All the Light - 2023

 

I started this project in September 2022 and finished it in February 2023. It was a fascinating project, full of twists and turns, new stitches and an engaging story line. I couldn't put it down! 

This is a Crochet Along from 2020 by Sheepjes called d'Histoire Naturelle. The pattern is based on the book All the Light We Cannot See by Idaho author Anthony Doerr. Much of the setting of the book is in Paris' natural history museum, and each part of the pattern focuses on a section of the museum starting at the center: Jardin des Plantes, Galerie d'Entomologie, Galerie de Botanique, Galerie de Mineralogie et Geologie, Grand Galerie de l'Evolution, and finally Galerie de Paleontologie.

In the photo the Jardin des Plantes starts in the middle of the circle and ends at the pink square garden walls. Full of plants, flowers and hedges, this section is full of life and blooms.

Next is the entomology department. Featuring bees and butterflies and plants to sustain them, this section was challenging to crochet. You can see the bees and butterflies in the next photo.

The final section shown is the Galerie de Botanique, a round greenhouse full of plants and leaves.

The four corners represent the Minerology and Geology department. Can you just imagine the dark gallery with agates, quartz, lapis lazuli, rhodochrosite, jade and geodes sparkling under the lights directed at them from above? The gems glow in their dark backgrounds, bordered by white diamonds.

The Galerie de l'Evolution features a parade of animals representing the march of evolution. In the museum this can be viewed from the arcades, galleries and walkways above the display. At the head of the march, or perhaps at the end of it, is the elephant, see here above the diamonds. Can you make out the balcony above the elephants as well, with its marble balustrades?

The last Gallery in the afghan features seashells, pearls, bones and skeletons.

This project was compelling. Unique to me, the idea of creating a crochet project based on a book's description of a place spurred me on to designing my own pattern for a Tree of Life mandala. I am sketching and planning; yarn is purchased; I am Googling how to write and record the pattern as it develops. 

Perhaps this endeavor, this project, revealed some of the light in me I cannot see, or have not seen, or have put under a basket for far too long.

Transformation & Hope - Parts 7, 8 & 9

 

For some unexplained reason once I started on the last 23 rounds that made up Parts 7, 8 and 9, I did not stop until I reached the end. It was not a flurry of activity, drop everything and get 'er done effort, rather a steady, methodical work that filled evenings watching baseball, restful afternoons after mornings of outside labor, and one day listening to the rain fall during a September vacation.

The work was easier - straight rows down four sides of the square which, once started on a single stitch pattern repeated itself from corner to corner. No repeats of four or eight or 16 as in the center circle and star work. No need to check check check the pattern. Quick and fluid the yarn slipped from the skein into the finished product.

I wonder now, with the quiet and calm completion of the blanket how I have been transformed over this last year, or if my easy hope has returned from where it has taken itself to hide.

Decidedly there is movement "across, beyond, through and on the other side of" many things: family celebrations; beginning my sixth decade; personal self-reflection and examination; creative endeavors outside this project; planting and reaping, editing and amending, tending our house, our place. Living the verb form of trans, where creation, building and devising reside, is natural to me: I do create, make, construct and devise all day long. This is my center, the me that ignites joy and maps my life.

The noun of form, however, is harder to examine. I have changed my shape - lost 25 pounds, let my hair grow, tried new pieces in my wardrobe. Our family is a different shape now with new people joining it. The old house is getting new windows; our field will bloom with 1,500 daffodils in the spring; more fences are coming down.

Has my character changed this last year? Undoubtedly. I am Sixty and I am uncertain how to be this new character of crone, hag, witch - not the insulting words, rather the complimentary nuances of the old meanings and origins: Crone - an abusive word meaning carrion, a dead thing, newly reclaimed as a symbol of mature female wisdom; Hag - a word applied only to women the origin of which is close to diviner or soothsayer; Witch - convoluted and confused throughout time and across languages, its origin containing hints of healer and holy, tinged with knowledge of herbs and healing. I also sense a new fragility in my psyche and body, stamina and strength.

There also has welled up, or let loose, anger and cynicism in me, a dark hope and expectation, as delusion runs rampant in the US and the world. The ongoing onslaught of political and military lies from two men on opposite sides of the world, intent on tearing us apart, prodding wounds and gloating over the bleeding for self-gain and perceived glory - authoritarianism raises its head above horizon close to home and is celebrated welcomed. 

These things these things these things sit like an ache on me.

The hope-that-hides resurfaces occasionally as I strive to live more from my core, my being, my center. I do not always know what this is, this center; however, I am finding it, feeling my way inward downward upward outward stretching to a lighter place.

And what is hope, really? An expectation of a good or better outcome? optimism? 

This year of meditation while transforming the light of the sun into a blanket warm compels me to deny these easy definitions. It is deeper, personal, rooted in my past, tied up in my present, a brief flame illuminating my future, lighting a way forward. Hope is not easy any longer, and this is a deep deep transformation. Digging down and out and up to grasp hope, that spark of light, requires strength and will, contemplation and fearlessness. 

Hope is work, and it is not easy.

Finished stats on the blanket:

Size: 60" x 60"
Weight: 3.25 lbs
Stitch count: 53,198
Start: November 2021
End: October 2022

Transformation & Hope - Part 6

Almost a lifetime has passed since I last mused on this year's Transformation & Hope project. In the intervening time we managed a long-delayed vacation to Orkney and a wedding. Intertwined with these events was months of rain and more rain. Talk about some transforming activities since March!

Undoubtedly the project is now a square. Each of the corners was crocheted independently of the other during this stage; the next stage sees me working once again around the perimeter without a break at the corners.

I worked each of the 13 rows at one time, repeating the stitches of the row at each of the four corners. This was somewhat jarring after the 77 rows of wending my way around the center still point, north star, epicenter. To take out my crochet needle, find the corner, start and end anew was fiddly and different, less contemplative and more structured, aligned, marching. I suppose this is how transformation works as well, moving from a rough field to pasture and wheat requires precision and work, planning and scheming, measuring and lifting the plow.

The rain has also been transforming - green wheat fields are yellowed from the water, planes flying overhead to spray fungicide to save crops, floods down Main Streets in towns and sandbags a common site. Our lawn is still green - that never happens in July! I am just getting the grass pulled out of the perennial borders as it has gone wild in the rain. No lilac this year either; the rain did them in.

It was the 9th wettest May on record here in the last 128 years. That's a lot of rain.

The flip side of transformation and this project is, of course, hope. I HOPE that the next stage of the mandala, when I work it in a full, non-stopping square, begins to find a contemplative rhythm once again, building itself around the still point.

I HOPE the crops do well with the rain and provide a stellar yield for our farmers and their families.

I HOPE the lilacs didn't drown, and I look forward in hope to next May for the annual glorious blooms and fragrance, a season indelibly printed on my lifetime. And Lilac Beer.

I also HOPE I can whack back the out of control grasses and weeds in the garden borders before it gets too hot and dry! And I HOPE some of the vegetables bear fruit.

The photo on the right doesn't look so square, and the colors are really washed out - blame the camera person who couldn't hold her phone at a flat angle and the LED lights that cast a strange color glow over the room.

Transformation & Hope - Part 5

I turned 60 years old while working on this section of the project which got me thinking about my own work of transformation. Of living. Of aging. Of hope.

In my first decades I looked forward to birthdays and cakes and special attention; I couldn't wait to get older and gain the privileges of maturity like driving a car, staying up late, graduation, drinking beer. With each leveling up of age, with each acquisition of perceived privilege, aging has become less momentous, less remarkable. Now I'm 60 there aren't many more privileges to gain or major milestones to hit.

Life seems to follow our sun's path across the sky: dawn, sunrise, mid-morning, noon day, afternoon, sunset, twilight, dusk and night. 

I have reached a sunsetting time, I think, with the sun shining less brightly, nearing the horizon and the closing of my day on Earth. I am crepuscular, like a deer, living on the edge of light and darkness, of building a career and retirement, of child rearing and empty nest, of acquiring home and wealth to planning life without income.

This isn't maudlin or depressing; it is as all my Grandmothers from the dawn of time have experienced. I am learning to celebrate it, own my truth my age myself as my last decades approach. Observing, noting, watching who I am, am becoming, want to be to claim to have to hold. I'm not getting anywhere with this scrutiny; yet, I examine.

Not certain what all this musing has to do with the work of the mandala except that holding creation in my hands, spinning yarn into creation, sun into mandala frees my mind and heart to wander, inquire, muse and dream. 

So here I am.

This section finished with a nice round of "flowers", clearly serendipitous with the Spring equinox just a few weeks away. I love how the Universe does this! The project is now ready to transform into a square; can't wait to see how this will unfold, like my life!

Transformation & Hope - Part 4

I am now officially done with 66 rows of 114. It sounds like I've completed half the project; however, as I remember from the Mandala 2020, row count has very little to do with completion time or effort. As the project gets larger, the number of stitches in each row increases, which results in it requiring longer to circumnavigate - if I can use that word in a craft project.

The mandala has completed its transformation from star to circle. Part 4 is solidly, line in the sand, no questions asked, clearly stating: I am transformed!

The deep dark green yarn helps define the shift, and as I worked this beautiful color into the mandala I mused on transformation and hope.

There is a certain darkness, risk, and danger to transformation. Like a garden, transformation needs a time for dying, burying, tearing out in order to create space for the new life, form, structure. The quieting time of winter, plowing under, fallowness is vital to health and renewal, growth, rejuvenation and transformation in the spring blooming time. So it is with transformation. To bloom, energy has to be focused on the new life, not the deadwood, dry stalks. Those are dug into the earth to nourish the new crop.

What am I risking now, pulling out, plowing under in my own work of transformation? What darkness or unused "things" can I remove to make room for new growth? I have plenty I can work on; however, it seems that life surfaces those things that require consideration whether I want to work on them or not!

Then there is hope. Intuitively I wouldn't think that hope has a darkness in it, yet as I circled the Still Point in the mandala, meditating on transformation and hope, I understood that despair, fear, doubt, discouragement, disbelief are opposites of hope, and without the darkness, how can I know hope?

These last hard years of global loss of life and freedom have certainly been the dark side of hope. Perhaps as this new spring begins its annual flirtation with winter, pandemic restrictions begin to lift around the world, and family gatherings are more common again, we can steward the hope springing out of the deadwood of this recent past.

Transformation & Hope - Part 3

The pattern of the mandala is transformation personified. Starting in the circle, the still point, it became a six-sided star, then shifted its points 30 degrees and ended in a circle. In Part 2 it continued mostly round, laying in points and position for its Part 3 transformation into a 12-sided star. 

In the Mandala, each row has a certain duality: the beauty of itself and the building block for the next metamorphosis in the pattern. These changes, nearly row by row, are an objective lesson in the definition of transformation: crossing over, into new form, shape, structure, character.

Crossing over barriers such as bridges, rivers and objects is a well-used trope in old wives' tales, fairy tales, traditions and language. Charon, son of the Goddess Nyx, destined to be the Ferryman carrying souls across the River Styx, demanding coin of the dead for the ride; Moses leading the unruly tribes of Israel across the Red Sea on miraculously dry land; the three billy goats named Gruff, fooling the Troll in order to cross over his bridge; jumping the broom in marriage ceremonies, signifying the shift from two single units to one with all the changes required; and, "Over the Moon" which refers to ecstatic change and transformation.

These examples of transformation, from life to death, danger to safety, one side of a ravine to another, are physical transformations. There are other, deeper changes, spiritual and psychological into which the meditative nature of working with yarn and the repetition of stitching are leading me. I wonder what is on the other side of this transformative work. 

Transformation & Hope - Part 2

 Part 2 of 9; 45 rows of 114.

I've pondered the meaning of transformation as I circled around this work's center, Still Point, wondering what transformation is, really. I am transforming balls of yarn into a mandala, a work of art, of utility. The yarn itself is a transformation of wool into thread. The wool is a transformation from food and water and sunlight into fiber on the back of a sheep.

Could it be this simple, the change from one thing into another? Etymologically the word is trans - across, beyond, through, on the other side of; plus, form v. - create, give life to, give shape or structure; to make, build, construct, devise; n. shape, character.

Certainly this work of crocheting, then, is a transformation: from sun and grass to a Mandala. This thought literally sets me back on my heels: I only see the surface, the thing, the noun of items around me, when, possibly, probably, they are actually sunshine and grass transformed into shoes and curtains, tables and hammers. What life a toothbrush is when I hold it in my hand - holding sunshine transformed - the power and mystery!

In the 14th century the definition of "transform" leant more toward metamorphose, which means to change form, alter or modify the shape or character of. By the 15th century, metamorphose was connected to the ancient mysterious arts, especially witchcraft. And like all good things mysterious, pagan and inexplicable, the Church shifted the meaning of the word, took it for its own use, divided it into good and bad. Women and men who created, regenerated, devised, formed and reformed objects, health, people, and lives - metamorphosed - were burned at the stake. Perhaps they understood the power of transformation, the power of sunshine in the hand when holding a sprig of lavender, and it cost them bitterly when people around them could not see.

I want this year's crochet project to transform me. I want to be expanded by seeking deepward, inward, transformed, shape shifted, edge sharpened, edge blurred, alive in the best magical sense of creative, intuitive, inquisitive, re-formed, trans formed. Around the still point, not fixed nor moving, not flesh nor fleshless, not moving from nor toward, where the past and the future gather. This still point is where transformation happens. 

Transformation & Hope - Part 1

This project is an exercise in Transformation. It begins as a mandala, circular and contemplative then slowly and spectacularly transforms, reshapes, into a finished square. I am looking forward to this metamorphosis in the project.

Last year's work, Mandala 2020, was about grief, despair, resolution as treasured people in my life left and the pandemic raged across the globe, nation, state and community. We are still in the throes of COVID-19; some restrictions have lifted, the vaccine makes us braver and we feel lighter and more "normal". As always, time has eased the bright personal grief into a grayer, poignant memory, and the massive national and global grief of lives lost to this disease is simply becoming a new normal. 

Like the pattern of this work, life today is about Transformation and Hope. The last year of reflection, consideration, meditation, exploration and resolution resulted in a shift in me, in my outlook on life, my understanding of myself, my willingness to pause and consider, breathe in and begin the arduous chipping free of the chrysalis built around me. Us.

How can I not be anything but different? How can I not be in the midst of a metamorphosis, a change in my being, a transformation?  The world is different. My family is different. My friends are different. Work is different. Our lifestyle has shifted and is different. The way I get food, clothes, basics is different.

Like last year, this pattern is not my own. It is called Sacred Space CAL copyrighted by Helen Shrimpton of crystalsandcrochet.com. I followed her recommendation on the yarn - Stylecraft Life DK at 75% acrylic, 25% wool - and am very glad I did so. It is beautiful, perhaps the nicest I have used for many years. Thank you, Helen, for sharing your experience and craft freely and generously.

Mandala 2020 - Six Months Later

It has been six months since finishing the Mandala. I have been sitting on this accomplishment, reflecting sifting thinking observing how I feel, how it affected my life, how it sits on me now. It is time to put it away, finish this project.

Today I boxed it up, a bunch of lavender from the garden included, with a Get Well card to the future. Taped. Stored. Done.

Here are a few things I think, bestirred by this project:

1. Resolution - This word has surfaced again and again. I make resolutions regularly, many of which do not pan out or get done. Why was I successful at this resolution? what about it brought me back to it again and again? Was it the creative process, one of the deep abiding strengths of mine which is often, mostly, suppressed? was it the grief work? was it a habit? I don't know.

Resolve as a word springs from undoing, untying, breaking down, similar to the modern word of dissolute. Resolutions are hard for me as the modern instance of the word demands some bootstrapping, tough as steel core inner strength, law loving, stay in the lines action. Not always my bailiwick. Resolution as breaking down, falling apart, undoing - this resonates in me: Break down the "resolution" into parts and pieces to be examined felt considered managed, then the construction success begins. This is a creative process, not a warrior princess action. This is more me.

Maybe this is why I like scrappy quilts and rug twining - the pieces are broken apart, gathered from the undone, and rebuilt into something that can be celebrated and loved. Resolution. Resolved. Re-solved.

2. Eight repeats in each round mimic the Buddhist Eightfold Path - Right Understanding, Right Intent, Right Speech, Right Action, Right Livelihood, Right Effort, Right Mindfulness, Right Concentration. It has been a long time since I studied Buddhism; however, this effort of the last year brought some of the thoughts back to mind and provided contemplative fodder as I worked the rounds, the Wheel of Life. Am I understanding why I am doing this work? What is my intent? Is it worth the effort? Am I well placed in my work and earning? Can I be more careful in my speech and actions?

3. I miss it, missed it terribly early on after it's completion. What do I miss? The grief? the outward expression that I'm grieving in the best Victorian sense of black crepe? The action? The obvious and singular "me" time? What do I miss? Can I say the words, can I stop mocking myself with falsehood as I sit among the rocks?

Within weeks of finishing I had patterns printed for the next effort - really? I was considering a new relationship when this old one was only just ended! Now I want to bury the Mandala, burn it in the fires of the Winter Solstice, drop this care into oblivion as I step forward into a new year of hope and transformation. I don't want people to see it, the grief and pain. It is mine. MINE. I want it hidden, as always, don't let anyone see.

4. Creativity. I hide this part of me behind "socially acceptable". This effort, while utilitarian at the end, expressed some deeper need for making. Mesmerized by my Grandmothers and their crochet needles dipping in and out and in and out, string has always fascinated me, is a constant thread through my memories. My first crochet belt and pot holders, taught the basics by my Grandmothers, hiding my effort from my own mother as a surprise; my first weaving and cardboard card loom; embroidered flour sacks; gluing yarn to sheets of butcher paper with homemade flour paste; spinning with wool and a drop spindle with a potato as the weight; weaving baskets with yarn (my first ever exhibit in an art show!); macramé; knitting sweaters and coats and scarves; twining rugs. 

What happens if I pull this thread of remembrance and yearning? Dare I? Is this a Right on my Wheel of Life?

5. Strangely, T.S. Eliot, again, in Burnt Norton expressed what I think is the most elemental process this Mandala provided me in breathtaking, heart stopping, eye-leaking, poetry:

At the still point of the turning world. Neither flesh nor fleshless;

Neither from nor towards; at the still point, there the dance is,

But neither arrest nor movement. And do not call it fixity,

Where past and future are gathered. Neither movement from nor towards,

Neither ascent nor decline. Except for the point, the still point,

There would be no dance, and there is only the dance.

The Mandala gave me a Still Point through the year as I turned the circle of its creating, a place to rest and work, to move through grief and joy, to be still while moving. The breathtaking stillness still point where the spinning vortex whirls, but I stop in its midst, suspended as in free fall, still, breath taking, quiet. Dance. Is.

Mandala 2020 - Stages 17 & 18

The Mandala is done. And I am not certain how I feel about it, or whether I can write about it.

I finished it a couple of weeks ago and have been sitting with the finality of the project, reflecting on its impact on this life lived over the last year. I seem to be awaiting a thunderbolt from the goddesses claiming, "It is finished!" Or perhaps a sense of relief. Or maybe tears, or elation, or disappointment.

This I know: I miss it. When I sit in my chair at the end of the day, I miss its presence beside me, the space it consumed, the ways in which I lived for it and around it. Perhaps there is a lesson there, that the weight of the project, of grief, isolation, were a comfort to me, lived beside me, were companions this last year, and that throwing them off leaves me wondering what to do with this new freedom, new weightlessness. Were I a chrysalis turned butterfly I would spread my wings to the wind and seek out sustenance, companionship; I, however, don't know what to do. 

My daughter said there must be a lesson about tragedy, perseverance, beauty and survival in it; this in fact, IS the Mandala, no?

Here are the stats: 

Finished size: 88" in diameter
Weight: 7.6 pounds
Stitch count: 60,317 at a minimum
Start date: March 2, 2020
Finished date: February 15, 2021

Mandala 2020 - Stage 16

 

Blessèd sister, holy mother,
spirit of the fountain, spirit of the garden,
Suffer us not to mock ourselves with falsehood
Teach us to care and not to care
Teach us to sit still
Even among these rocks,
Our peace in (your) will
And even among these rocks
Sister, mother
And spirit of the river, spirit of the sea,
Suffer me not to be separated
And let my cry come unto Thee.

Ash Wednesday - T. S. Eliot - 1927

These words from Nobel Laureate T.S. Eliot (italics mine) are posted front and center on my desk. The dark midnight nibbling at my edges is relinquishing to a dawn in the truth that this is me. my. life. now. The burdens and griefs, the reaving of the last few years are mine me I, and are my present future past. Telling myself this truth, grasping it, even while among the hard rocks, is freeing, lifting, hopeful.

And around the Mandala this reflecting thinking breathing is stitched into the fabric. 

The redo work from previous stages was worth the effort as I seemed to breeze through Stage 16. Just eight rows left. The Mandala is large; it takes considerable effort to manage. During this wintertime, however, its lap warming welcome invites the effort, so I stitch and stitch and reflect around the round.

In this fresh new year of 2021 I am looking further ahead with hope and expectation. To do lists, want lists, one week at a time plans - the famed resolutions of a new year - have moved me from melted welded curled in my chair to planning working accomplishing projects. This feels good, "not mocking myself with falsehood", exposing the lie that my life will return to normal. This is normal, this sitting among the hard rocks, reuniting my broken parts, unseparated.

Mandala 2020 - Stage 15

 

This New Year completes 10 months of crocheting on the Mandala. Some stats to consider:

MANDALA:

Size:  77" in diameter
Weight:  6 pounds
Rows:  97 (of 111)
Stitches:  45,869 approx
Stage: 15 (of 18)

The last row in this 14th stage proved a challenge. Like previous stages I suspect I miscounted the row, or rows, below. After the third time ripping out 700 stitches, I devised a plan to compensate for the apparent mistakes, so I finished with the correct number of stitches. At this stage I know that mistakes are magnified exponentially so here's hoping that I won't meet my errors in the next few rows.

Two stages left; 14 rows. This effort has been a journey, and it is exciting to have a possible goal date. I started the project in March 2020; it would be nice to have it finished by March '21. With six weeks between now and then, at four hours per week, I might just make it. Of course, this depends on how many stitches/rows I have to pull out and redo to make the rounds work.

I have been thinking about the value of this project. The dollar value, if I were paid $10 per hour for my labor, would be astronomical. Someone would really really want to have it to make the hours pay. The inner work I've done while working the Mandala, that is priceless.

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.