Last week I went to the official book launch and reading of Crafting Calm by Maggie Oman Shannon. It was at a lovely little West Portal bookstore, had a sweet crowd and is a book worth checking out if you’ve experienced the benefit of crafting which I obviously have as I shared in my book, Crochet Saved My Life.

Maggie Oman Shannon is a minister who has authored five other books researching different aspects of cross-cultural spirituality. In this book she moves into the first person and shares how she herself has used crafting to deepen her spiritual life. She also shares the stories of a bunch of other crafters who have done the same thing. Crafting, healing and storytelling in one book … that’s right up my alley!

The West Portal bookshop is actually this San Francisco author’s home bookstore so she was able to bring in a bunch of her own craft projects for us to check out and she shared the stories behind them, many of which are stories in the book. Her publisher was there as were members of her church plus some of us who just love crafts and reading.

Some of the things she mentioned in her talk that I want to highlight:

• Maggie emphasizes that you don’t have to be proficient at crafts or even moderately technically skilled at them to get creative benefits from them. It’s about the process, not the product. I so agree! I will add the caveat, though, that I think that while you shouldn’t focus on your technical skills or compare yourself to other crafters I do think that there is immense benefit in constantly pushing your own creative boundaries and stretching yourself and your craft skills.
• Vision boards help. I’ve never actually made one but I can totally see how taking the time to focus on an intention would encourage you to do what you need to do to make that thing happen. I’m thinking about doing something similar myself now.
• There is power in the simple act of creating. It can even be an activist statement, “I will create in the face of destruction; I will see beauty in the face of disaster!”

Maggie just has a really peaceful air about her and you can tell that the time that she devotes to her combined creative and spiritual life has given her deep inner strength. I enjoyed seeing that.

Maggie opened up the conversation for other people to share their own craft experiences. Sometimes I love to talk about my book and experiences and sometimes I’m more in a listening mood than a sharing mood. This was a listening mood kind of day for me so I didn’t share but I did enjoy hearing what people had to say about how crafting had helped them.