I meditate every day and find a lot of wisdom in Buddhist teachings. When I had my hip replaced last fall, there was a lot of time on my hands. Embroidering looked like a good idea for sitting around, so I tried a few things and liked it. I wanted to have a theme and book to assemble with the stitching I did, therefore, this is a book of drawings based on the paintings by Shubun, a Chinese artist of the 15th century. The cover of this experiment into fiber books is one of my drawings, but the interior pages are all mostly copied from the Chinese paintings. The Zen tradition has often taught that there are ten steps to enlightenment. 

Front and back covers spread out.

Inside the book, the first step is trying to discipline the Ox, which is a metaphor for one's mind. The meditator chases the ox around and around.

Step two: The meditator  finally gets a rope on the ox, and thinks that beating it will tame it. [Have you ever beaten yourself up for some perceived transgression?] As the path continues to be accomplished, the ox becomes empty of color--or -- the mind loses it's delusions and begins to understand reality. 

These last two pages are the moon on the left, with a note inside about materials used, and a barn on the right with an encrusted ox that goes inside it.

Caregiving is a mixed bag. Mostly one hears about the self-sacrificing, magnanimous, ungrudging, and saintly characteristics of the caregiver. Not always so. I'm here to tell you that in addition to the above, we caregivers have our bitchy and dark humor characteristics and we talk about it to each other. Just saying. Mixed bag.

I'm experimenting with embroidery techniques combined with whatever I can think of to use to get the thing across. The above is "Hard Day With the Sick One." The outline is embroidered with color pencil shading. A black paper border is sewn to the linen canvas.

The piece above is an embroidered outline of one of my morning drawings. "A man with the moon." 5 in x 8 in. The yellow paper border is sewn around the cotton canvas.