Growth in Community

On Sundays I like to reflect on interesting things I've read - excerpts from books that have given me food for thought. But I haven't been reading a lot the past few months. I've been too busy making things! I decided a few months ago that the best way for me to get through our winter cold is to try to forget about it... so I signed up for a lot of courses - from 10-week sessions to one-day workshops. It has been interesting, but I've been missing having time for reading (and quilting)!

This past week I've been reflecting on how important community is to learning - we learn together with others and we learn from each other. Very little learning happens unless we read a book, take a class, or get involved in some new activity.

Encouraged by two Ottawa women - a mother and daughter - whom I met at the Celtic Knot workshop in Toronto a few weeks ago, I attended an afternoon workshop on nurturing our "inner monk" and "inner artist." One of our activities involved creating collages, something I haven't done in years!

One of my collages combined pictures of fire (which I meant to represent my burning enthusiasm for creativity), a solitary figure walking over a field of snow (indicating that I often feel solitary in my creativity), and a map (which looks stark - but indicates I am not totally directionless).

As I explained my collage to Leslie, the woman I met in Toronto, she commented: The map shows a community. You are part of a community.

She's right. I wouldn't have been at that workshop if she and her daughter hadn't invited me; I wouldn't have taken botanical painting classes over the years if my neighbor Mary hadn't first invited me several years ago; and I wouldn't have learned to quilt had I not taken courses and workshops over the years.

"No man is an island" - even in winter when my home feel like an island in an ocean of snow!