Knitting inspiration

My morning meditation today was a few rows of knitting. I came to an instruction I wasn't quite sure about - to bind off over the next two rows. Impatient to finish this first part of the first sweater I've ever knit, I forged ahead not really understanding why "over the next two rows". I quickly learned upon binding off just one row, that the yarn wasn't in the proper place to continue knitting the neck of the sweater, and I would have to unknit a bit, and continue on. The direction to bind off over the next two rows became clear: in order to finish working the neck, you'd have to bind off the first 28 stitches on the first row and the 2nd 28 on the 2nd row. That would leave the yarn in the right place to finish the neck. Now, if you're not a knitter, this may not make sense to you, but the real reason I'm writing about it, is that it reminded me of two things. One, Buddhism teaches us to rely on direct experience. And a passage that I quote often from Tom Cowan's Shamanism as Every Day Spiritual Practice which suggests that we never have to read another book or take another class, if we just watch nature we will learn everything we need to know.
What struck me as I was knitting, unknitting and knitting again, is that so many of us think: oh, I couldn't do that, I couldn't learn that by myself, I need someone to help me, show me, guide me. I myself get so frustrated sometimes with simple directions that I give up and want the easy way: someone else to do it for me.
But when I have the presence of mind to slow down, and just experience, just try, just experiment, I'm usually overjoyed at the result. There's nothing more rewarding than figuring out something for ourselves.
Now I'm not suggesting that we don't need others to teach us things. I am grateful to the friend who taught me to knit. Her mother taught her how to, and now I feel I am part of a lineage. Which is really how it was done in the old days. Apprenticeships a more formalized aspect of this. But really, most of what we know is handed down to us in this way, in our families, in our business lives, and in our creative pursuits as well.
It's really no wonder that knitting is enjoying such a resurgence. It's an amazing little microcosm of life and learning, spirit and matter, dream and manifestation.
There's nothing like making something with your own hands.