And we become brighter in our dying
And we turn golden as we fall

I enjoy finding my color palette for projects from walking outside in nature. I am fortunate to live across from a heavily treed park and at this time of year the possible colors for a project is dizzying! 

Today I took the dogs for a walk after having listened to the album Courting Autumnby Pamela Wyn Shannon. The album is one of the best tributes to the autumn season I have ever heard. Her songs rolled around in the chambers of my mind as I walked. The song titled "Tis Rambletide in Ambleside" which details the colors found in the autumn landscape seemed to be on a mental repeat. As I entered the park, my eyes fell upon the feast of colors at my feet and soon I was bending over picking up leaves, nuts, pine cones and grasses. At the end of my walk I looked at what I gathered and realized I had found the color palette for my next project. 

I returned to my studio and matched yarns to the found objects and began crocheting a mandala pattern that had caught my eye and called to me for the last couple of days. I am changing the colors from the original design, which originally was meant to depict spring. When I first found the pattern, I saw autumn and so I am making some creative changes. I am calling this project the Harvest Wheat Mandala. I am so pleased to begin working on this mandala as a meditation on the autumn season. 
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Tis rambletide in Ambleside 
by  Pamela Wyn Shannon
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​Tis rambletide in Ambleside 
Wind-twisted trees, the thorn of you 
The season's leaf is gold and red 
On lilting paths they fall to bed

And we become brighter in our dying
And we turn golden as we fall

Spindle berries split and show 
Sunset-colored seeds that glow 
The leaf fires scent the air with musk 
Shadowed spindle tree at dusk

And we become brighter in our dying
And we turn golden as we fall

Tis rambletide, so off I go
Through Ambleside, the path unknown
October fields of umber hue
Over rain-soaked rocks I quickly move

Can I walk through soft meadows and briars alike?
Can I move through with the thorn of you inside?

The knobbed and knotted arms I climb
To view the falling from up high In their
departure, I arrive With every leaf, a
floating sigh
​
And we become brighter in our dying
And we turn golden as we fall

Tis rambletide in Ambleside Wind-
twisted trees, the thorn of you The
season's leaf is gold and red On lilting
paths they fall to bed...

​
WITCHES 
In the past, they burned us
Because they thought we were witches.
Because we knew what to do with herbs outside of the kitchen.
Because we knew how to dance, and seduce, and pray.
Because we moved with the cycles of the moon.
​~ Fleassy Malay


Recently I have been exploring crocheting doilies. I am seeing a great potential for contemplative crafting in the ever widening rounds, that are essentially mandalas. Mandalas are spiritual, or ritual symbols that emerged from ancient Indian religious traditions. The word mandala is Sanskrit for "circle". Now we apply the word to any circular, and sometimes square, geometric pattern. Creating a mandala originally was symbolic of the wholeness of life and the cosmos, and representative of the interconnectedness of all things. In creating a mandala, everything depends on everything else for its structure.  In Buddhism, mandalas are used to help with meditation through deep contemplation of the image. These mandalas are also created through meditative practices, with each color and shape, even the process of creating it, holding symbolic meaning. Some may be familiar with the Tibetan Buddhist sand mandalas. Mandalas spread to Christian and Islamic faiths, in which they represented the individual's initial separation from and journey to the divine. 

Today outside of the traditional spiritual guidelines, mandalas primarily serve a psychological and aesthetic function. Carl Jung introduced using creating mandalas as a tool to explore the unconscious mind.  He believed that creating mandalas were effective in organizing and integrating our inner and outer lives. The many layers of the mandala, representing the deeper layers of the unconscious, allowing the individual to experience oneness with the universe.

Doilies are a fairly new craft, appearing sometime in the late 1700s or early 1800s as a Victorian craft and served as a form of etiquette. They covered areas of furniture, like the head rest and the arms (called Antimacassars or Chair Sets), under cups and trays, to protect the furniture and beautify the home. The name doily comes from the surname "d'Ouilly" of a prominent London firm of linen manufacturers of fringed napkins.

Over the years doilies have fallen in and out of favor. Recently, they are on the comeback. Some appear in their traditional use in protecting wood surfaces or table tops, using white or natural color thread, while others move toward mandala-like creation, using color and texture in its creation.

I am interested in the latter approach. Taking a traditional craft form and exploring its use as a contemplative tool, both in its creation and in its use.  My first doilies have been fun and playful in design,  as I learn the method and techniques in creating them.  However, as I dive deeper into the craft form, I expect I will explore traditional, even antique, patterns, and eventually begin creating my own designs. 
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Posted here is what I call the Dancing Witches doily. It is a design by Valerie Fuller. I changed some of the colors, but the design is hers.

I am looking forward to exploring this craft form as a contemplative tool and see what I discover in the process!