For the World Kindness Day which is celebrated every year on November 13th we thought of creating a dream catcher. The dream catcher is a PERFECT GIFT to give both to ourselves and to others with a single, loving wish: to have serenity and peace.
LEGEND says that this magical object was an integral part of many Native American cultures who believed it protected people from bad dreams and negative energy during sleep and guided them to good dreams. It is also said that they make DREAMS COME TRUE…
Where do you hang a dream catcher? The ideal position is just above the headboard of the bed. The reason is that, by floating on the head of the sleeper during the night, the dream catcher can protect him from bad dreams, favoring the good ones, and then making them disappear as soon as the first light of the morning sun touches them.
The MEANING of this object is lost in ancient times: inside a CIRCLE, which represents the universe and the cycle of life, a NET is stretched, which symbolizes the instability of the world of dreams. Dreams are filtered by the net, the darker and heavier ones remain trapped and are attracted to the central part, held back by threads and pearls, dispersing in the light of the new day. Positive dreams, on the other hand, are free to flow through the FEATHERS, which represent the air and the flight of birds.
To complete our gift we reflected on the words of kindness: after viewing the Silent Book “Way of Kindness” together we searched and told each other kind actions that we have given or received.
For our dream catchers we used:
- An iron wire approximately 40 cm long
- a glass jar or bottle to create the circle with the thread
- colored wool thread to cover the iron wire
- cotton thread to make the internal net
- beads (with rather large hole)
- cardboard and watercolors to make the feathers
- scissors and a hole punch to make holes in the paper
First we wrapped the wire around a cylindric bottle or a jar to create a regular circle, then we wrapped a colored wool thread around the wire circle, creating a handle fixed with knots, in order to hang our dream catcher.
To create the internal net we used a white or colored cotton thread and knotted it to the circle in various points, also with the addition of beads knotted inside the net:
The hanging feathers were made of watercolor colored paper, and hung with more cotton threads and pearls on the dream catcher. On the feathers everyone wrote the actions of kindness that we can give every day to those around us: we wrote words like “I smile at you”, “I thank you”, “I help you”, “I apologize”, “I love you”, “I respect you”…
Che belle creazioni!
Grazie Miriam, a resto.
Elisa
A presto!! ; ))