On Enough: Notes from the Worktable

I recently did my first electional working: Spica candles during a narrow window lasting only sixteen minutes. On paper, that sounds doable, though precise. When I started setting up and melting wax, it felt almost urgent, and I found myself getting nervous about the timing. Electional lore would say the timing is everything. And it does matter. But standing there, wax warming, wicks ready, I noticed something else: there was actually enough time.

Despite the limited window, sixteen minutes did not feel scarce. It felt deliberate. I slowed down. I trusted the pour. The magic was not only in the stars, but also in my pace. Everything flowed with intention.

Astrological elections are about capturing the birth of a moment. But as I crafted my candles, I realized that we are always giving birth to something. That thought has stayed with me. Every act of making is creation—thought, action, words, magical objects. The election simply sharpens the frame around it. It sharpens our attention.

At the other end of my metaphorical worktable sits the beginning of a velvet Tunisian crochet scarf. I don’t need a scarf. The yarn was already here, soft and indulgent, beautiful and luxurious, decadent even, and the project chose itself more than I chose it. But the project has me asking a quiet question: why make something unnecessary? I think the question contains its own answer. The hours of working the yarn, noticing the tension, adjusting the hook, delighting in the colour: that is the practice. The finished scarf will simply be the exhale. Like the Full Moon, it will be the visible culmination of a longer arc.

And then there is the cross stitch pattern I have been working on for over a year. I am almost halfway through it, and while working on this project I have learned something unromantic and important: I have to stop when my body (fingers) and mind (attention) have had enough.

When I am tired or inattentive, errors multiply. The thread twists, snaps, snags. I miscount and start to get irritated as I frog areas I have already covered. I battle the desire to push through, to get further, to finish the row and make progress visible. I struggle against the limit. I forget that it will take the time it takes, and that the process matters more than the progress.

In these moments, errors become teacher, boundary, mirror. My hands know before my mind does. And yet I push past that signal far too often—not only in stitching. There is always the urge to do more, to reach further, to make the moment of completion arrive sooner. But the work resists being hurried. Velvet does not rush. Wax does not pour faster because I will it. Thread does not untangle itself.

There was enough time, even in sixteen minutes, when I was present. The real practice is happening long before the moon waxes full and appears complete. It is happening in the pace, in the texture, in the decision to stop when attention fades.

It will take the time it takes.