New Moon Remembering - The Power of Small Daily Moments
- Lorna Bailey | The Temple Room
- Aug 23
- 3 min read
Today, August 23rd, we step into the quiet dark of a late summer black moon. New moons always bring me back to reflection, and this week has been full of it. After a gentle two-week staycation with my partner, my hands in the soil, fingers rummaging through old fabrics, words flowing - I’ve found myself remembering how many creative threads I’ve laid down in my life. Some projects half-finished, some simply waiting, but ongoing from as far back as I can remember.
Life has been full of endings and shifts these past few years: the passing of both my parents, the lockdown that closed my business overnight, two house moves, and the embracing of the wise woman menopause years. And yet, just as the moon wanes and swells, these cycles feel natural. I’ve always been someone who goes back over things reviewing, composting, and then turning again to the new. I am a deeply rooted cyclical creature.
This week I dusted off my old Bernina sewing machine, after being drawn almost magnetically into a little haberdashery in Faversham. Among the fabrics, books, and flower-headed pins, I felt something settle in my nervous system. A great sense of peace and purpose washed over me as I wandered slowly, remembering school sewing classes and the French seams of my 14-year-old self. I can still picture that nightdress parade on stage to the Everly Brothers’ Dream, and later, how I began upcycling my mum’s vintage clothes to shape a style of my own. How I brought myself a tapestry kit at age 21 and as my peers were knocking back glasses of wine in nightclubs I was dabbling in the world of designer Kaffe Fassett and all things wooly and patchwork.
25 Years Old in The Mangus Mountains of New Mexico
That thread of making has carried me far. Thirty years ago today, at the age of 25, I set off with one suitcase and a dream, bound for the Mangus Mountains of New Mexico. Life there could not have been further from Croydon. No double-deckers passing the window - just a 13-mile drive down tumbleweed tracks to collect the mail. It was there I deepened into slow creativity alongside indigenous elders: learning to play and later make elk skin hand drums, working with beads and leather, honouring the rhythms of craft that cannot be hurried. Whether with cloth, skin, or yarn, making with my hands has always given me a rhythm for contemplation, meditation returning to my core.
This morning, while searching through old photos of that time, I found a hand-drawn picture my eldest daughter gave me years ago during our home-education days. She had titled it “My Mum drinking her tea on a Sunday morning.” My eyes are closed, sunlight streaming in, cup in hand - my morning meditation, captured by an eight-year-old who is now 28.
The mug has changed, the table has changed, the house has changed. But the practice - this simple daily moment of tea, quiet, and contemplation - endures.
Today I realise I am now older than many of the elders I once learned beside. They were all makers, storytellers, musicians, poets and gifted artisans. As I sort through my sewing basket and gather autumn projects, I feel called again to deepen into my handmade life. In these fast-paced technological times, the work of our hands - stitching, weaving, crafting - may be more essential than ever. We are each a stitch in the great cosmic tapestry, and with each thread we lay, we can shape a life that truly fits us.
If you feel the pull of a new life phase calling, I’d love to walk alongside you. You can explore my Temple Room offerings here, and perhaps begin your own reweaving of your sacred life thread.
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