We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Jennifer DeGeorge a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.
Hi Jennifer, appreciate you sitting with us today to share your wisdom with our readers. So, let’s start with resilience – where do you get your resilience from?
oh wow that’s a good one! My resilience was born from the darkest moments of my life, the fall in your knees crying moments, the defeat and failure you feel when things crumble before your very eyes. The life i dreamed of as a young girl, and worked towards and built shattered in a million tiny pieces around me and when i fell down along with them and felt all the feels and was consumed by the sadness and sorrow of it, it was time to stand up again. And when i did i picked up each piece and examined it thoughtfully and decided which pieces i would use to rebuild myself and which ones were no longer needed. What a process that was. What a gift it is to fall apart only to rebuild yourself the way you were always intended to be. And that is where the seed of my true resilience was planted. And i water it each day so it can grow and thrive and be stronger.
Let’s take a small detour – maybe you can share a bit about yourself before we dive back into some of the other questions we had for you?
I am a Painter/Printmaker & mosaic artist turned Weaver and Knitter in the last 8 years. Art has been feeding my soul and fueling me since i was a young girl. It is an extension of what lives inside my being and soul. It is my food.
Currently I weaving large wall tapestries and smaller framed pieces and knit hats. It has been such a healing creative outlet for me.
As a mother of two it is convienent to be able to work in my home studio.
We renovated a small portion in our basement to accommodate a small weaving studio for myself and built 3 different sized looms to weave on. I feel most at ease and calm while in this studio space, it is nestled in our home next to our woodstove, our home is nestled within the mountain and the energy around it is both breathtaking & serene. I have a beautiful view of the chin of Mount Mansfield which is the highest peak in the state of Vermont….from all the back windows of my home as we sit in Thunder Basin and this has been the greatest inspiration for my weavings. We in Vermont are surrounded by so much natural beauty throughout the seasons. Each season beginning i have a rebirth of love for that season and then a death of that when the season closes. My weavings have been focused on the mountain and the way she changes with each season and each time of day, the light, the color, and all the changes she goes through is what i aim to translate through fiber, color and texture on my loom. Each weaving is how I interpret the mountain in all her phases.
In my journey with art and my seeking of balance, I found harmony in this nature and expression. She resonates deeply with me, and i find her a mirror for myself at times. In my own seasons of my life, my phases, my transformations, we are both changing and continuing, ongoing, constant, weathering and being weathered. And when i look to her she is always there, even in cloud cover when i can’t ‘see’ her, i know exactly where she is. My connection to this mountain has grown stronger in the years I’ve started weaving, and of course that shifts the way I see her and what she feeds into me daily, and then how I bring that to my looms.
She changes with every moment…
She’s never the same, yet she is always constant.
If you had to pick three qualities that are most important to develop, which three would you say matter most?
Determination, Love, Acceptance.
Being determined to keep going, keep growing, keep evolving, keep healing, keep learning. You have to be dedicated and determined to continue these things no matter what road you’re on or what your journey looks like. It’s the not giving up attitude that will ultimately get you where you need to be.
Loving what you are doing or loving where you are trying to get to is a big element for your momentum. It is everything, to love and be loved. Keep falling in love with yourself and what you are doing and creating. How can you fail at that??
Acceptance of what the universe places in front of you. Even if that’s not part of your plan, being open to receive it. There are higher meanings at play and we need to have faith in that. Accepting and receiving the beautiful, easy, the hard and the darkness, there are lessons and higher meanings in them for
us. We need to be open to it all.
What’s been one of your main areas of growth this year?
Breathwork. Focusing on my mental & physical wellbeing in ways i haven’t been able to give that attention to in a long time. Learning how and when to fully breathe. In my most challenging moments, stopping and immediately being mindful of my breath and practicing breathing exercises to keep me regulated. Cold water immersion 3-4 times a week. Resetting my nervous system and all the benefits for my mind & body that go
along with cold immersion has shifted a lot in me. Learning how to be uncomfortable and lean into discomfort is where the most growth comes
from. really listening to what my body wants: food wise and supplement wise, walking daily outside, being barefoot and grounding into the earth, taking a 25 minute nap, 528 hertz frequency sound healing music daily. All these things i incorporate into my daily life for my mental/physical/emotional & spiritual wellbeing.
Contact Info:
- Instagram: moonlightweavings
Image Credits
hat pattern credit: Angie D PowerHouse Knits
