#CraftAsACopingMechanism

As a lapsed Fashion graduate who had turned my back on the industry 5 long years ago, I never could have predicted that the pandemic and my recently forged path as a Yoga Teacher would be the recipe needed to reignite my passion for craft in such a big way.

My meandering career post-fashion has taken me to some curious places. A year touring the world with a band and a few heady years under my belt working in events and festivals - Put simply; the types of jobs that simply evaporated sometime in early 2020.

The stark reality of work dwindling away was a distressing one but it gave me time to assess whether I was still in enjoying my career and ultimately my life. Thus, the kick up the asana that I needed to embark on yet another career pivot was there. Having turned to Yoga and Breathwork more and more over the years to deal with the stress from work, the irony was not lost on me that I was choosing now to make it my work. I signed up with my most-frequented and loved studio to train and on the close of that first group OM, I knew that it had been the right choice.

When my Yoga Teacher Training took a necessary hiatus due to a second lockdown - I was bereft. I would miss the other students who were fast becoming close friends and confidants. I would long for the guidance of my teachers. I worried that all the wisdom and knowledge they had imparted would leak out of my nose like a neti-pot.*

I wanted to keep the motor running on my studies, or for Yogi points you could say, practice "Svadhayaya". The forth Niyama on the 8 Fold Path, meaning self-study. 2 months prior I had been learning the Sanskrit terminology for these Observances in a balmy shala in the Andalusian hills but it was now that I found myself on a bitterly cold November evening unearthing dusty old art materials from under the bed. With Big Mary Kondo Energy I asked myself, Did they bring me joy? Well, they certainly used too.

In very un-Mary Kondo style I had papers, magazine clippings, fabrics, buttons, trimmings from lifetimes ago tucked under the bed unseen and unloved waiting patiently for the moment that they might finally "come in useful”. Reassuringly, When I looked at the things I had chosen to save, it was like meeting my old self again. Realising that while I may have done every job under the sun and shed many previous skins, I was still truly me in my essence. The same things make me laugh. The same beauty makes my heart flutter.

Having found what I was looking for, I brushed off my rotary blade, swapped my yoga mat for a cutting mat and set to work.

I collaged until the collage cows came home. Pritt-stick became my prop. I used tiny dainty scissors for the hard to cut areas. I sat analysing compositions for the first time in years. I sat in stillness. Often whatever I was listening too would finish and half an hour later I would come-too, realising I had been in complete silence totally absorbed in what I was doing.

It was almost like… meditating.

Well not meditating, That would be Dhyana. The Seventh Limb of Yoga. Often translated as “meditation” but really more a state of perfect equanimity and awareness.

What I was experiencing was more akin to Dharana. Dharana is the binding of the mind to one place, object or idea. The sixth limb of Yoga and a step on the road to meditation and ultimately *enlightenment*. I bound my mind on the learning we had been doing, revisited my notes and scoured my manual - producing visual interpretations of the cannon of Yoga.

My research took me back to my battered copy of The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali. The translation I have has a brief introduction about what a “Sutra” was, which in Indian literary traditions refers to an aphorism or a collection of aphorisms in the form of a manual or text. Or, translated literally from Sanskrit it means “thread". The first Yoga Sutra is “Atha yoga anushasanam” with one translation being - “Now, the teachings of Yoga” or one of many another translations

“The time for Yoga is now”.

I pulled at the thread of this idea and found myself sat at my industrial sewing machine after all those years, to make the first stitches.. I felt like I was back in a familiar seat. “Seat” being one translation of the word Asana. So told because in its origion, Yoga would have been more the preperatory movements needed to sit for long periods of time in meditation, than what we consider yoga to be today.

Here, my movements were muscle memory. I could navigate my sewing machine like I was embracing an old friend, the hum of the engine, the creak of the peddle. As I used it, the oil warmed and the machine ran more easily, It brought to mind the synovial fluid that my teachers had told me about that sits in the pockets around your joints and becomes more viscous and generous as you move. It was a form of choreography. Sequences that I knew like the back of my hand. The “Mudra” your fingers naturally make as you thread the eye of a needle with your thumb and forefinger. Was this a form of Yoga? I started to think so.

I was reminded that the visual eye is a muscle too - one that had grown stiff through years of neglect but was rapidly limbering up with each passing peice. I chose to work on a square layout because…. Well, Instagram. The app that turned us all into photographers has shaped the visual world in more ways than we realise I think and I wanted to share what I was doing with my friends, if only to feel a little connected to them. One evening I joked with my flatmate that collage was taking the place of therapy and the hashtag #CraftAsACopingMechanism was born.

I found that sharing the things that I had made was cathartic, it was a way of updating family in far-flung places with what I was learning about and when your not leaving your home very often, there is little more to update upon. I enjoyed receiving questions about the subject matter and found the converstaions that were struck up to be thought provoking. I was learning.

When I had used up all the scraps of paper I had been hoarding and was satisfied with the collection I had produced, I itched for a new project. I decided to stay theme of Yoga - Practicing “Tapas” The third Niyama on the 8 Fold Path meaning “Discipline” though derived from the word for Burn or Heat.

One of my favourite parts of my training had been learning the Sanskrit names for things. They make sense to me. When I think about discipline it makes sense to think of it like stoking the embers of a little internal fire.

The Sanskrit names to the Poses are notoriously quite hard to remember - for westerners at least, but I found it fascinating the way the long words are pieced together like a jigsaw. Once you know that Asana or ‘sana will come at the end of most pose names - because as well as seat it means “Pose”, your already getting somewhere. Then when you start adding things like Urdhva - Upwards or Supta - Reclining. You can start building them up. Before you know it you are saying things like Urdhva Prasarita Eka Padasana or Upward Widespread One Foot Pose….. aka Standing Splits.

An idea formed, I decided to make flashcards using a printing method called Lino Printing.

If Collages were an act of mindfullness then Lino Cutting is the sort of activity that has such tactility in the tools and the cutting that you can't quite “switch-off” or you may loose a finger. However, I found the act of cutting to be an excellent way of committing the words to memory. When you make these prints, firstly you repeatedly carve out grooves using a sharp tool into a maleable material called Lino. The process is slow and considered. When the impressions have been made you roll the ink onto it and turn it onto a clear page and burnish it with a spoon or if your lucky enough to own a printing press you use that.

The result is a negative print of the lino you didn’t cut away. As I carved, I called to mind the concept of “Samskaras”. According to various schools of Indian philosophy, Samskaras are the subtle mental impressions left by all thoughts, intentions and actions that an individual has ever experienced. Often likened to grooves in the mind, they can be considered as psychological or emotional imprints that contribute to the formation of behavioural patterns. Samskaras can be negative as well as positive. With each intentional stroke of the tool I was making impressions that would last.

I began sharing my Flash Cards, starting with photographs of myself, awkwardly shot on self timer in poses in my kitchen finding that, of all the elements involved in this process, the selfies were my least favourite.

One day, a yoga teacher I know through a friend got in touch and told me she was really enjoying the Sanskrit flashcards I was doing, and could she share them? I had only had time to take photographs of a few, and I knew I might not get round to more for a while. Besides, I had been crafting so much I had barely gotten around to doing any Yoga Classes. “How about you donate a pose to me, and I will make the flashcards. We can collaborate?” I said, in a surge of inspiration I am still proud of. This little seed of an idea grew into a bigger project which breathed some fresh Prana, or lifeforce, into the project. I was able to get in touch with the other students on my training and convince them to donate a pose. Friends from other countries whose trainings had gone online donated. A little Kula developed. Or “community”. It gave me an excuse to connect with others in the same position I was.

About midway through the UK's second lockdown my friend sent me a meme : "Check on your crafting friends, They're not Okay" with a picture of somebody who had knitted themselves a woolsuit, to cover their fleshsuit. I laughed, alot, and shared it onwards.

But here's the thing, I was okay. Not always, of course, but in crafting I had rediscovered a very reliable way to drop into flow state, which when it worked, was more than enough to iron out any creases in my mood.

I think I will always be an advocate for #CraftAsACopingMechanism and would go so far as to say it is now a part of my Yoga practice.

Now, when I look back on the last year - having just been given a teaching job at a local yoga studio and due to go back to that balmy Shala in Andalusia to help my home-studio with some more training, I feel reflective. I know there will be plenty more skins to shed and things to learn but as the much quoted line from the Baghavad Gita states..

“Yoga is the journey of the self, through the self, to the self.”

I feel like my crafting allowed me to revisit some forgotten parts of me that were never gone, they just needed me to hand them a pair of scissors.

*A neti pot is a tool used in The practice of “Jal Neti” one of the six Shatkarmas. Shatkarmas are yogic cleansing techniques. Essentially, Neti is a practice of cleansing the nasal passages and sinuses using a solution of warm water and salt.