Self-Care: W is for…

       is for wrappings

I love wrapping things.  I often joke that if ever my job as Illuminary and Messenger doesn’t work out, I wouldn’t mind working in a charming little boutique wrapping gorgeous little treasures. 

I talked about values the other day and Beauty is one of mine.  I think of beauty more in spiritual terms than the more traditional cultural definition.  In fact this definition by Connie Kaplan sums it up perfectly for me:

“Beauty is the harmonic of nature.  It is the way forms interweave themselves in order to create divine harmonious oneness.  Beauty is the aesthetic of cosmic order.

Moreover, Beauty is the life course on which humans move.  When the Native American people talk about the Beauty Way, they refer to a path that is created by this natural harmonic. On the Beauty Way, sounds, visuals, and tactile experiences all interweave to become one multi-sensual melody – a way of walking in the world.”

Wrapping to me is a kind of way to pull things together.  Not to alter them, but actually to say, stop a moment and pay attention.  We honor things when we pay attention to them (which of course makes it sound advice not to give attention to what you don’t wish to honor). 

Our adornments are wrappings.  Perhaps I view this in a rather self-focused way, but I think we should only dress for ourselves as outward expressions of who we are on the inside.  That can be a bit challenging when most of us have to make do with mass-produced items manufactured on the economy-driven whims of corporate-driven trend-setters. But even given those restrictions, it’s perfectly possible to wrap/adorn yourself in ways that feel self-nurturing, joyful, delicious.  And all those elements are constituents of self-care, aren’t they?

I love to adorn myself in sacred jewelry, talismans, complex layered scents; in words written on my body; in colors.  These are ways of honoring my true self, reminding me who I am, reminding me to hold my center so what I’m shining outward IS aligned. 

Another way of self-care wrapping is the cocooning we can do when called into that inner space of quiet reflection.   Wrapping ourselves in silence, for inward focusing, for diving deep.  Or maybe just for a moment wrapping ourselves in a quilt.  I have a dear friend who speaks about blanket forts.  Perfect examples of self-care.

Speaking about quilts, this anonymous woman quoted in The Quilters:  Women and Domestic Art has something that really speaks to me of both wrapping AND self-care.

“Sometimes you don’t have no control over the way things are.  Hail ruins the crops, or fire burns you out. And then you’re just given so much to work with in a life and you have to do the best you can with what you got.  That’s what piecing is.  The materials is passed on to you, or is all you can afford.  But the way you put them together is your business.  You can put them in any order you like.  Piecing is orderly.”

So tell me, how are you wrapping yourself?  How are you putting your pieces together? Do you have a special adornment that helps you remember who you truly are?  What self-care are you practicing today?  Do tell – you know I love to hear.