Maria has a new, wonderful, and timely idea. She sold this one before she even finished it.

She has been meditating for much of her life,  indoors and out, and she understands the complexity and comfort issues quite well. She had this idea – above – to make a four-layered mat that will help people sit, squat, or kneel on the floor or anywhere. It’s soft and beautiful, and a piece of art to boot.

Maria is an idea machine, and meditation has become a central part of her spiritual and creative life.

I’ve seen some mats; hers are beautiful. And meditation mats are especially timely these days, and a perfect gift in my mind. Every morning in the winter, Maria meditated outdoors on the coldest mornings, wrapped in a sheepskin.

She knows what a Meditation Mat ought to feel like.

She called this first one “Mystical Woods”it’s 29 “x “41” and costs $150. It has four layers of cotton batting and is about two inches thick. Below are all the details from her blog, in her own words. As I mentioned, it’s been sold.

P.S. She plans to make more; she will post them on her Etsy Page and take orders from people wanting to buy them offline. Her email is

[email protected].

She accepts payments via PayPal, Venmo, and checks.

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P.S. Meditation mats are thousands of years old. Ancient yogis used bare earth and animal hides; the introduction of woven rugs, the Chinese zafu cushion, and the 1980s innovation of synthetic mats have changed how practitioners sit, ground themselves, and meditate. This one has Maria’s artistic stamp.

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Maria is in her studio with her first Meditation mat.

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Maria: “When my friend Mandy asked me to make a  Meditation Mat, I thought it was a nice idea.

It wasn’t until I started meditating for an hour each morning that I realized, I too, had a meditation mat.

My meditation mat is a sheep hide that Jon bought long before I knew him. It’s an actual sheepskin; one side is soft, warm wool, and the other is leather, which keeps wet and cold from seeping through. It’s perfect for using outside, where I meditate most of the time.

The sheep hide had an obvious meaning for me, since I keep sheep.   But sitting on it again and again,  while I meditate, it has gained even more significance.    It has become a part of my meditation practice.

So when I lay it under the apple tree or pine tree, or arrange it on the wicker bench on the back porch, I know I’m going to be sitting there for an hour with the intention of being present in the moment.

The first time I make something new, I’m going to take myself some time to figure out how to create it.

 I woke up one night thinking about how to finish off my first Meditation Mat.

 I thought I could make it the same way I do my quilts.   Sewing all the layers of fabric and batting together,  hand stitching the opening in the bottom, then tacking it with yarn.

But the four layers of batting,  plus the fabric, were too thick to sew through or pull yarn through.   I tried a few different ideas, but the one that worked was to treat the mat more like a pillow and a pillowcase.

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“First, I made a simple muslin covering for the four layers of batting. Then I reworked the backing of the meditation mat so the opening was on the back instead of the bottom. This way, the batting can also be removed to wash the meditation mat.

Then I just needed some Velcro to secure the opening. I went to every store in town looking for Velcro, but couldn’t find what I needed. So I ordered some and got it two days later.”

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Her email is [email protected].

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