every maker threads her needle with soul sinew and stitches her own wild and free nature into her mending.

hand-making is the midwife between trauma and mending….i believe this wholeheartedly.

Make-to-Mend is my personal spiritual practice…it is a lifeline that awakens and saves my soul.

Make-to-Mend (M2M) is about developing a rhythmic practice of creative self-expression through hand-making to heal and mend the old childhood wounds of developmental trauma, those adverse childhood experiences that left us with self-loathing, shame, and questioning our enoughness.

childhood wounding, adverse childhood experiences, developmental trauma, all of it can force us out of our preferred selves, our true selves,  leaving us spiraling downward in a cage of limitation, smallness, bewilderment, confusion, and numbness, setting us on a particularly painful path.  

hand-making takes us on an upward spiral healing journey of self-knowing and self-acceptance while mining our intuition and imagination, where the very act of Making is imperative, not frivolous, and creative expression is not merely a coping strategy, it’s a healing modality.  it’s not escapism, it’s medicine; it reveals, replenishes, restores, renews,  and it’s not linear.

Make-to-Mend allows us to get a glimpse beyond chaos, hopelessness and despair, crystalizing our new personal narratives of strength and liberation.    when we Make, it helps us slip off all the old stories and the inherited meanings, putting us in the driver seat where we are in charge, we are the artistic authority, where our innate expression is autobiographical and healing.    in making, we dig for our lost selves, our buried souls, excavating them to shine the light in the dark places and do some soul dusting, recovering our capable creative selves, and reconstructing our wholeness, reclaiming the versions of the women we want to be.  living our lives to our fullest potential, becoming empowered, learning to trust, changing our story to one of resilience and worth instead of an outgrown hand-me-down story of not enough, and transmuting the diverse pains of our pasts into illuminated and expansive creative fuel is a portal to transformation, evolution, and transcendence.  we are ditching being prisoners of our past, our hearts and minds are unchained.  we’re stealin it back.

Make-to-Mend is about dancing out of survival mode, and if even just in baby steps at first, diving deep into recuperation, restoration, and reclamation of our lost selves.  M2M comes from a conscious place of practice in creative alchemy, oracular intention and karmic meditation on it being our turn.  when we are done with the business of living wounded we can take up our tools: brushes and paints, needles and thread, pliers and wires, scissors and fabric, hammers and nails, pens and papers, knives and herbs, trawls and seeds, hands and clay, etc., and invoke the shift, the catalyst by Making, which will catapult us into our new lives of healing and mending.  when we take a stand and dissent from the old ways of being kept down by the power the wounders had over us, when we say fuck you and shirk being complicit and no longer condone the repressing legacy they have tried to leave us with, we get radical and revolutionary, demanding and provocative, cosmic in our reach and impression.  we become soul rebels, uprising, rebellion, refusing disconnection from ourselves, on a Maker’s March, Crafter’s Crusade, Artist’s Apocalypse…our power is ours.   our boundaries grow when we M2M and no one can harm us, there is no danger to fear as when we were children.  in Making we manifest a magical Mending doorway that when danced through reveals our sacredness and divinity.  the Mending is a process, a drive, to explore and examine our healing. we lean into our inherent power when we Make-to-Mend, cultivating shame resilience, truth telling, and self-acceptance.  we refuse to play it small.  we get right sized.   Wild and Free.

M2M as a process is where I take my hard won healing and cast it beyond my own life bubble, my own egg of light.  we live in a wounded world that desperately needs healing and my own personal healing is no longer quit enough for me.  i am compelled to share what I know of how to Make-to-Mend, especially from childhood trauma, because it contributes to wholeness and lets others have someone to identify with.  developing a M2M practice and retrieving our souls changes the world because when we heal and mend through creative self-expression, making, and belonging, it touches those around us and the trickle and ripple ensues.  imprinting our intent on the universe to heal and thrive changes the game and allows us to leave dysfunction behind.  don’t get me wrong.  i am no expert.  no authority by far.   a guide and mentor at best. it’s such that I have discovered the value of what I know and who am I to not share it, pass it down, pass it along? i only know what has worked for me; that turning to Making on a regular basis throughout my life, at a deep yet steady pace, has been a transformational practice that has gifted me with positive, long-term change. having an intentional M2M practice, that goes straight to the right side of my brain, where my active creativity impacts the nonverbal wiring of my nervous system, alleviates my suffering tenfold. i am simply spreading the word and lay no claim to a concept, cure or approach that is the end all be all.   i just want to share my discovery of healing through hand-making and hold a safe space for sister-keeping and possibility. and i really just want to loosen the grip the past has had on me, and may have on you, and Making has been my magic elixir, the spoonful of honey, the cherry on top.  It is while we Make-to-Mend, construct to heal, that the rejuvenating space to recover ourselves is found.  it is in this sacred space that awareness of our holiness and divinity are stitched, pasted and bound.  It is here we can lean in, peer wide eyed and expectant, on purpose in this blessed sphere, and Make-to-Mend together.

What we might feel/experience as a result of childhood trauma, wounding or adverse childhood experiences: shame, guilt, grief, worthlessness, self- hatred, self-loathing, no trust, humiliation, invulnerability, powerless, repressed, anxious, weak, cursed, useless, scared, unprotected, thwarted, stressed, stunted, tortured, disconnected, hopeless, gross, non-sexual, depressed, gloomy, grumpy, sleepless, panicked, perfectionist, control freak, stagnant,  self-conscious,  fake, blame worthy, frantic, wounded, wallowing, used, miserable, doormat, obligated, restricted, hard, dead, uncomfortable, failure, victim, resentment, doubtful, sorrow, pain, lonely, angry, isolated, small, closed, tight, late, full of secrets, silent, voiceless, in danger, judgmental, emotional, numb, withdrawn, lost, submerged, violent, ill, embarrassed, irritable, avoiding, stupid, strange, weird, phobic, helpless.

What we might feel/experience in mending/healing: self-acceptance, self-love, worthy, transformed, capable, recuperated, vulnerable, resilient, empowered, powerful, radiant, sexy, unlimited, successful, wild, free, alive, bold, transmuted, alchemized, stable, adventurous, unfurled, timeless, on time, right sized, expansive, deepening, liberated, individualized, open, unbound, held, in choice, honored, trusting, enchanted, grateful, thankful, survivor, thriver, achiever, ambitious, whole, turned on, evolved, courageous, clear, in the zone, in flow, euphoric, connected, healthy, purposeful, influential, vital, easy, ecstatic, comfortable, outrageous, vivacious, seeking, exploring, joyful, peaceful, lit up, quiet, calm, goal setting, solitude, deserving, strong, potent, resourceful, redefined, found, reconfigured.

so this is what I wonder…what’s on the other side of us and who would we be if we dropped our inherited belief in our layers of limitation, lack and unworthiness?  what could happen if we were able to shed the throbbing vibe of low self-esteem, shame, and chronic self-judgment?  where might we soar to if we can find a way to release this stagnation from the old wounds?  can we allow ourselves to recuperate our creative selves through creative processes, healing our imagination, body, head and heart? can we draw down or root up healing by imploring our hands to follow our hearts in creative self-expression?  will the unsayable, the hidden language of trauma, find expression through our hand making such that it can be unmasked and released?  How does using our hands to generate a self-expressive narrative heal us in some way? can making be a tonic, full of nourishment, fermenting the past into fodder for creative self-expression, composting the (shit) past into mending, healing, aliveness and vitality, as if Making were nutrients, vitamins and super food?  is hand making a balm for us, helping us remedy our seemingly broken bits that can appear scattered, misplaced or torn? when we extract our essence and examine our heritage, what do we find and what do we do with that, how do we channel it? how does M2M ritualize us, calling ourselves out and coming into being?  if you’ve questioned your beliefs, posture, and roots, what leads you to growth, stretching and exploring the untried in self-discovery and personal development? if we developed a daily practice of Making every day would it offer us a catalyst toward growth and healing, space to let go and reconnect to ourselves, in a way that will mend us? will mindfully fabricating a hand worked narrative alleviate some of our suffering from old wounds? if M2M fosters self-awareness, helps reconcile emotional conflict and promotes personal growth, what exactly does it take for that all to be lasting and permanent? it is these questions and many, many more that I seek to answer for myself by having a daily Make-to-Mend practice and soon I would like to excavate the answers in community, with a circle of women who are also curious and ready to discover deep truth.

i offer M2M to you, this hive of healing and cauldron of creativity, as an invitation we will soon begin to explore in community, sisters held in support, confidence, and love. We are meant to gather, it is part of our gesture as women, so i want to initiate a circle that shares the desire to mend and heal through the passion of Making and creating, a divine feminine space where women’s circular gesture is appreciated, where grace, potential, compassion, space expansion, openness, insight, intuition and bold expression are held up, honored, and revered.  M2M is what I am given by and it’s an invitation into your courage where you risk healing and growth.  It’s being just brave enough and just vulnerable enough to take the plunge and in so doing, running the risk of fitting in here! We are all equals, all each other’s teachers; there will be no judgment or competition here.  We will all be in partnership and collaboration in this collective…it will be a circle with no head and no center and as such we shall all be responsible for our own experience and needs in our circle. 

Stay tuned…so much more to come…