Happy Diwali
To those who celebrate this joyous holiday, I wish you a happy Diwali celebration. I hope it’s filled with the light promised by the season.
Expanding To Enjoy A Happy Diwali
One of the most beneficial aspects of my career was that it gave me the opportunity to expand my world. Whenever you have the opportunity to travel outside your sphere, growth is usually inevitable.Mostly, being exposed to cultures other than my own allowed me to see past the self-absorbed world I grew up in.
No, I’m not Hindu. And no, I’m not of Indian descent. Also, I don’t do anything concrete to celebrate Diwali. And the last thing I would ever want is to misappropriate someone else’s culture. But I am very grateful that I had some level of receptivity when some of the people I worked with shared their culture with me. I was very fortunate to have gotten to work with a lot of Hindus in my career. In my experience, they were much more open to including me in their lives than most of my U.S. coworkers were to including them in theirs.
So, when it comes to…
…the spiritual “victory of light over darkness, good over evil, and knowledge over ignorance”
…I am as open-minded as I can be about expanding knowledge and lessening ignorance in my life.
And from a purely selfish perspective, I think we could all use a bit more light in our lives…no?
Current Knitting
The cranking out of these Knitted Cross Stitch Scarves just seems to be getting faster and faster.
I’m particularly fond of this color version. It also looks better in-person than it does in photos.
I’ve started the next one too, using the same two yarns but with opposite ratios of purple to multi-color yarn.
Yes, I’ve only cast on and finished the first row on this last of four scarves. But that’s the most difficult part for me. Making sure I have the correct number of stitches and knitting into the first cast-on row.
Fortunately, I should be finished with this scarf in plenty of time for the upcoming craft show!
I have only known a handful of Hindu families, from early on in my teaching career before I was transferred farther out into the suburbs. Truly wonderful, emotionally intelligent children and warm and concerned parents who were working very hard here to make more opportunities for their children. I never realized until this minute how lucky I was to ever get to meet any Hindu people —and this was 20 years ago!—in a city that is still probably about 75% white. I was only 27 (humm that math would mean I’m only 47 Lol. Guess it was longer ago than I thought!). Those little kindergartners are all grown up now I guess—and surely spreading the light to others lucky enough to meet them today. Thanks for reminding me of all this.