Book Review: The Knitting Way: A Guide to Spiritual Self Discovery

This book review is part of a series that covers the topic of Spiritual Guides. The Official SelfGrowth.com Guide to Spiritual Guides is Bess S. Permut. Spiritual Guides are people who have attained a high level of spiritual awareness and use their knowledge to guide people on their own paths toward spiritual awakening.nnThe Knitting Way: A Guide to Spiritual Self Discovery is a valuable resource for people interested in Spiritual Guides, and it is available through Amazon.com and Barnes & Noble.nnLibrary JournalnIt was impossible not to greet this title with laughter-and then with grateful recognition. As absurd as it might at first seem to assert a connection between knitting and spirituality, their kinship begins to seem inevitable-embracing continuity, ritual, story-telling and narrative, generosity, and pattern. Skolnik, creator of the popular knitting mail-order catalog Patternworks and MacDaniels, Patternworks' manager for a time, never overplay their hand: their book, which mixes advice with tidbits of history and personal reminiscence, is light, swift, and well illustrated (including a few patterns) and contains a helpful list of additional resources on knitting. For most collections. Copyright © 2006 Reed Business Information. nnFrom Publishers WeeklynKnitting is all the rage again, as is discovering the spiritual side of just about everything. This book joins Tara Jon Manning's Mindful Knitting and Izard and Jorgensen's Knitting into the Mystery in exploring what knitting and spirituality have in common. Skolnik, founder of the well-known knitting company, Patternworks, and MacDaniels, a lifelong knitter and business associate of Skolnik, view the practice of knitting as a special source of connection, particularly among women. They liken knitting to a river that flows between people in such a way that anyone who knits, whether alone or in community, becomes connected to "all who have gone before." For Skolnik and MacDaniels, knitting "links us to the past, to those who knitted for their existence, who knitted for survival, who knitted for beauty and love." Knitting is an activity rich in spiritual possibility; it is not only a doorway to spiritual community, but also a means for knowing our souls. As a meditative practice, it can center and unburden the self, opening us to the divine. By interspersing spiritual wisdom-from what yarn colors say about a person's "true colors" to explaining how knitting can be used to tell stories-with practical project instructions, Skolnik and MacDaniels offer experienced knitters a fresh approach to a favorite hobby. nCopyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.