Mandala 2020 - Stage 14

 After a summer hiatus, the Mandala is back beside my chair. I had forgotten how large it is, how heavy, how challenging. I fought to master the hook and yarn, the pattern, the heft of the object. It seemed a different thing than when I last worked on it in August. 

In fact, however, I am the different thing, not it.

This year of death, grief and pandemic have left me simply attempting to get through the days of work, politics and daily news with my soul and wits intact. Dumping myself into a chair at night, not reflecting on my day nor eagerly looking for the next has left me at odds with the joie de vivre which has followed me through my life, always at my elbow. I recognize this missing joy now, as I pick up the Mandala.

I am a different person today than when I put away the Mandala in August. I have learned despair at the continual death toll from Covid-19 (315,000 in the US and 1.7 million world wide); disbelief in my countrymen who deny community care for their own personal freedom; disgust at the plotting and politicking of our national leader in this 2020 election cycle; despondence that I cannot see, hug, touch my far flung family and even my co-workers in the next office.

I am uncertain if this is now my new normal. I don't want to be this; I want my light and happiness, my joy and jolly back. I don't know how to move through this morass of darkness with the grace that I once claimed as mine.

The Mandala helped in the early part of the year by giving me a focus; I am sure it will help again. The time spent, the rhythm of the hook and yarn, the repetition of the pattern, all these will bring clarity to my mind and soul as mandalas have done through the millennia. In the beginning I had hoped the Mandala would restore order, lead me back to my previous self; now I am reminded that it is leading me to whatever I am becoming, accompanied by a new and present darkness, as I wend through this life time. 

Mandala 2020 - Stage 13

This summertime has slowed the Mandala project down. There are garden crops to tend, harvest and process; perennial borders to maintain, water and prune; searing midday sun to shelter from inside the window-shaded darkened house in attempts at staying cool. 

All that and 13 of 18 stages of the Mandala are now complete with 36,706 official stitches. I note "official" because I am not keeping count of all my reworked, undone, redone stitches and rows. The project has officially become too large to photograph in the one big circle it has become. While there is floor space enough to support it, there isn't height to manage a picture. Still, the partial picture provides sufficient reference to understand the whole.

In a mad dash of get 'er done before the zucchinis take over my existence I finished this beautiful section. I love the green and brown previous stage, moving into purple and lavender of this stage; it reminds me of this stunning prairie vista with earth curving arcs of tilled earth and green fields melding into the blue purple mountains, sunrises and sunsets. This harvest season of heavy hanging orange moons and burning orange suns of rises and sets are stitched into the memories of the Mandala.

We are at the end of August and Covid-19 is still running wild among us. Idaho's confirmed cases topped 31,000 this week with more than 350 dead. Globally we are counting 25 million cases with nearly 1 million deaths; the US accounts for a quarter of both of those statistics. Summer festivals, rodeos, reunions and fairs went on as if we there were no cause for concern. 

At my most pessimistic I wonder if the best way to manage this weight of death is to embrace the nihilistic approach that this pandemic is doing what all pandemics do: Successfully reducing the meaningless human population of Earth.

Mandala 2020 - Stage 12.5

The Mandala sits in its basket, next to my chair, waiting, waiting for me to give it some attention. Each time I sit down at the beginning or end of a day, I see it there waiting waiting - it is a presence in our house now. The project is paused while time and attention are focused elsewhere. And, to be frank, it is too warm to drape the heavy blanket it has become over myself. Perhaps it is for a later different season where meditation and reflection are the natural companions of the darkness and silence of winter.

These days of summer have been full of busyness and business. Covid-19 is on the rise with its concomitant stress and concern at home and work. A flurry of mask-making to protect daughters and their co-workers and friends has been a creative focus the last few weeks. I sewed the hope of good health into each, along with the prayer that the people who wear them commit to protecting their community. Let's take care of one another instead of fighting against the fear of "socialism" when the government requires mask wearing. Don't we all wear seat belts? pay car insurance? have driving licenses? These are also edicts intended to protect us. Please realize this is more important than personal freedom, this is a daring, revolutionary act of We the People. The pervasive us vs. them mentality is likely to kill us all. 

Our state reports over 100 deaths by Covid-19. At the end of June I wondered when we would hit the 5,000 positive cases milestone, and here we are, mid-July at 11,000. Will we be at 20,000 by August? Everyone wants schools to open in the fall - President is pushing it, Governor has a plan. There still isn't enough PPE for medical staff for caring for sick patients; how will we protect our teachers and children? I pray pray it isn't a foolish gamble with our children, with their lives and futures. 

The garden is producing food at a rapid clip which we are putting away for the quietness of winter. As I harvest the greens and roots and fruits I am amazed at these plants, this earth, whose only job is to produce, produce. I remind myself to be mindful, to be grateful, for this miracle, this gift of food that the tiny seeds sown early this year, this land and weather, are providing.

Mandala 2020 - Stage 12

Days are getting longer, the season lifting the heaviness of the past four months. The pandemic is less scary. 

There is rioting in the streets with people crying out for change. Fed up with police reacting always in fear mixed with invincibility, expecting the worst, free to kill people in their care with no consequence, performing as trial judge and executioner - this is not what "peace officers" do. 

Breonna Taylor, sleeping in her home, shot eight times, no-knock warrant. George Floyd, strangled, asphyxiated, 8 minutes crying out for breath, stopped for passing suspected counterfeit $20. These tipped the scale, already heavy with similar tragic examples.

Living so isolated, insulated, it is hard to understand how the cry "I can't breath" can spark protests across the world, but it has. 

All this woven into the Mandala these last weeks. This stage shifted from personal grief to national, global. Remember these rows: the teardrop bobbles of red feeding the green of spring growth, winter shucking blue sky, and brown humus earth. What are we growing? What is on the other side of this new circle, time, place and space? How do we collectively spin a new, improved relationship with one another and unite in these united states.

Mandala 2020 - Stage 11

Look at me now, cries the Mandala, as it grows in weight and width. It is hard to keep it quiet, hidden, now that it has heft and commands space.

The pandemic death toll topped 100,000 in the US this week. The number is near to 1,000 deaths each day. That, too, commands space, has heft.

I wondered if  there were 100,000 stitches in this Mandala, so I counted them thus far: 27,318. This doesn't include the several, many, rows I repeated, stitches I pulled out to make again. It does include some padding - those bobbles which are five stitches woven together with a single stitch and counted as one. I want full credit for the bobbles.

One round in this stage nearly drove me to tears. The stitches were not falling into the places I expected; the instructions said the pattern was asymmetrical - was the seemingly incorrect pattern supposed to be like that? Knowing it couldn't be right, trusting that it was, I tried to keep going. Three times I tried. Three times I failed. 

I finally stuffed the Mandala into my basket and left it in a huff to play in the garden.

It occurred to me there, hands deep into prairie soil, that the problem wasn't the current row, but rather the previous row. And indeed, upon examination, it was proven so. I missed a few stitches out of the expected 552, making it impossible to move forward.

What a lot of analogies this stage can claim:

• A good foundation leads to success.
• I am the trinity of past, present and future.
• Trust your instincts!
• If at first you don't succeed ... try at least three times before giving up in a huff.
• When things are out of sync, reflect on, examine, the past, the situation. Adjust as needed to be successful, to move.on.keep.going.

Mandala 2020 - Stage 10

The author of the mandala pattern wrote "whew" at the end of this tenth section, and I wholeheartedly agree! I was initially intimidated by the bobbles - I don't particularly care for making bobbles - and this section includes 88 of the little beauties! And the rows included  color changes almost every stitch. Challenging. Frightening. I delayed work on it, intimidated.

Tension became an issue as I struggled to manage two colors of yarn and new stitch instructions and bobbles. Without just the right amount of tension, the mandala would be a mess - too tight in places and unable to support the next row of stitches; too wobbly and saggy in others. In these crazy times of global pandemic and death and personal loss, I find tension playing a role as well. Too much stress, tension, I break and weaken, unable to move.on.keep.going. No tension, while sounding glorious, produces a different weakness, but just as destructive: forgetfulness, neglect, lack of clarity and focus.

As I weave my uravelled life back together I speculate that there is no "back" to go to. I stood outside one night in the golden light of the full Flower Moon and asked the universe to show me my way back, begged my spirit to come back to me. And the seeming response was the clear siren call, "You cannot go back. There is no path back." 

This tension of healing, well-being, understanding this grief. It is freeing, comforting. Keep this tension just so, and the pattern and usefulness, beauty and glory, are revealed as I step forward, into whatever new life I am creating, wholly, one stitch at a time.

Mandala 2020 - Stage 9

The Mandala Project is now half way completed. Woot!

So much has happened since I started this journey. The personal grief has been joined by the national and global grief of the COVID-19 pandemic. The uncertainty of moving forward through this time on a personal level has met the challenges locally and nationally of social distancing and sheltering in place as we strive to "flatten the curve" of the virus. Some days are almost too much - teeth chattering without a fever - as stress piles onto stress.

Then I pick up this project and give my poor heartbreak a rest as I focus focus on the stitches, the counting, the tension of the yarn. The rhythmic hook in yarn over hook in pull through again and again over thousands and ten thousands of times becalms, becomes a heartbeat, soothing, creating, sustaining, calming.

Each round is eight repeats, and that first one, and the second, are the hardest. Sussing out the pattern, the construction, putting in and pulling out, counting, helps me understand the patterns of this life time, yet removes me from the same as I place myself into the work at hand. I think of this, the work at hand, and I begin to understand that this is the calming thing. I KNOW what is coming, what to do, how to do it. Even if it lasts just an hour or two a day, this I know in this unknowing time.

Mandala 2020 - Stage 8

The Mandala is nearing the half way point, and each row fills with added stitches to make the circle. It is taking longer to complete each round, so I fully expect a slowing down, a quieting of the initial storm sustained by the excitement of newness and discovery. This is when patience for and dedication to the finished product set in and (hopefully) sustain me to the end. Or, just as likely, they vanish and this becomes a smaller version of the whole project leaving me with lots of yarn to start another new and exciting project to begin, begin, begin and not end. An addition to the collection of Not Finished Yet.

Despair chased hope around and around on this section as I watched the numbers of COVID-19 cases climb and the dates of our Scotland trip slip away without us. Entries in the daily book documented the last years' adventures anew each day. Easter came and went; not a single egg was boiled. I took a few days off from work for rest and rejuvenation in the garden; tears chased contentment, watered new plants.

The Mandala was fraught with the same polarized mixture, this time of success and failure; I pulled out as many stitches as I put in on the last few rounds, trying to get the rhythm, to understand the pattern, to accept the results with faith and grace that the next row would be okay. Move on, keep going. A slipped stitch here or a missed one there will not shipwreck the project. Move on. Keep going.

Move. On. Keep. Going.

Mandala 2020 - Stages 5 through 7

Since last posting the novel Corona Virus pandemic has truly swept the US. Well over one million people world wide have contracted the virus - at least that is the number tested with positive results. Of all the apocalyptic items taught in Sunday school, I never dreamed pandemic would appear in my lifetime. Wars, yes. Insects, of course. Frenetic and outrageous weather, definitely. But not pandemic.

Regardless of COVID-19, the wheels of the Mandela go around and around.

They are challenging - some go around in a circle, familiar. Some double back; in some I stitch below and others, prepare to stitch from above.

Like the time we are now living through, reading ahead in the directions doesn't prepare me for the actual work of the round. I haven't been there before and simply need to live through the act of creation.

And, like every circle in the world, there is just no way to get ahead, be prepared, see around the upcoming corner.

I have spent a good amount of time undoing stitches as well, reinforcing my belief in try try again. There is no shame in failure, backspacing, pulling stitches. This act provides me more practice making the stitches, understanding the construction methods, dreaming and scheming of ways to utilized this knowledge in the next project - the one on the other side of this circle.

Mandala 2020 - Stages 1 through 4

I started this mandala afghan after a tragic death in our family in early February 2020. This is slow, rhythmic, methodical, meditative, creative work. As I grieve, be reaved of joy by the thieves of delayed sorrows of the past years, I run to it because I don't know where else to run. Into the stitches are woven the hopes, regrets, joys, sorrows; the loss and the lives, the corporeal and the spiritual. Each round, each thousand or ten thousand stitches documents the slow move into who and where I am, or will be, on the other side of the grief.

Both my grand Mothers, who also crocheted, sit with me in this endeavor. Their forte was doilies worked with needles so tiny as to seem without a hook and thread gossamer thin. I discovered Elizabeth's workbasket when we cleaned out dad's place last summer. A visceral shock of memories as it contained not only decades of childhood memories, but also the project she was working on when she died, a doily so finely crafted that I wonder how she could work it with fading eyesight and bent, arthritic hands.

Did my grand Mothers run to their crochet to work through their emotions, too, round after round, letting go, putting in, documenting who and where they were in their place and space and time? Will my mandala be a document to this place and space and time for me?

I am not so skilled in crochet to claim this pattern as my own. It is called Mandala Madness, copyright by Helen Shrimpton, 2015, www.crystalsandcrochet.com. She deserves all the credit for developing, writing and then sharing this pattern.

Coronavirus 1. Orkney Trip 0.

While hope springs eternal, a pandemic trumps even my optimism. Good bye 2020 trip to Orkney. We will try again in 2021.

Orkney 2020

I have heard Orkney described as "the place between the wind and the water". This archipelago of more than 50 islands may be just that.

Orkney is located off the northeast coast of Scotland, and was settled by the Northmen. This is different from the western islands we visited the last few years which were settled by the Gaels and Celts. Orkney's history and archaeological sites are different; the grave cairns are built differently, their stone circles predate Stonehenge in southern England by 500 years, and their language and folk tales bear a resemblance to their ancestors from the north.

We will spend most of our time on Mainland, the biggest island, with ferry trips planned to Rousay, Egilsay, Wyre and Eynhallow.

We have just 23 days until we head out.

In this time of the COVID-19 outbreak, however, we aren't certain we will actually make it to the UK. Already our Aer Lingus flight was cancelled and rescheduled; our Logan Air flight changed twice; and now Delta is "cutting back" flights. With so many connections to make both here and abroad, I wonder if we will be able to travel.

Ah, well. I am the eternal optimist, so I am acting like we will be fine and our trip is not in jeopardy.

Windmill Quilt

Like most of the quilts here I started this one many years ago, about the time my oldest left for college. The quilt top languished in a drawer for a decade. Last summer (2019) I painted the pink and tan bedroom upstairs and needed a new and fresh bed cover to match the cool grey and white decor.

Once again much of the material came from the boxes and suitcases of squares gifted to my oldest daughter so many years ago. If only I could recall the name of the lady who was so generous; as a quilter I imagine she would be delighted to see how her gift has expanded and takes pride of place in so many ways.

A simple dark blue border holds the twirling windmills in the frame. I backed the quilt with the tan material and pulled it from the back for  the binding. This quilt is simply tied with blue thread.

There aren't a lot of windmills here on the prairie, but the playful light and dark, blues, greens and spots of yellow in the quilt remind me of this place, this prairie I call home.

Reuse Recycle Quilt

I love the idea of making something new with items considered outdated, unwearable or otherwise without value. It takes a bit more time to cut out the shapes from cast off jeans or shirts, but the results speak for themselves.

My favorite thrift store donated a pile of jeans and old flannel shirts to create a quilt for our employee holiday party as a door prize. This is the result, and I think it is charming.

The denim shows its age with pilling and some stains. The flannel is stretched some at the elbows. The history of the of the material simply adds more depth and meaning to the finished product.

The quilt is a half square triangle pattern, tied with a very light batting to offset the weight of the denim.

I hope the winner of this quilt uses it in good health, takes it on remarkable adventures of picnics, beach outings and baseball games, and cuddles beneath it with loved ones.