quiltmaker's signature block
placed within the Glorious
Underworld section of the quilt.
Parvati’s Paradise through Quiltmaker Eyes

Note JP's left footprint on the main PPQP page.

NEW PICTURES EXPECTED FOR WEEK OF NOVEMBER
22nd.  PLEASE BE PATIENT IF THEY ARE A BIT SLOW TO
APPEAR.  The quilt has become TOO BIG to photograph well!!  I
am physically unable to manage the task alone and have needed
to wait for human assistance AND co-operation from the weather
on days when help is available to me!  I'm EXTREMELY
GRATEFUL, and deeply touched, by your continued support and
encouragement.  It's especially inspiring to have feedback from
other Quiltmakers who are following my technical & creative
progress.

LATEST INSTALLMENT:  I have worked on the quilt as my
primary activity for the past few days.  The back and bindings are
planned and a variety of fabrics have been cut for these
purposes.   As the website publishes today, I'll be working on
sewing the tiny bundles of JP-collected stones into their chosen
positions underneath the quilt top.    Yesterday I finished sewing
Parvati's Life Everlasting - the section of the quilt that borders the
top of the center medallion.  Working to include fabrics from other
sections of the quilt, I was pleased to have enough of the miracle
bead fabric left to mirror its presence in the Underworld as well
as the central medallion.

I have worked with a strong sense of the globalized love and
concern that embraces this project each day and night on
Jeannine's behalf.  It's been a pleasure as well as a privilege to
serve as a relay receptor for so many healing wishes and
prayers.   JP's personal involvement with this project has been
instrumental in its success.    Much as her Way of perceiving
womancraft and utterly natural childbirth teaches us to cease
doubting our own abilities and initiatives - I have been taught,
through the making of this quilt, that I will never again think or say
"I can't do that" in relation to my sewing aspirations and their
brightest dreams.

Anything I've learned through or from JP has been magnified in
what I've learned through and from myself.  I think in the best of
worlds this is what all worthy teachers and life gurus would seek
to impart.   I am convinced in JP's case it is a tangible part of
what gives her strength and courage at such a challenging point
in her life's road.

WE LOVE HER VERY DEARLY AND SHE KNOWS
IT.


The quilt seems different since JP has seen and handled it.  Now
it is not just a poetic interpretation of her teachings -- it has
become a confirmed medicine blanket on her terms as well as my
own.  All quiltmakers know that few types of heart-centered
gratification compares with the kind that comes from someone's
joyful study of your creative sewing efforts.   Watching JP search
the quilt top with delighted eyes certain fits in that category!  Now
the winner will be assured of concrete blessings from JP as well
as all those that have travelled the ethers during this project's
inception.

To keep myself on track I've begun to assemble the back of the
quilt - using primarily blue fabrics and building a soothing counter-
point to the colorful profusion on the top.   Hopefully I'll have new
pictures for display by the next publishing date for the website...

Today (samhain) I collected the seven little bundles of stones
that have been sitting in a sheltered rock cove of my outdoor
Gaia altar.  The bundles are very vibrant and I'm enjoying the
prospect of sewing them into place beneath the top of the quilt.

I find myself amazed afresh each day by the tremendous power
that is generating from such simple cloth.  The inner medallion
pomegranates have formed a tribe of symbolic wisdom.   Beyond
them, work continues on the wide 18 inch border.  To plan this
border I studied a favorite book on African American quiltmakers
in addition to re-reading my old dog eared copies of Pre-Natal
Yoga and Hygieia.  The quiltmaking book I selected contains a
very nice over-view of creation quilts and how they are
designed.  As I contemplated the Underworld of Parvati's
Paradise, e-mail conversation with JP re-shaped itself as an
underpinning of the creative planning.  In the same manner, the
Underworld section of the quilt forms more of an underpinning of
Parvati's vision than it is a representative 'fall from grace' or any
other more traditional use for this part of the design surface.  
Surely such fall is well represented within JP memoranda on the
subject:  episiotomy, circumcision,  paranoia-enriched birth
management et cetera.  This is subtextual in the quilt's
implications rather than forming any of its design elements.  In
these matters the quilt is meant to serve as an authentic source
of comfort rather than graphic illustration of societal rooted
problems that undercut the vision at hand.

In the design the underworld is lit and in fact created by an
Eternal Yoni Goddess.  Making this block was an wonderful
experience.  I revelled in the hot coral and orange color scheme
and the lovely glittering paint embellishments.   I also loved
creating the Goddess of Yoni Integrity shortly after a phone
conversation with JP.   Working on the embellishment of this
Goddess over the next few days, I contemplated the recurring
use of butterfly fabrics.   This implies an ongoing & catalytic
transformation process that will transcend JP's vision and my
confirmation of it.  Soon the butterflies will fly free in the dreams
and waking visions of this quilt's lucky winner!!!

While working on these blocks I received a package from JP
containing her tracings of hand and foot prints and a small
collection of stones I requested she gather with her daughter,
Halley.    This was in an effort to honor the traditions of quilt
making.  My intent was to make seven sacred bundles containing
seven stones each, to be scattered throughout the quilt's design
between the top of the quilt and its batting.  The bundles were
constructed like traditional plains prayer ties.   They have been
'marinating' in a very sacred spot within my garden.  They
determined for themselves a course of one lunar cycles' exposure
to the sacred healing landscape I've helped to co-create before
they're sewn into secrecy.

At the time of this writing my creative PPQP energy is centered
upon gathering the fabrics that will join the goddesses within their
separate spheres of border influence and finishing the creation of
JP's left foot print.  This has been a lot of fun to create - from a
gorgeous fabric containing violet and pink rain forest orchids -
and I'm looking forward to taking pictures for the PPQP updates
later in the week!

There is always one fast moment of quickening when a pile of
fabrics starts to transmogrify into a quilt.  It flutters in the sacral
center not unlike a baby in the womb.   Sometimes I do feel an
entire human life span in the making of a quilt.  Rarely do I feel
life, in its purest form, from a quilt top in-progress.  It should come
as no surprise that making Parvati’s Paradise is breaking all
previously known rules and boundaries.  Her benefit medicine
blanket was breathing fully within a life of its own before it was a
36-inch square of piecework.  

I’ll admit it’s been a few years since I bent myself to the task of
creating a king sized bed quilt.   Thus I’m regaining the
momentum of such undertakings through a beginning doorway of
working in the ways that have been most common to my daily
world.  For two years I’ve made nothing but altar cloths.  Thus the
quilt began as an altar cloth and thus I came to see that it was
not pre – or por-tentious to view the fabric in my hand as an
authentic medicine blanket. It is just a simple fact like a river
stone or a shooting star.

Every altar has a central portal.  In Parvati’s Paradise, that portal
is a deep pomegranate/mulberry cloth of Japanese origin.  It’s
patterned in white, fuschia and orange flowers –
chrysanthemums, a few highly over-stylized lotuses, cherry and
plum blossom sprays and luminous white circles enclosing the
flowers.  Of course they are exceeding the circles – growing and
blooming behind the containment.  This, to me, is the core truth
of JP’s initiatory nirvana – the beauty of life, in its form of strongly
female & fertile embodiment, always growing beyond boundaries
and all previous growth spurts.

In a hint of irony I felt sure JP would appreciate, I approached the
basic design structure as a very abstracted version of a tried-and-
true quilt pattern most usually referred to as Courthouse Steps.  
Of course, once we are beyond the core lodestone of fertility, we
can only begin a Creation Quilt with the Big Bang of a first
sunrise.  African inspired fabric hints at an entire pantheon of
suns rising to shed light on both the heavens and the Middle
Earth.  These, balanced on both sides by an exuberant fabric
patterned with an oscillating rainbow of miracle beads.  I selected
this in keeping with Jeannine’s ambition to create safety, love
and reverence for each newborn baby.

And this is the point at which Grandmother Spider descended.  
She is my portal into JP’s universe.  Thus I have seen JP at
different phases of her life patiently stringing the beads-of-
miracles as tirelessly as one of the original Fates.  This is the
point at which I stopped consciously ‘making a quilt’ and simply
entered the process that was blooming all around me. Two long
strips of brilliant hot-rainbow spring flowers bloom in juxtaposition
of the miracle beads.  Look JP tells the spirit of each newborn
child.  Look at the beautiful world in which you’ve come to live!

Definition of the central altar cloth/mandala of space: shadowed
and yet illuminated ivy leaves that shelter nearly invisible wrens.   
This for the exalted place wrens hold in all the old legends but
also because JP’s linear voice is so melodic and compelling.  Into
this space flew a butterfly created from fabric printed in its own
image.  Settlng in the lower yin quadrant of a perpetual sacred
space, she is counterbalanced in the upper yang quadrant by a
heart of knowledge.  This heart defines itself boldly, definitively,
with an apple missing one bite.  The bitten section is highlighted
with traces of gold paint I dabbed at it – this echoing the
sweetness left in so many mouths (countless numbers, really …)
as a direct result of somebody somewhere reading Hygieia or
Pre-Natal Yoga ‘back in the old days’.

Now is the time to move beyond the core lessons & prayer.  The
first outgrowth is a band of true-green oak leaves.  This are
dovetailed with illuminated mango colored batik patterned with
Grandmother Tortoise.   In this first group of borders we see the
true test and challenge of female nature.  Strength that is
unshakable.  Endurance that cannot be trifled with or trivialized.  
Life.  Outgrowth.  The two planes meet in squares of vibrant
violet and teal desert blooms.  This is the point at which I would
stop if it were, simply, an altar cloth.  

But it is not.  It’s time to think of what it’s necessary to include
before the project’s first public viewing at WHC in Peterborough,
NH.  In this spirit I hand-paint an antique gold spider web just
below the heart of knowledge.  I begin the unexpectedly powerful
process of creating a few very basic naïve folk art style of
pomegranate appliques.  

This is a medicine I’m familiar with and so I begin in a spirit of
knowledgeable confidence.  I draw a decent rendition of a
pomegranate, make an acrylic template from it, and promptly
‘lose’ the template!   I work loosely with the flimsy paper drawing
as a model rather than making another template.  Because now it’
s belatedly obvious to me.  They are Jeannine's pomegranates
rather than mine and thus I am entering a previously unknown
pomegranate universe.  These darlings must be FREEBIRTHED
each and every one!  And so they are – a pair of very vibrant,
fiery, painted-over pomegranates that will define the
yang/horizontal axis of the medicine blanket.   They are extremely
realistic at least in the naïve folk art sense.  

And they glow so powerfully!  When my young neighbor (who just
happens to be named Korey) stood obediently still on her skooter
in order to grimace-smile and display the second of the
freebirthed pomegranates, the results jammed up JP’s Overlook
program for hours!  The first birthed pomegranate requested a
special nimbus be painted on its stem side.  This, to be placed on
the left/yin side of the yang/horizontal axis, is clearly meant to
convey the pomegranate’s wisdom of Lotus Birthing.

The two simple, easy-to-construct glowing red pomegranates
cause me to weep like I’ve never done anything else.  It’s so
beautiful and purifying that  I don’t question it or seek to control
the flow.  I simply marvel at the sacred task before me and how
much I’m learning from it.  How much more will somebody learn
when they actually sleep and dream beneath it ??!!?

The vertical/yin axis forms itself with two fruits who were quick to
define themselves as spirit pomegranates.  I have no current idea
what those might be but, evidently, JP has the downlow on it and
so here they are making their way onto the quilt.  Like the other
two, they are made by reverse applique so that the ground cloth
forms the focal image rather than the background.  The topmost
back-cloth in this case is dark rust and teal feathers Dreamtime
feathers.  The pomegranates are made from even more etheric
pastel-hued feathers.  All pomegranates are thinly bordered to
accentuate the centrality.  They’re further bordered more widely,
on three sides.  The fourth side is left open so their energy flows
smoothly into the central altar space.   The yang/red
pomegranates are bordered with very gentle dreamy stars.  The
spirit pomegranates are bordered by – other spirit pomegranates
that live within a highly stylized, moody fabric print destined to
recur in the further outward reaches of the quilt.

All four pomegranates are bordered, on the sides that make them
the central ‘altar space’ of their particular border, by fabrics
featuring wild flowering plants.  These fabrics are in turn
bordered with JP-encoded fabrics – magenta and hot pink spider
webs on the vertical axis and the echoed repeat, on the
horizontal plane, of the glorious Japanese fabric used for the
initial central square.  

The corners of this border are the traditional diamonds-in-
squares.  They mirror each other on a diagonal axis.  The high
left-to-right axis diamonds are created from the same fabric as
the spirit pomegranates.  The low left-to right diamonds are deep
vibrant blue pansies.  It is a vibrant third eye Spirit Blue.  Pansies
are a powerful heart medicine.  When the quilt returns from WHC,
a Pomegranate will be sewn into each diamond.  They’ve
announced their intent on birthing themselves without revealing
their fabric form at this time.  I’ve already mentally placed at least
four more spider webs without daring to run the risk that the paint
won’t be dry enough to travel this evening, as the quilt must.

BEHOLD!  The first sustained glimpse of Parvati’s Paradise!!

The PPQP was born in earnest just a short week ago!  As I
worked to complete the central medallion for display at the
Women's Herbal Conference, each passing hour brought more
mobilized awareness of the project and MORE loving energetic
fuel sent in my direction as a result!  I'm very grateful for that and
humbly thank everyone who sent me conscious prayers and
blessing!

I'm especially grateful to IMANI for agreeing to serve as
temporary mother to my Medicine Baby!!  My entire family loved
our first visit to the Alchemy Juice Bar and I'm looking forward to
going back again, not just on behalf of collecting the quilt!  [eta:
when I did go back, my son and I made a point of arriving at
lunchtime.  Our meals were absolutely everything a perfect lunch
ought to be.  Tony declared his painfully delicious!]   

Wednesday September 1 -- JP's benefit quilt has raised over 400
dollars in its first week of existence!!  Wouldn't it be
WONDERFUL if we could maintain that level of positive influence
on JP's quality of life!    Imani was a little disappointed in the total
raised at WHC but I pointed out it was quite a bit of grocery
money ($175.00) and I also reassured her that we have plenty of
time left - this is just the beginning of the process.  With that in
mind I'd like to ask everyone to fire up their email lists if they
haven't already done so.  Shake the tree of your personal
resources just a little bit harder for this exceptionally worthwhile
cause!

h-o-m-e
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COMPLETED CENTRAL MEDALLION OF QUILT 56"
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