It occurs to me that my current needlework project is in some ways a form of meditation.

One of the main aspects/knacks of meditation is to ‘still the chattering monkey’ and is something I have always struggled with. I don’t have just a chattering monkey swinging though my resting thoughts but an entire troupe of gibbering chimps; coupled with a crouching and restless tiger, or possibly that wolf gazing back at me from the tapestry frame – constantly urging me to be up and moving.

I suspect most of us across the neurodivergent spectrum recognise those beasts.

Looking back my parents plainly found my perpetual motion and constant chatter a trial. Phrases like sit still, stop fidgeting, ants in you pants, ball bearings in your backside and yes, fidget arse  punctuated everyday life. To modern ears that sounds appalling but to be perfectly honest they were wasting their breath because I never took a blind bit of notice.

My severe stammer at age 5 was put down to an ‘over-active brain’ but it was another fifty years before a Uni tutor sent me for an assessment for dyslexia that also threw in dyspraxia, autism and adhd for good measure. Useful to know but not especially surprising to me at least.

How does that tie in with crafts? Because, for me at least it allows the chimps something simple to concentration on and the tiger that sense of movement that some of us need to channel and ground our excess energy in the same way that a walking meditation does, and where the traditional seated meditation often fails for us fidget-bums.  The satisfaction when the project is completed almost goes without saying.