bilyeu Quilts With Heart and Hands for the Alzheimer's Art Quilt Initiative (AAQI) Join in my Liberated Quilting Challenge...and buy or donate a quilt, today!! We are changing the world...one little quilt at a time.

Triskaidekaphobia

For those that suffer from "triskaidekaphobia", the fear of the number 13, or friggatriskaidekaphobia, a morbid, irrational fear of Friday the 13th, you'd best beware of all of the other ill omens and myths surrounding this day of great portent of impending doom.

Friday is Frigga's Day.... Frigg, or Frigga.... was an ancient Scandinavian fertility and love goddess, equivalent to the Roman Venus, who had been worshiped on the sixth day of the week. Early Christians believed that Frigga was a witch and any Friday was the witches' Sabbath. For them, Friday the 13th was neither silly, nor a joke. For them, it was a day that caused anxiety... if not outright terror.

The origin of the association of this day as being a day of 'bad luck , like most mythological symbology, has altered with time. But common Biblical beliefs link it to a variety of symbols. Biblical referencing most commonly link it to Friday, the day of Jesus Christ's crucifixion, the beginning of the Great Flood, Eves' offering of the apple to Adam, the day that Noah faced the Great Flood, or the Last Supper, at which Judas Iscariot was said to have been the 13th guest to sit down at the table. Judas later betrayed Jesus, leading to Jesus' crucifixion.

This led to the fear of having 13 guests at a dinner table foretold that one of them would die within the year. This also led to the superstition that the first person to rise from the table, or the last one to be seated, was an ill omen and created the concept of all waiting to be seated at the same time, standing up at the same time, or breaking groups into smaller tables to avoid the seating of 13.

Eventually, by the late 19th century, people went out of their way to avoid anything associated with the number 13...whether it was hotel rooms, desks, cars, floors of a building, rungs of a ladder, or steps on the stairs. These 'ill omens' led to the avoidance of even using these numbers in many places, and led to the renumbering (without the number 12) of hotel rooms, floors and so forth.

Other fear of Friday beliefs include:

• Needleworking: "I knew an old lady who, if she had nearly completed a piece of needlework on a Thursday, would put it aside unfinished, and set a few stitches in her next undertaking, that she might not be obliged either to begin the new task on Friday or to remain idle for a day." (1883)

• Giving Birth: "A child born on Friday is doomed to misfortune." (1846)

• Getting Married: "As to Friday, a couple married on that day are doomed to a cat-and-dog life." (1879)


• Recovering from Illness: "If you have been ill, don't get up for the first time on Friday." (1923)


• Moving: "Don't move on a Friday, or you won't stay there very long." (1982)


• Starting a New Job: "Servants who go into their situations on Friday, never go to stay."(1923) ....and my favorite.....


• Hearing News: "If you hear anything on a Friday, it gives you another wrinkle on your face, and adds a year to your age." (1883)

Michele Bilyeu posted this on Friday the 13th and had to redone more than 7 times to get it to connect...I'm just saying ;)

Michele Bilyeu Quilts With Heart and Hands for the Alzheimer's Art Quilt Initiative (AAQI) Join in my Liberated Quilting Challenge...and buy or donate a quilt, today!! We are changing the world...one little quilt at a time.

Ribbon Colors: Cancers and Many Other Diseases

During Breast Cancer Awareness month, we see pink ribbons everywhere, and most of us know that this color represents breast cancer awareness. But you might not be as familiar with the other ribbon colors that are used to promote awareness for the other cancers or a variety of other diseases that many of us or our loved ones face or have faced.

Just a few days ago, we learned that my husband's younger cousin...after having all of her yearly tests just 4 months ago and being completely negative and clean in their findings...was discovered to be filled with cancer tumors of all sizes. Cancer that has severely metastasized after negative tests just a few months ago!!!

Many of us don't realize that we can get false readings on our tests and if you suspect you have symptoms of any of the cancers or diseases, ask for a retest, or other testing.

This beautiful, vivacious, and loving woman has been through emergency surgery in an attempt to prolong what seriously limited time she has left with such a recent diagnosis and treatment. Doctors have done all that they can and she is undergoing chemo, of course. But she is so ill that only immediate family..her own..are even allowed in her room. Can you even imagine?

It's important to remember all of those we love, who face challenges from other forms of cancer, and so many other diseases, to create not only increased awareness for those diseases...but to support them with cards to the family, wearing a ribbon and sharing our stories and if you sew or quilt...to create comfort quilts or pillows for them, as well. It may not seem like much, but it is something tangible that we can do to show our love for others as they face life's challenges.

I am featuring a different and updated version of my original post on Free Breast Cancer Awareness Quilt Patterns with as many new colors for as many different diseases as I could find, as well as lots and lots of free patterns and links.

Please note that there are many lovely enameled and other pins available on line, but because I borrowed photos of combination colored pins, I have included the link to that one,
Choose Hope after my color charts.

Please pray for my husband's cousin, Martha, her husband, and two daughters as they face these life altering challenges with their wife and mother. Pray that they can be together as long as possible in this world, and together always in the next.

And did you know???
Caregivers Honor Ribbon: Plum...make gifts for care givers of your loved ones!

Paper Pieced Ribbons http://www.winnowing.com/ribbon.html
Rosie's Ribbon of Concern Quilt

Free Cancer Awareness Click Pattern: Download the PDF similar to a bow tie or a signature pattern block made into a quilt with any colors




Cancer Ribbon Quilt Block Templates list of colors for each cancer at bottom of these lists
What the colors of ribbons signify support for:

Amber Ribbon: Appendix Cancer
Black Ribbons: Melanoma
(Dark) Blue Ribbons: Colon Cancers
Blue Ribbons: Histiocytosis Awareness, Child Abuse Awareness
Denim and denim fabric: Rare Disease Awareness
(Light) Blue: Prostrate Cancer
Burgundy: Multiple Myeloma
Gold Ribbons: Childhood Cancer
Gray Ribbons: Diabetes & Brain Cancer
(Silver) Gray Ribbons: Parkinson's Disease
Green Ribbons: Kidney Cancer,Liver Cancer, Gallbladder/Bile Duct Cancer, Lyme Disease, Lymphoma, Cervical Cancer,Liver Cancer & Hepatitis;Teal green or teal green and white together: Cervical Cancer; Jade Or Emerald Ribbons: Liver Cancer & Hepatitis

Green/Blue Ribbons: Mental Heath Awareness

Jigsaw Puzzle Ribbons: Autism
Lace Ribbons: Osteoporosis
Lavender: General Cancer
Lime Green Ribbons: Lyme Disease, Lymphoma
Maroon Ribbons: Mulitple Melanoma
Orange Ribbons: Leukemia, Multiple Sclerosis, Kidney Cancer
Orchid Ribbons: Testicular Cancer
Periwinkle Ribbons: Hypertensionm Stomach Cancer, Esophageal Cancer
Peach Ribbons: Uterine Cancer
Pearl Ribbons: Lung Cancer
Pink Ribbons: Breast Cancer:
Pink,Purple and Teal Ribbons: Thyroid Cancer

Purple Ribbons:
Pancreatic, Prostrate,Testicular,Leiomyosarcoma,Alzheimer's/Dementia, and Fibromyalgia

Red Ribbons:AIDS/HIV & Heart Disease,Alcohol, tobacco, drug prevention awareness

Silver Ribbons: Parkinson's Disease
Sky Blue Ribbons: Prostate Cancer
Teal Ribbons: Ovarian Cancer
Teal green or teal and white together: Cervical Cancer
White Ribbons: Bone Cancer
Yellow Ribbons: Sarcoma..bone cancer

Combination of colors together:

Burgundy and ivory: Head and Neck Cancer

Marigold/Blue/Purple Combo Ribbon: Bladder Cancer

Black and White Combo Ribbon (zebra stripe): Carcinoid Cancer

Teal green or teal and white together: Cervical Cancer

Teal/Pink/Blue: Thyroid Cancer

Enamel Cancer Awareness Ribbon Pin - Uterine Cancer (Peach)

Any of these lovely pins and many, many more colors were found on the website Choose Hope and are available for purchase...in almost all of the colors found in my lists.....for $4 each. Multiple orders/prices. I have no affiliation with the website or its artists.
====================

• Click to download the free printable(s):
• Breast_Cancer_Awareness_Printables.zip
• 
  

Alzheimer's Disease also uses a purple ribbon and I support this very personal cause. Two of my quilts and many names of family members are included in the AAQI traveling exhibit:

"Alzheimer's Illustrated: From Heartbreak to Hope" continues its five-year journey across the United States with a stop at the Mid-Atlantic Quilt Festival XXII, February 23-26, 2012. The exhibit will hang at the Hampton Roads Convention Center (Greater Chesapeake Bay / Williamsburg Area

And because I support the Alzheimer's Art Quilt Initiative: please check out their logo/support/research funding items for sale:Buy AAQI Gear

AND make mini quilts for my favorite cause because I always say:
"Michele Bilyeu Quilts With Heart and Hands for the Alzheimer's Art Quilt Initiative (AAQI) Join in my Liberated Quilting Challenge...and buy or donate a quilt, today!! We are changing the world...one little quilt at a time."

And because we all need to be on the alert for Women's Heart Disease:

Red Dresses and Red Ribbons for Women's Heart Disease:

Extra: Red dresses for Heart Disease

Note: If you get a 404 on any of these (site not found) it's because some sites (like All People Quilt or McCalls Quick Quilts) are now requiring you join for free to save for free.

And of course...always, always....
Pink Ribbons Quilt Blocks or Quilts for Breast Cancer Awareness:

Cancer Ribbon Quilt Block

This Cancer Awareness Ribbon quilt block is a foundation pieced pattern. The block isn't difficult to make, but it does contain long triangles that can be a little tricky to align on the foundation the first couple of times.Designed by Janet Wickell.

Patchwork Hearts Quilt Block & Quilt Patterns
About.com Forum members designed this pretty 6" heart block for a 2008 swap, and it's a natural for a Thinking Pink, for a loved one's Valentine's Day wallhanging or baby quilt. The block is assembled with quick piecing techniques.





I have had a great deal of fun coming up with a design idea for my Pay It Forward





So, it's easy to make. instructions and yardage for a small heart wallhanging on the last page of the pattern.

Cotton Spice :download PDF pattern: Square in square/rail fence around pink ribbon.

Heartstrings Quilt Project October_Project_Pink3.pdf

Make Mine Pink, Please (Scrappy Stars with Pieced Pink Ribbon Label)pdf



Spring Ribbons Quilt



Pink Chalk Studio: Square fence block-2.pdf




Pink Ribbon Comfort Pillow...free with Connecting Threaders order or make yourself; Post surgery support

Making a Heart Shaped Pillow

Anti-Ouch Pouch - American Sewing Guild

Pink Ribbon Block



Pink Warrior


Ribbon Butterfly



Think Pink (ribbon and hearts)

Tudor Rose Garden

Quilt Pink Squares Lap Quilt


Paper-Pieced Pink Ribbon: designed by Carol Doak for Mimi Dietrich's Pink Ribbon Quilts book back in 1999 and made available by Carol for others to use as a free download.The block is made in two halves to make a 6" finished block
Click to download the pdf


Heart With A Ribbon from Carol Doak:
The crossed ribbon has become the symbol for support of many causes. The pink ribbon symbol supports breast cancer awareness. This block shows both love and support by having the ribbon placed inside the heart. The pdf file is a 3" finished size paper-pieced block (two on a page) and the second page contains the cutting list for one block. This block is for personal use only.
Click to download the pdf



Ribbon Quilt Block
by Dori Hawks
posted: 8/24/2003



Rays of Hope Carol Doak designed this wall quilt for a class on an Alaskan Cruise for a Cure (Breast Cancer) Click to download the pdf

Breast Cancer (and other Cancers) Awareness Ribbon Quilt Blocks

Cancer Awareness Patterns: free for personal use by Angie Padilla



In honour of Breast Cancer Awareness Month, Connecting Threads has available a free tutorial to make paper-pieced Pink Ribbon Pins.Help raise awareness by sewing this simple quilted ribbon for your family, co-workers, and friends. Two sizes are available: large pin is 3″ x 4″ and the small pin 2 1/4″ x 3″.

use together to make a quilt
Pink Ribbon and Soaring Past Time


Pink Ribbons: A Contrary Wife Quilt Top



Quilt of Many Ribbons from Humblebee




Rosie's Pink Ribbon of Concern Quilt




String Pieced Prayer Pocket Pillow designed by Michele Bilyeu
Heartstrings and Prayers for any time they are needed. A little pocket in the back for a note of support and love.

Think Pink (McCalls now requires a free sign up and then the search)

Patchwork Cancer Ribbon Quilt BlockCancer Ribbon ColorsShow Us Your Awareness Quilts

Helpful Web Sites

About.com Breast Cancer Home Page

Sewing for Cancer Pations, from About.com

SewingCrafting for the Cure to Support Survivors, from About.com Breast Cancer

Online Quilt Show IndexArt QuiltsStar Quilts

Links:

• 2,500 Free Quilt Patterns
• Huge List of Free Quilt Block Patterns
• Free Babies, Childrens Quilt Patterns
• Free Sunbonnet Sue and Sam Patterns
• Free Heart Themed Quilt Patterns
• Free Snowman Quilt Patterns
• Free Sewing Accessories Patterns
• Free Breast Cancer Awareness Quilt Patterns
• Free Patriotic Quilt Patterns
• Liberated Quilting: Free Patterns, Blocks, Ideas&Tutorials
• Free Butterfly Quilt Patterns
• Free Easter Quilt Patterns
• Free St.Patricks or Irish Quilt Patterns
• String Quilting:Tutorial and Free Patterns

Michele Bilyeu Quilts With Heart and Hands for the Alzheimer's Art Quilt Initiative (AAQI) Join in my Liberated Quilting Challenge...and buy or donate a quilt, today!! We are changing the world...one little quilt at a time.

Epiphany: The Manifestation of the Gifts

In the current dating and historical referencing of Christianity, January 6th is known as Epiphany. Epiphany is the holy day for recognizing the manifestation of God through the journey of the three wise men, or magii. The Three Wise Men came bearing their gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh, as they followed the light of the Star of Bethlehem, to their revelation and understandings of the Christ child, Jesus.

The journey towards the light, the magic of that revelation, and the power of the gift, itself, are all seen as their own 'Epiphany', or manifestation of God, and God's gifts.

Today, in secular terminology, an epiphany is a sudden realization or comprehension of the essence or meaning of something. It is used in either a philosophical or literal sense to signify receiving new information or having an experience that illuminates a deeper understanding. To 'have an epiphany' is to have a 'wow' or 'aha' moment. Suddenly, every thing is crystal clear, seen, understood or recognized. I long for aha moments. But I am grateful for any gifts, in any manifestation, that I receive.

As one of my holi-day gifts, that I received for Christmas, were some of these highly valued and sacred resins. I'd always wanted both frankincense and myrrh and was delighted to receive them. I placed my gifts within an abalone shell (my own gift from the sea) and now have gold (for photo purposes, gold pyrite), frankincense, which is the pale yellow resin, and myrhh, the golden amber resin.

I was also given the gifts of a resin known as dragonsblood (dark red chunks) from the Canary Islands and Morocco, and copal (white chunks), a plant resin sacred to the Mayans. All highly treasured throughout time among many cultures and belief systems.

Seen as a miracle in themselves, all resins are quite mysterious, really. Mystical sap emanating from sacred plants and trees, which magically hardened with contact with the air and emit exotic fumes when burned as incense. And of course many of you will recognize dried sage...a gift to many peoples for both burning and purification and of course, for a seasoning herb in cooking.

Gifts from the earth, treasured from times of antiquity, and used by many religions as sacred gifts.

Celebrate Epiphany...the giving of the gifts.

You might also like:

Michele Bilyeu Quilts With Heart and Hands for the Alzheimer's Art Quilt Initiative (AAQI) Join in my Liberated Quilting Challenge...and buy or donate a quilt, today!! We are changing the world...one little quilt at a time.