patterns vol. 3
July 2025
“Look, America is awful and the earth is too hot and the truth of the matter is we are all up against the clock. It makes everything simple and urgent: there’s only time to turn towards what you love. There is only time to leap.” - Joy Sullivan
I was prepared to give everyone a pass this spring as I assembled this volume. People will be too busy — or swirly — to create, I thought. The last thing I wanted was to badger beleaguered friends and turn beloved work into a chore. Yet, as it turns out, no extra grace was needed.
Almost instinctually, this community of pattern makers has turned towards what we love, to what we find to be most essential. It’s not just that thirteen of us have made enough time to create and share fresh content, we’ve also began to gather. To meet to nurture weird ideas, tend our courage, and sit in loving compassion together. Our pattern making community calls have been a salve; reminding me that gratitude, connection and creativity are powerful antidotes to anxiety, weariness, and despair.
Biologist and philosopher, Humberto Maturana taught us that transformational change is a conversation between what we generate and what we conserve. We don’t design the future; we conserve what we want to keep. And as we do, we must let go of what we do not.
Tending to what we conserve takes defiant intention. Like choosing to slip pencil-scrawled love notes under our desks to savor the moments our fingers touch, even while dodging the magnetic pull of an AI bot love affair.
Yet, conservation does not mean turning towards the past. No, it is about putting what we love at the center. It is an on-going conversation about what is and what could be that can reveal that it takes many noes to say one whole-hearted, two-footed, authentic yes.
Which begs me to ask you, as the world swirls: What do you hold as most dear? What have you inadvertently conserved at the cost of what you love?
This is the conversation we welcome you to, and it may just be how we find our way together.
With loving grace and in community,
Jessica
— along with the intrepid Dee, Kayla, Jen, Gabi, Anne, Efraín, Denise, Paula, Kevin, Laura, Skye, Dana, Annie, Kelci, Nadya, Amanda, Signe, Sandra, and Johnny.
Hope is an Action
ART. Jessica Kiessel
When the world shifts beneath our feet and we are set off-kilter, what comes next? What is the embodied experience of hope in the face of hardship?
Motherhood in a Time of Fascism
WRITING. Kayla Christopherson
Each of us is finding our work before us, bound by relationship and responsibility. Might mothering help us focus our action and give us the courage necessary to keep choosing love?
In-Between
WRITING. Sandra Wegmann
In the between times, the unbounded times, we can feel as though we are stagnating and itch to be on with it. But what if it is in the betweenness that magic happens?
Becoming the Companion
WRITING. Efraín Gutierrez
Instead of fixing, what if we honored the opportunity that comes with confusion by sitting with the questions?
Nurse Nancy
WRITING & ART. Nadya Shmavonian
Might the greatest act of leadership be the creation of healing conditions?
Water is the Vessel
WRITING. Amanda Spector
Where do you go for care? What containers have held you in your becoming?
Cats, Rats and Karma
WRITING. Gabi Fitz
Life is comprised of both joy and suffering. What does it take to own our contribution to both? What if love is not in the removing suffering but in the accompanying of others in their wholeness?
Lenses on Life
ART & WRITING. Jen Fei
What if photography is not about the picture, but about being present to moments that will never be felt in the same way again?
Pickles, Pottery and Presence
WRITING. Jessica Kiessel
There are two ways to make pickles; maybe there are two ways to make most things in life. Do you know what kind of pickles you’re making?
At the Same Address
WRITING. Jessica Kiessel
Have you forgotten how to stay still and be somewhere? How does one learn to take root?
Minding the Long View
WRITING. Laura Lehman
Humans have been at the mercy of bureaucratic indifference through the ages. Might reminding ourselves of this provide some grounding?
Somehow, They Kept On
ART. Jessica Kiessel
When people are caught up in violence, what is the shape of our collective resilience?
I’m Sorry
WRITING. Dana Kaminstein
When a pattern disappears, who we’ve been together becomes disordered. What role does saying a sincere I’m Sorry play in keeping us together?
Sway in the Wind
WRITING. Kevin Hong
It takes courage to live with integrity — just as it takes courage to compromise. Can we learn to bend, while also staying true to ourselves?
The Unexpected Joys of Inviting Critique
WRITING & ART. Kelci Price
Art requires vulnerability. It asks us to express what we feel, to try something new. What can we learn from inviting critique on what we hold most dear?
The Hoarding Squirrel
WRITING. Signe Sorensen
Sometimes the act of gathering becomes a safe space that keeps us from utilizing our harvest. Can acknowledging we have enough be an act of courage and self-compassion?
Coming to my Sense
WRITING. Jessica Kiessel
Without even realizing it, many of us carry around unhelpful beliefs that are meant to keep us safe, but instead they keep us from living fully. What if you do not have to believe to act?
When the World Speeds Up
WRITING & ART. Jessica Kiessel
Maybe we can choose to go slow, to savor our lives together. Consider this an invitation to linger.
Thank you for being here. Let’s stay connected.
ONE
If you haven’t already, please subscribe. We post regularly, but produce patterns and send emails only twice a year.
TWO
Like what you are reading? Want to share your reflections with us? Drop us a note.
THREE
Believe that authentic reflection and connection is essential in these in-between times? Join us.
