A story about Eulogia... who makes Knitting Peace possible

I have been in LA for a couple of weeks sharing with many people stories of my Knitting Peace experience and in this exchange, I have grown to realize that I miss seeing my team of knitters in Bolivia and their amazing children as well as being with them in the jail. Its funny to hear myself say this, its not something I had ever aspired to experience or even dreamed of, but these spirited women have weaved themselves into my journey and heart, and I am all the happier for it.

Eulogia, my Team Coordinator and Friend

I find myself raving about my team coordinator Eulogia much of the time. She and I met the  first time I went to the jail many years ago, and have worked together ever since. At one point she was my only knitter, but in time she brought forward the majority of the girls I currently work with.

In the jail there are women of all walks of life, and I would be more than happy to employ them all if I could. However, Eulogia has more street smarts than me, she protects me like a lioness and doesn't allow just anyone on our team. I trust here blindly and only bring on board who she feels can harmoniously work with us. She helps me stay focused and grounded with the reality of the jail and what we are seeking to accomplish in the long term, she points out to me when I may be off course and consistently keeps the knitters and the quality of their products in  check. Many of my knitters have shared with me that Eulogia makes them reknit some of the work when she feels it isn't up to Knitting Peace's standards.

I love and appreciate her proactive-ness, she takes pride in our work and social movement. She is an inspiration to me, and teaches me to keep on moving forward no matter how big the hurdle to overcome may seem. She was sentenced to 30 years in jail, and is on her 9th year. In a year she can re-open her case and based on her conduct, work and lawyer's ability may be eligible to reduce her sentence. I plan on standing by her in that process, assisting her the way she has taught me to assist others, with lioness pride and loyalty.

I am blessed by Eulogia, a woman of strength, pride and deep courage. She has two grown sons who visit her frequently.

Eulogia, I love this woman!

Visit our website today, to see some of the beautiful creations Eulogia makes. She has perfected our Ponchos, and makes truly amazing Throw Blankets. We are having a holiday SALE now, to inspire you to give gifts with meaning, that directly assist women like Eulogia to step out of poverty and into sustainability.

Visit www.knittingpeace.com today.

~ Namaste

The Fruits of 10 Months Work and lots of Play

With Christmas around the corner and me being back in LA, I am filled with a sense of gratitude for this years journey, lessons learned and continued pull towards greater clarity, alignment and acceptance of what is.

After 10 months of working consistently with my team of incarcerated knitters in Bolivia, I find myself in LA again with the familiar initial culture shock of the traffic, speed and marketing overload. However, I am now a week into it, the culture shock is gone and I am back to business as usual.

During my time in Bolivia my intention was to focus on creating better products, designs, opening more markets and strengthening the technical knitting skills of my knitters. As I look back, I can appreciate having accomplished all of this, however I can also see that this was the least of all that blossomed from this 10 month stay. Although I can certainly appreciate the business importance of bettering our product and expanding our market share, all of that now seems more like the icing on the cake, as opposed to the eggs and milk themselves.

In this process and journey I am learning that if I choose to make the conscious choice to focus my awareness and intention on what my heart is seeking to experience, meaning: peace, authentic connections, joy, authentic self expression, etc... and channel this intention through Knitting Peace, then it is inevitable that the feedback is going to be more peace, loving connections, joy and authentic self expression. Which  has magically shown up in our new products that have created the opportunity for new markets and greater awareness about Knitting Peace.

My point is in a very round about way, that when we let go or detach from the obvious outcome, and surrender to our hearts song, all will be accomplished perfectly and beyond our wildest dreams, leaving the initial obvious goal seemingly small compared to what in reality came forward.

Our latest 2010 Winter collection reflects the trust and deep connection that blossomed with me and my team of knitters in Bolivia. This line is more daring, unique and playful. We hope you enjoy it!

Photo by Daniel Caballero

This holiday season gift to your loved ones a Knitting Peace alpaca product, that directly assists incarcerated women and their children, in Bolivia to step out of  poverty and into sustainability and self empowerment.

Visit our website to enjoy our holiday SALE at www.knittingpeace.com

Photo by Daniel Caballero

Lessons in life, during the light filled times~ Happy Thanksgiving!

It is a rare person who can pierce the veil between ordinary life, consumed with matters of physical survival, and pursuit of the empowered path of purpose and meaning unless he or she is motivated by a crisis. Most often we require the failure of some system of power that we rely on before we take action. ~Carolyn Myss

I love this quote from Carolyn, probably because it has proved right for me on many occasions. However at this point in my life, I am also experiencing the power in taking action from a space of complete clarity and peace… and not only the dark filled times when a power system falls out of alignment.

Today I feel inspired to share about the lighter moments in life, which if we really stop to think about are more often than not and interestingly less appreciated or remembered than not.  I ponder upon this and wonder why our human condition tends to dictate a need to use our hard times as leverage to do our inner work from which we grow, taking for granted the opportunities which the lighter experiences offer to teach. 

If life in its entire splendor has its ups and downs which serve a deep purpose to us all, why is it that the downs or harder experiences tend to leave a deeper impact than the ups or lighter experiences? Have we become so immersed in our self growth that we have developed a tendency to see only the jewel in the midst of the darkness leaving less appreciation for the light filled times, that bring forward experiences of joy and love. In other words, why not also learn from the light filled times, not as parameters for how things should be, but rather opportunities to learn to simply immerse ourselves in the delight and love of what is.

During this journey with Knitting Peace, I am learning that nothing is as I had expected, yet the experience of peace and purpose which I wanted to have is fully present and embedded in my daily life. I am learning to be present to all that is, especially the moments of joy that serve as reminders and inspirations to continue to walk this path of purpose and meaning.

In service to sharing my gratitude for this light filled time, during this day of Grace and Thanksgiving, Knitting Peace is sharing our work at a drastically reduced price, for all to enjoy.  We hope you love our products, which are made with enthusiasm and joy by incarcerated women, seeking moments of empowerment and inspiration.

To enjoy our Thanksgiving Sale visit www.knittingpeace.com

May this Thanksgiving season bring you blessings of true joy and peace.

~Namaste

From Rebellion to Devotion... lifes many twists

The idea of devotion was a concept I set aside when I made the choice to step away from traditional religion, and open myself to spirituality. At the time I didn’t know what spirituality meant, but I knew in my heart I needed to follow my own spirit towards a higher meaning and life of purpose. Something away from the pre-conceived concepts of a God contained within the frame of fear and judgment. At the time this felt much like an act of rebellion which perfectly suited the 20 something year old that I was. I didn’t realize until much later how magnificently wise that young woman was. She was pretty amazing and I am so proud of her.

Once the intention to live in alignment with a higher purpose was set, many opportunities for developing the needed skills for aligning with this purpose surfaced and looking back, I can honestly confess that these have not been comfortable or easy lessons to learn, some even painful. However the new relationship that has blossomed from within myself has made each hard spot softer and easier to appreciate, bringing deep purpose to each experience as I gently knit stitch by stitch the tapestry and mastery of life.

These past weeks have brought forward on numerous occasions the opportunity for me to re-evaluate my concept of devotion. At first the word devotion started to pop up in conversations with friends, later in books and soon in my yoga and meditation practice. I opened a curios ear to all of this, but it wasn’t until I lost a significant sale opportunity for Knitting Peace due to my own procrastination that I realized... uh-oh Houston, my Angels really want my attention.

The loss of this big sale helped me come to the awareness that I wasn’t devoting myself fully to what I considered to be my life’s work and this was a representation or projection of how I was being with myself and ultimatly God. Meaning I was not fully allowing myself to authentically embrace a life of devotion to something higher than myself.

During this process all the old preconceived notions of religion, God and devotion came forward for a re-visit. However this time with the skills I accumulated since my last wrestle with devotion, I was able to hear my hearts deep yearning and longing to love open heartedly, with absolute joy, loyalty, humility and fervor. To be devoted to something higher than myself, to something which I can’t see, taste, hear or feel but know in every cell of my being loves me unconditionally and wants only for me to experience authentic, the cup runeth over kind of loving, and radiate this love unlike any love imagined by my mere mortal mind.

It is from this space that I am learning that devotion is gratitude to the sacredness of life, making each breath a moment of connection and love expressed with Source. Devotion to the spirit in every form, living in devotion to something higher than ourselves and everything in between, revealing the ilussion of separation. Living in flow as ONE and part of the whole, like drops in the ocean.

To me, this is the face of pure, unconditional love.

This is my dog Nicolas, one of my favorite beings in the Universe

Pre-adolescents in jail and nowhere to go

Knitting Peace, as a social enterprise seeks to empower its team of incarcerated women in overriding some of their limiting core beliefs with new visions of what is possible for themselves and their children.

In doing so, I am becoming more and more aware of their daily challenges within the Bolivian jail, and count on the pleasure of experiencing their trust as they share with me some of their stories and hardships. One situation which I became aware of and is of great concern to me is in regards to the children reaching the age limit to legally remain within the jail.

Legally, children of incarcerated women in Bolivia may live within the jail with their mothers until the age of six. Exceptions are made in the case of those children who don’t have family to live with outside the jail. These special cases are considered, and the children are allowed to remain within the jail until the age of 12, assuming they have no other alternative.

Once these pre-adolescents reach the age of 12, they are required to leave the jail. Fortunately by then most of these children have a family member or older sibling they can count on to support them while their mothers remain incarcerated. However, there are more than a handful of cases in which these adolescents have nowhere to go.

Picture taken by Hannah Kozak

Charo, one of my team members approached me with great concern because her daughter turns 12 next month. Charo has at least 10 more years to complete her sentence, does not have any family members she can count on to care for her daughter, and her time to decide what to do is running out fast. Charo shared with me that her alternatives are to either send her little girl to a home for street children, or rent her a little room where she can live alone. Charo says she is willing to work hard to make sure her daughters financial needs are met, but she is concerned for her daughter’s safety and well being while living on the outside without her.

To my surprise, Charo expressed much concern in sending her daughter to live in a home for homeless children, where she could count on adult supervision, discipline, schooling and food. Many of the women shared with me that in these homes their children would be exposed to street kids who have been vulnerable to drugs, prostitution and sexual abuse, and fear their children will become vulnerable to these as well while in these homes.  

For these reasons Charo and many of the women with pre-adolescents within the jail are more inclined to send their children to live alone in a rented room, without any supervision and away from the nurturing eye of their mothers.

It is in situations like this that I have a hard time understanding what the lesson opportunity is for these children. Why do some lives have to be so hard? I can’t imagine living alone at the age of 12, how I would have handled it, or what choices I may have made. It seems a recipe for disaster or at the very least another teenage pregnancy or the repetition of the cycle from which these girls were brought into.

At best, my work through Knitting Peace strives to provide opportunities to change the trajectory of the children of these incarcerated women in service to healing and empowering generations to come; however I feel I am at a loss in this situation being that the alternatives seem to lead to more of the same.  My hope is to find an alternative to bridge the gap between living with their mothers, and living in alignment with their higher purpose and well being. 

Picture taken by Hannah Kozak

Knitting Peace featured on Roozt.com DEAL OF THE DAY!

Get great deals on your favorite Knitting Peace products, with a portion of the total donated back to the non-profit of your choice. Exclusively at Roozt.com!

Knitting Peace is excited and
proud to announce that per its recent partnership with Roozt.com, we will be
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Roozt.com is an e-commerce platform that features products solely from environmentally and socially responsible companies up to 80% off retail value, and donates 1% of any purchase made on its site back to the non-profit of the buyer’s choice. Each Daily Deal is sold in limited quantity and runs for 48 hours.

In order to take advantage of this and other equally awesome Roozt Daily Deals, we encourage you to SIGN UP at http://roozt.com. It’s free to join, and they will send you one featured product per day up to 80% off, directly to your inbox so you never miss a deal!

We are very excited to share this special offer with you, and hope you will take advantage! Poncho colors include: Vibrant Red, Almond (beige), Charcoal Grey, and Forest Green (a Roozt exclusive!)

Don’t forget to visit Roozt.com this Wednesday, October 13 to purchase your Womens Fashion Ponchos at 63% off, for just $34.95!