This is one of 12 artifacts from season 3 of Labyrinth Library. This is an excerpted sample of the full artifact.

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Purpose:

explore how relating to your creative practice with the metaphorical materiality of needles, threads, and threading through the eye — can bring a focus, earthiness, and grounding to the creative work; grounding that creates momentum and freedom.

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Guiding Question:

what would it mean to guide a single thread through the eye of the needle — in your creative practice?

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Excerpt of Artifact (5 min)

eye of the needle - excerpt.mp3

Practice Guidelines

included in the full artifact

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intro

hi friends, welcome to the first artifact of virgo season — eye of the needle.

after the confident, celebratory fixed fire of leo, we are turning inwards, transitioning from late summer into fall with virgo. virgo is mutable earth, ruled by mercury. it's a soft, analytical earth that cares for the details.

the themes we'll explore this season are:

• the art of noticing everything, paying attention
• practicing devotion and dedication to craft
• the dangers of perfectionism; getting lost in the small things, a feeling of not being enough, and
• the tending labor of virgo energy — attention to the minutiae, being in service as a love language, as a form of care.

zooming into the details of practice

this artifact is a way of exploring our relationship to creative practice — the precision of threading a needle in relationship with timing, momentum, and energy; how we take action in moving our craft forwards, one tiny thread at a time.

eye of the needle is an invitation to zoom in to the details and to zoom out, after coming from the regal authority of leo, of throne rooms and mirrors.

in this artifact, we will return to the craft, to the earthly, the material, to day-to-day practice as forms of devotional care just as worthy of our attention. virgo is passion and care expressed in the minutiae of small daily acts. here we find sacredness in rhythms, in process, in stitching together a creative life one fragment at a time.

the purpose: of this artifact is to explore how relating to your creative practice with the materiality of needles, threads, and threading the needle through the eye can bring a focus, earthiness, and grounding to the creative work. and that grounding can create its own momentum and freedom.

our guiding question is: what would it mean to guide a single creative thread through the eye of a needle in your practice?

explorations

for context, as I started researching and thinking about this artifact, I found a quote from the new testament: "it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of god." here the eye of the needle is describing an impossible task, in which spiritual salvation is not obtained by material gain.

however, virgos are capable of doing impossible tasks through the mundane, and this — independent of material accumulation — is its own sort of wealth. it is having in place the rituals, a well-stocked kitchen, your favorite herbal teas, a relationship to time, to earth, that can create a foundation for the sacred to emerge.

so we'll start by exploring this artifact in elemental pieces: the needle, the thread, the eye, and the work.

needle — as practice

here we're talking about a sewing needle as an instrument of precision. sewing needles are for bringing together fragments and pieces. as opposed to a sewing machine or factory labor, this is hand labor. it's not about efficiency, but tangibility and precision. it's about holding the needle between your fingers and feeling how it feels to move it through a piece of cloth.

in the context of creative life, the needle represents your practice, your relationship to your practice, how that feels in your body, in your hand. there is a paradoxical nature to a tool made for piercing — a tool that is sharp, and at the same time, a tool that can mend and bring things together.

thinking about this in the context of virgo energy, it's the ability to see the flaws, see the imperfections, to see how systems can be improved. there is a sharpness of discernment and attention. your needle belongs to you. and in the act of discernment, division, separation, there is a mending together — a threading through the fragments of our lives and experiences into meaning-making that becomes our creative forms. we use the creative practice as a needle that can stitch our multiplicities together.

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This is an excerpt of this artifact.