Mothering Day

Shirley Matthew (dec.)

This was my mum. She died twenty years ago. Today I think of all the mothers out there. The grandmothers. The daughters and sons of mothers. For it is Mothering Day. A day to nurture ourselves with mothering.

I included this picture of my mum because it is my favourite. I took it on Christmas Day when I was 17 and received my first every 35mm SLR camera.

I was so happy because I was able to adjust the aperture so that everything in the background was in soft focus leaving my mother in the light, looking at the Christmas tree.

I think of that quality of light. When we return again to the light from whence we came to be embodied spirits.

I can remember the feel of her soft angora knit jumpers she wore constantly before she took up her creative spinning, weaving and knitting when my brother and I had left home.

I have kept many of the jumpers, hats, vests and children’s clothes she made. Her creativity set free once I left home and she was finally able to pursue her interest in textiles. She even designed her own knitting patterns.

She would never have termed herself a ‘creative’. Yet our house was filled with generations of creative artefacts, embroideries and tapestries that she and my grandmother and great aunts had made. She loved flowers and at one stage took up Ikebana. She said she would have liked to have been a florist.

When I was 10, my mother became a small business entrepreneur. She opened a craft shop and sold craft kits for everything from woven seagrass stools to macrame and lampshade making kits.

I remember sitting at her knee through cold Melbourne winters huddled by a tiny briquette burning heater, learning to weave seagrass and knitting.

That creativity runs through me as I today I see my daughter taking up the mantle, my granddaughters as well.

I believe creativity is a spiritual connection between ourselves and the ‘great creator’, the cosmos, the energetic life force that is in all things on earth and in the universe.

It is the magic of intuition, the urge to make something (literally) with our hands and our lives.

This week I have opened the doors to a new creativity program Awaken Your Creativity which starts soon. It’s a four week series of interactive workshops to connect you with your inner artist.

You can read more about Awaken Your Creativity here.

My mum was a perfectionist and often took a long time to finish her projects. When she died there was a cupboard full of unfinished projects which I couldn’t keep as the moths had got to them.

I am definitely not a perfectionist. Sure I do things to the best of my ability, but then I finish and move on. This way I keep the creative ball in the air and keep learning, keep experimenting.

I’ve included a picture on some of the jumpers my mother made from her own hand spun and dyed wool. They are an inspiration of colour, pattern and vision. Pity it’s too hot to wear them here in northern NSW!