December 2025

https://www.patternmaking.org/patternsvol4

“You are not going in circles. 

You are growing in them.

Spiraling upward, applying 

old lessons to the

unfathomable new.”

• Allena Staples, Cow Parade

A year like 2025 can make us feel like we are in a swirl. What felt important no longer feels quite right. We head in one direction, and then abruptly turn to the next. We want to cover our eyes in horror, only to be softened by kindness. We feel like we’ve climbed a hill to stand on, only to realize it is sand, and there are others. 

 When it feels like the merry-go-round is going too fast, I’ve found the best thing to do is to focus in, to feel the cold metal in my palms, and to remind myself to just hold on. As David Whyte might say, to start close in. It’s good advice for any day, but when the stakes are high there is no choice but to learn. By focusing in, we find what is ours to do. 

Trees have no choice but to start from where they are. Unlike us, they cannot even pretend to start afresh. Their growth is always in circles, and on their edges. 

Which leads me to wonder, does the bark of trees ache as it expands, like a young child’s legs? 

Might our aches be our becoming?  In a world where I cannot determine if I am terrified or excited, I’ve come to accept we may never know. 

Our pattern making community calls this fall felt like a rare respite from the swirl, providing space to metabolize our rage with our love. Our joy with our despair.  We let ourselves swell with paradox and marvel at the sustenance that comes through connection, all while noticing our respective edges. 

Perhaps more than ever, the work in this volume was generated with a fierce determination to stay present, and a tender awareness of how impossible this can feel. 

In this volume, you will read about becoming at the cost of belonging, the benefits of rage, the dangers of care, the importance of being in our bodies, and how creativity and reflection can be a reliable if not murky way through. We will share lessons of middle age and long-held grief and honor the sacred act of nurturing spores of magic, love, and tradition. We conclude by sharing how discussions of new technology have helpfully led us to grapple with what we hold most dear. 

And, through it all, we hope you will receive a subtler message: loving encouragement to reframe the ache of what can feel like circles as something else entirely.

With grace and in community,

Jessica

— along with the intrepid Dee, Kayla, Jen, Gabi, Anne, Efraín, Denise, Paula, Kevin, Skye, Dana, Laura, Annie, Kelci, Josiane, Nadya, Signe, Amanda, Allena, and Sandra.

• Volume 4 Index
  1. Cow Pants — Allena Staples
  2. Will the real Jessica please stand up? — Jessica Kiessel
  3. Joyful Lightness — Kevin Hong
  4. The Proverbial Lift — Paula Hodges
  5. Throw the Boots — Kayla Christopherson
  6. You want me to care less? — Jessica Kiessel
  7. Grace — Annie Norbeck
  8. Lately — Dee Thomas-Butler
  9. bit o’ art — Kelci Price
  10. Margins II — Annie Norbeck
  11. Learning to See — Jessica Kiessel
  12. Mushroom House — Josiane Smith
  13. A Remixed Mixtape — Amanda Spector
  14. You Gotta Lean Forward — Paula Hodges
  15. Barbie — Sandra Wegmann
  16. Hike — Allena Staples
  17. Olive Night — Laura Lehman
  18. Our new “AI Protocol” …erm…Process Notes