I like TED talks, especially Brene Brown and Susan David's talks. I'm benefiting hugely from psychotherapy focusing on self-empathy at the moment. Meditation, mindfulness and trying to allow myself to feel 'things' is all part of the work. So I was intrigued by the talk by Ingrid Fetell Lee called 'Where joy hides and how to find it'. Joy is something I've been thinking about too. Having read the ubiquitous book by Marie Condo 'The Life Changing Magic of Tidying Up' * (fortunately I bought it on kindle so don't have to worry about whether or not I need to get rid of it!) I was aware of the process she uses: hold an item in your hands and it if doesn't spark joy then off it goes, out into the world to find another home. Unless of course it's essential to your life, like your washing machine for example, although I'm not entirely sure how I'd hold the washing machine in my hands while searching for an internal spark of joy, without ending up in A&E. Anyway, I digress, the knotty problem of what joy feels like is a little problematic, well if was for me.
Fetell Lee defines joy in her talk: 'When psychologists use the word joy, what they mean is an intense, momentary experience of positive emotion, one that makes us smile and laugh and feel like we want to jump up and down.' Okay, so, what's this got to do with crochet and pom poms? Well...Ingrid Fetell Lee discovered a pattern when she collected together images of things that people look at and feel that spark of joy. The same elements would pop up: bright colour, symmetrical patterns, round/spherical shapes, abundance. Of course my yarny brain kicked in. I love, love, love looking at the hashtag #rainbowcrochet on instagram. The gorgeous colour used by Lucy of Attic 24 were hugely inspirational right from the start of my love affair with yarn. And of course: pom poms! You can see where this is going right? Mandalas, of the crochet variety are very popular. We don't make them because they are useful, we make them because they are gorgeous! Do they, in fact, give us that spark of joy? Is that what makes them so enduring in our crochet landscape? Here was my first mandala, way back in Jan 2012 I was making one to cheer myself up. I kid you not. Seriously. The title of the photo was even 'Gloomy day antidote'. Here it is from my sad forgotten flickr account.
It was made using The Granny Mandala pattern by Crochet with Raymond, another blog where fabulous colour mixed with crochet made it a happy place for me. I'm still sad she stopped blogging, but I understand why she did. However the blog and patterns are still there for us.
I can't talk about mandalas without talking about the fabulous Wink, who blogged at www.acreativebeing.com, but who is sadly no longer with us. She used mandalas to help her fight her battle against crippling mental health. The crochet community will always remember her by her gloriously colorful mandalas and we make them both in memory of her and because they are just so beautiful.
So: crochet mandalas: bright, round and symmetrical. It would appear there is good reason why we find them so compelling! They bring us joy!
What do you reckon? I'm fairly convinced. I feel there will be some pom pomming imminently in the Planet Yarn house. You can never have too many right? Going to find myself some joy.
*I can also really recommend the similarly titled 'The Life Changing Magic of Not Giving a F***' by Sarah Knight who was inspired by Condo and took the analogy from possessions to her personal philosophy.
