Michele Bilyeu Creates With Heart and Hands

Jun 17, 2025

Land, Sea and Sky: There is Love

June 17, 1972

This year on June 17, 2022 my husband, Larry Bilyeu and I celebrate our 53rd Wedding Anniversary.

Larry growing up in the small town of Mehama, Oregon and myself in the small town of Douglas on Douglas Island, Alaska. Larry and I were married at the "Shrine of St. Therese"a tiny forested island, past Auke Bay, about 25 miles north of Juneau.

This beautiful little Shrine was originally built by visiting Jesuit priests who came to the Diocese of Juneau to serve in territorial Alaska.

They found such beauty and so great the need for their services that several stayed and with the help of volunteers they completely built the tiny shrine out of the local beach stones on this tiny bit of land now known as "Shrine Island".

The Shrine is lovely, inside and out.

When the tide is in, the entire island is surrounded by beautiful blue water, except for the narrow 'walking-only' causeway. We walked out from our wedding ceremony to the sight of eagles soaring above, whales spouting, and sea lions barking their congratulations. It was incredibly beautiful.

Now, there is this labyrinth walk etched in the sand where we once walked to the log cabin rectory on the mainland to sign our marriage certificate. And yes, we've been back and it's still lovely and weddings are still held there.

During our ceremony "The Wedding Song" by Peter, Paul, and Mary was sung and played on a folk guitar by a high school friend and at our reception a lot of Simon and Garfield and similar songs from that era.
Somehow those beautiful songs filled hearts and souls as they were after all, new to most back then!

And yes, I made my own wedding dress! And each of my bridesmaids made theirs from fabric I bought and sent each of them in three different states as I gathered best friends from High School and College and included my youngest cousin who was so happy to be a bridesmaid! Our dresses were all in different colors and were beautiful laces over satin, I even made my veil, covered my Bible with the same fabrics and carried a hand carved rose wood rosary.

Ah, the memories of a time, a place, the sounds, and the people. So many have passed on now, most of our guests, many of my own family even several who are younger than I am now. You never know what paths and causeways you may walk in your life time. Who you will love and who you will remember.

I have since lost both of my parents, a sister in law who was there, and my dearest uncle who died a few months after he attended our wedding. Uncle Bobby's two sons were teenagers and his 12 year old daughter was my Junior Bridesmaid.

Love and pride filled his face and his heart that day. His one and only chance to see her all grown up in a long bridesmaid dress. It was a glorious day and a memorable wedding. And that day, that date, has only grown with memories ever since that beautiful day 50 years ago.

I rejoice in the wonderful memories of so many from that day, just as I grieve the loss of those who have since passed on.

We met in college in 1969 as next door dorm mates and later shared acreage to each build our homes on and raise our children together. Terri and Greg's daughter Kelsy was only 12 when their family was in a car accident en route to the 1997 summer Jr. Olympics where Kelsy was a cross country runner expected to win top honors in her division. Terri and Kelsy didn't survive though Greg and their two teen sons did. It was an unbearable loss for all of us.

Kelsy and my daughter were born 6 months apart. I was with Terri the night before Kelsy's birth and we saw her almost every day of her life as our girls were almost inseparable. Our other two children were closely bonded as well. This devastating loss broke our hearts and changed our lives and those of Greg and their sons forever.

While it also changed the memories of June 17th from our 25th anniversary on, it didn't change the love we felt for all who have been parts of our lives for whatever time we had with them. We treasured this family and all of our many shared adventures and experiences.

And now, it's not even surprising to me, that on this same date years later on June 17, 2022 our dear friend, Daryl Stroschine had his final big send off into the land, sea and sky with a memorial service in the tiny community church of Mehama, Oregon

Larry and Daryl were best friends from Elementary School in Mehama, on through High School in Stayton, then off to separate colleges. Larry at Oregon State where we met and Daryl to Warner Pacific on a full athletic "wild and wonderful ride' of an adventure. Larry and Daryl would get together over the summers and as Larry's letters to me in Alaska can attest, he and Daryl got right back into their hiking, fishing and other adventures.

We continued to keep in touch through life's many challenges and Larry and Daryl never forgot phone calls on their shared birthday in November and in these many final years a daily phone call. They had the same deep love of nature, and the outdoors. They hiked, camped, hunted and fished together throughout their younger years with lots of swimming up the North Fork River, or visiting their favorite spot at Shelburg Falls.

We sheltered Daryl (and Doobie his tiny lap dog) during the Santiam Canyon Fires, along with our own Mehama Kids/grandkids/dog/cat and even chickens. It was a challenging time. The fires came within a 1/4 of a mile or less of their homes. Larry and I did all we could think of to keep spirits lifted and bodies well fed but the fear of losing not only their own homes in Mehama along with almost everything they owned was intense.

Daryl and I had deep talks over coffee about life, loss, and death. We shared a similar innate sense of natural spirituality, a love of the natural world, a love of arts and creativity, family and most of all love and pride in our grandchildren.

Daryl and Larry remembered decades of stories from their shared childhoods. What one had forgotten, the other remembered!

But in the end all was well, just like this rewritten, reused, and now rewritten with inclusions of Daryl's passing and connection to this anniversary post for Larry and I.

For in the end, the lovely and positive sounds, sights, and memories remain above all else and I am filled with gratitude for the good times and the lessons and treasures from even the saddest times.

Somethings never die. Beauty, art, music and love can fill up our our lives and our hearts forever.

Click below to hear this lovely song that was titled 'The Wedding Song' as it was often performed by "Peter, Paul and Mary" and this version by its writer/also solo performer on the folk group's own 25th anniversary.

Peter, Paul and Mary - Wedding Song "There is Love" (25th Anniversary Concert)

The same song that Larry and I had sung by a friend as he played on his quitar during our wedding 53 years ago during our Catholic Mass Wedding Service performed by a traveling Jesuit priest in this beautiful place, special time, and never ending symbol of the timelessness of memories.

The song is just as meaningful and beautiful as ever.
The songs of that era are all etched forever in my heart.

Our professional and recessional songs played on his guitar by Geoff Roger's of Juneau Alaska:

"Love Theme from Romeo and Juliet" ( "A Time for Us")

Oh the power of music to touch the soul.

The beautiful chords and melodies that make up the songs of our lifetimes.

Michele Bilyeu Creates With Heart and Hands as she shares her imaginative, magical, and healing journey from Alaska to Oregon. Creating, designing, sewing, quilting, and wildcrafting, from my heart and with my hands.

Rest in peace Daryl.

We love you and will never forget you.

Obituary/ Tribute for

Daryl Stroschine

1949 - 2022

Paul Toews of KYAC, a public supported small community radio station) in Mill City Oregon

"Honors the Life of Daryl Stroschine:

(And yes, that's my husband Larry who ended up at last possible moment being a call in radio guest)

Replayed from original broadcasting using mixcloud.

https://m.mixcloud.com/mandomedic/paul-toews-honors-the-life-of-daryle-stroschine/

Paul Toews asks why do we sing and play music/Daryl Stroschine responds. by Ken Cartwright

Replayed from the original broadcast using

Mixcloud.

https://www.mixcloud.com/mandomedic/paul-toews-asks-why-do-we-sing-and-play-musicdaryl-stroschine-responds/

"Somewhere Over the Rainbow"

Eva Cassidy

Feb 14, 2025

We Were Made for These Times

The writer and activist Joanna Macy says:

"Work with your passion. Work with your pain. Work with what is at hand."

And to that, my own heart responds. For now, more than ever spiritual warriors are needed to feel the light and love within them and radiate that love to the darkest corners of hearts and souls every where.

Still your hearts from anger, fear, or hatred. Fill them up with love and peace. Our spirits know who we are, why we chose to be here during these incredibly challenging times.

"There must be peace in the nations.

If there is to be peace in the nations,

There must be peace in the cities.

If there is to be peace in the cities,

There must be peace between neighbors.

If there is to be peace between neighbors,

There must be peace in the home.

If there is to be peace in the home,

There must be peace in the heart."

Lao-Tse

Chinese philosopher

6th century bce

With life's many challenges ever increasing, how do we find peace in this horribly troubled world, this universal psyche that chooses the negative over the positive, the masculine over the feminine, the warring over the peace making and bridge building?

It must be personal as well as national, universal as well as international. We must care, and care deeply about one another in any and all life forms and we must use our hearts, our energies, and our time to do good, say good, and be good to the best of our abilities.

http://www.with-heart-and-hands.com/2008/01/making-kuspuks.html

https://www.with-heart-and-hands.com/2010/03/kuspuks-go-to-capitol.html

"There are those who give little of the much which they have

and they give it for recognition and their hidden desire makes their gifts unwholesome.

And there are those who have little and give it all.

These are the believers in life and the bounty of life,

and their coffer is never empty."

~On Giving by Kahlil Gibran from The Prophet~

With Heart and Hands: Pieced Prayer Pocket Pillow

I continue to quilt, craft and sew. I am active in my own unique ways of trying to work with this incredibly changing country, nation, and world and doing all I can do to make it through spiritual thought, prayers, and deeds a place where we can not only survive turbulent times but prepare ourselves for the many challenging days and years ahead.

Quilts and Health

None of these challenges are easy. But by supporting one another, doing the best we can from where we're at and always striving to be better and do better, we can move many mountains of endless challenges together.

Creating a Modern Baby Layette

Whenever we go through life's challenges whether for ourselves, our loved ones or for our world and its consciousness, we just need to focus on love and be caring - just because we can and because we need to lift ourselves up to lift up the spiritual consciousness of our world

We are the lifeboat that lifts up others. We must keep that life boat,healthy, spiritually wealthy, and wise with the inner wisdom of our intuitive and collective hearts.

I create a space within me, within my spirit, to maintain love not fear, creativity not despair and the manifestation of good not panic and fear or retreat from the powerful forces of change and transition. Yes, there are many changes many challenges as we forsee damage and destruction in our world.

The fires, the floods, the earthquakes and hurricanes, volcanoes, and tornadoes are not only the change and transition that Mother Earth, herself is expressing for as hard as it may be for us to understand--they can all be seen as our planet's release buttons for survival.

If there is too much pressure within the Earth, it erupts in volcanoes or crack that then open into earthquakes. If the deep structures alter, shift and change the connecting structures do as well.

It is heart-breaking to see the sickness and the loss of so many all over our world. We feel each others pain when we perceive hunger or being without shelter clothing or medical care.

Lift up your hearts and send precious love, light, and compassionate and healing prayers for all. Your love is the light and the lifting up of a new world waiting to be recognized and acknowledged.

Making Fidget Quilts, Aprons, Pillows, Bags for Alzheimer's Patients: Free Tutorials and Ideas 2018

Every day is a gift, ever moment ours to treasure with loved ones taking care of ourselves, our pets and sharing whether long near or far with our children and grandchildren.

String Quilting: Patterns and Tutorial

If there is too much pressure within us, we may erupt as well. And the damage we may do to others may be just as great emotionally as volcanoes and earthquakes are physically.

If we see Mother Earth as Gaia, a living breathing entity with her trees (and even plants and flowers) as her lungs if you will, then Gaia is losing her breath, just as we are losing ours by the ensuing smoke or destruction of precious rain forests and arable food growing land.

But in this process of death and destruction there is still an opening up in our world and our world view to transition and archetypal consciousness and the ascension of the human soul from one of the deep darkness that has prevailed throughout time, to one of full growth of the soul's innate potential to do and be pure goodness and light.

It opens us up - first with our seeing all that we do not want nor want to be or do and then to the infinite possibilities of our combined thoughts of what we do want to be and to do so as to co-create the manifestation of a beautiful world that is meant to be.

It may happen in an instant as there are infinite possi-bilities of outcomes from any action or even from any reaction.

Fate can hang on an instant and fate can be changed in an instant.

My Tutorial on Making Prayer Flags

We listen to our gut instincts, we listen to our hearts beating together and we listen to the still small voice urging us into being and doing what is good and instead of this focus on false percept-ions of "sinful". For sin is truly an ancient archery term meaning 'missing the mark'. If an archer misses the mark he simply tries again.

I remind myself, over and over again, just how resilient the human spirit is.

I remember just how patterns in nature, time and history balance the yin and the yang of change and transition to restore harmony both inside and out.

Even during times of harm to our beautiful land, when smoke clogs the sky, or fear clogs our lungs, we can put on our face masks, go out into our world, and be good and do good for others through our own positive thoughts, our own faith that this too will end and someday things will be better.

And yes, there will be loss.
As time moves on through the upcoming decades of climate change, of additional contagion and all that comes with it - massive loss.

Loss of arable and therefore life supporting land, and loss of nature's beauty and our beloved animals and trees and flowers.

I grieve for the many losses now and to come. Loss of hope, of faith and worst of all of love and charity.

But for now; love, hope, and charity are rising up to fight the endless battle for survival. And survive we shall.

Love, hope, and charity are rising up as we look at the Dreamers and see them as we see our own children for we all have dreams

Love, hope and charity are rising as the flood waters rise, the wild fires destroy, the floods wash over the land as mother earth weeps for our separation from lov . We rush to another's aid as if they were one of our own--for they are.

Good people are helping those in need. Younger people reached out to the elderly in places like Reno and Las Vegas and did all of their shopping for the shut ins even as the viruses kept them 6' apart their apprecia-tion and care brings them together.

And we feel and we express gratitude with our gifts of the spirit, with our hands, and with our hearts.

DP4, DP9, DP16, and All Variations

2,500 Free Quilt Patterns

Huge List of Free Quilt Block Patterns

And for them, our children and our grandchildren and God/ Goodness willing, our great and great-great on and on grandchildren.

We must act for the good of all and not the good of the elite few with the money and wherewithal at their personal disposal to thumb their noses and push us with threats of their nuclear buttons at the rest of us.

We are all connected.
We are all part of one another.
My microscopic atoms are merged with yours like stars in the cosmos.

The pain that i feel is my pain, your pain, all pain.

The fouled air that I am breathing will become the fouled air and the foul breathing of yours. Your virus spreads almost instantly and can become my own.

What we do, what we say, how we hurt one we say, do, and hurt countless more including ourselves.

When we drop a bomb on one country, its repercussions and loss of awareness and love are felt by ours.

We are perpetrators and we are victims.
The winds of time and change merge into one and so do we.

There is a purpose onto heaven for all of this. It doesn't have to be ours to understand but there it is.
And part of that is the destruct-ion of the old to make space for the new.

As someone who is old, that gives me pause. But, I am more than willing to go through whatever I have to in hopes that someday, a heaven on earth can become possible and a newer kinder, more caring and loving world might exist.

"Do not be dismayed by the brokenness of the world. All things break. And all things can be mended. Not with time, as they say, but with intention. So go. Love intentionally, extravagantly, unconditionally. The broken world waits in darkness for the light that is you.”

L. R. Knost

But I am so deeply sad that it has had to come to this. That the years and the decades ahead may be very challeng-ing for all of us. But still filled with purpose and hope for most of us.

I rage, I sorrow, I grieve - and then I put on my face mask and talk to my cat and my chickens.

I stand amidst the unbeliev-able green grass and plants and leaves of our early spring or the golden forest of my sunflowers in the summer that radiate love and hope and steadfast deter-mination to grow - not just where they are planted but to self-seed through the grace of the wind and its travelers the birds, who spread messages of hope and peace and rebirth.

I walk through the snow capped lawns, forests, and fields of the winter and I look for signs of tiny buds popping through on the limbs, bulbs in the winter's ground pushing up through the mud and the snow to new hope, new times, new days where we truly walk the talk and not just care about our own selves, our ways of life, our own income or talents or abilities.

For in my heart I know that we must care for each other as we care for ourselves.

Making a Modern (or Wonky) Cross Quilt

So, I remember beauty, and I remember hope, and I remember goodness and compassion and most of all I remember how love is the balm and the hope and the promise.

We do what we can, when we can,to spread joy, to give gifts from our hearts and from our hands and then we do the same for ourselves.

"To be creative means to be in love with life.

You can be creative only if you love life enough that you want to enhance its beauty,

If you want to bring a little more music to it,

a little more poetry to it,

a little more dance to it.

~Osho

How do we choose to feel peace, make peace, be peace in our own hearts? It starts with each of us as individuals, each moment of every single day.
And it is not easy but we can do it.

Read this amazing prose poem:

We Were Made For These Times

By Clarissa Pinkola Estes

It may just give you the strength and the understanding for facing the tough challenges of life now, and to come in the days ahead.

Making Fidget Quilts, Aprons, Pillows, Bags for Alzheimer's Patients: Free Tutorials and Ideas

For many of us we sew for or we have discovered that sewing, or quilting, or crafting, or art, or writing, or poetry or other passions is like praying.

We go into the deepest place of focus, the zone of creativity and becoming one in both the manifest and unmanifest and we do and we make good things.

“To sew is to pray. Men don't understand this.

They see the whole but they don't see the stitches.

They don't see the speech of the creator in the work of the needle.

We mend. We women turn things inside out and set things right.

We salvage what we can of human garments and piece the rest into blankets.

Sometimes our stitches stutter and slow.

Only a woman's eyes can tell.

Other times, the tension in the stitches might be too tight because of tears, but only we know what emotion went into the making.

Only women can hear the prayer.”

Louise Erdrich

Four Souls

It's all in our attitude. And it starts with each of us. It's not always easy to do, and we do it as we do all things.

If there is to be peace in the world, there needs to be peace within you.
We are all connected and this world is one.

We feel the disruption, the lack of peace, the anger and separation and we use those shadow or dark emotions as a catalyst.

A catalyst to see the other as ourself. And to ask ourself, it this 'other' that upsets me so much, if these "other things" that upset me so, if the "lack of power" that I am feeling--is it mine or is it the others to do with as they need to in order to learn and to grow?

"Refuse to fall down.

If you cannot refuse to fall down,

refuse to stay down.

If you cannot refuse to stay down

lift your heart toward heaven

and like a hungry beggar,

ask that it be filled,

and it will be filled.

You may be pushed down.

You may be kept from rising.

But no one can keep you

from lifting your heart

toward heaven

only you.

It is in the midst of misery

that so much becomes clear.

The one who says nothing good

came of this,

is not yet listening.

Refuse to Fall Down"

Clarissa Pinkola Estés

Excerpted from The Faithful Gardener: A Wise Tale About That Which Can Never Die

Let that control go.
It is not of god/good/not of the divine. It is not of devil/evil. It just is.

Let it go and be good in your heart,
In your love, in your care of all others and start with today.

And remember, you are at war inside of you to feel the war outside of you.

So, often that is the catalyst that begins the war this day as you work on you.

Don't be dismayed. Go into the loving flow of kindness and be the higher you that you wish to project out into the world.

No matter your beliefs, you know this core truth; you want to be a beacon of love for yourself and inside of yourself so you can shine that light outwards to "others" and to the world

Peace in your heart creates peace in your world. And that is your soul's purpose--to create this peace by doing and being what you are called to do--wherever you are, at whatever level of learning you are.

You are surrounded by loving helpers and all of us are here for you.

And when it is all too intense,
when fear threatens to push into the boundaries of faith, hope, and charity and out into fear and chaos.

I go into my own heart, and I focus in a deeply meditative, prayerful, and spiritual way of doing those things that bring me peace.

I am going within the most basic elements of heart and home and gifts of the spirit and finding peace in my days.

I have been spending my time with family, with my children and beautiful, precious and beloved grandchildren, with time for nature, time for rest and my kind of meditative prayer, and yes -- even time for my chickens!

I join online groups, i take classes or find free ones on youtube, I read, I post on various forums and blogs, I cut twigs and ferns and flowers, I craft and I sew.

Being of service and doing good for myself and others is what I am meant to do!

And above all else, I am spending time with the true me, the spiritually manifested being filled with love that I know myself to be.

I am doing my best to focus on the best world I know we can have, the best people I know each of us can be, the best hopes and dreams and wishes for full and caring lives for all of us.

And as I focus, and I pray and meditate for peace and love and hope and dreams, I hope you take a moment each and every single day and do the same.

Together we can create a new world, a new way of seeing, believing, and being.

"Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing there is a field. I'll meet you there. When the soul lies down in that grass the world is too full to talk about."

Rumi

With love to all of you from my heart and with my hands.

Happy Day, Happy Somehow Each and Every Day and Especially,
Happy All Holi-days

For that is truly the derivation, the meaning and the purpose of all of our (Holi...Holy...Halen...Healing)
Holidays!