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.