An autumnal mood.

Although it's a week past the Equinox, the weather here has been dramatically tropical with high humidity.  Today we've had constant heavy rains; the temperature is now slowly dropping, and overnight I think the wind will come in and sweep out the humid air.  By the time the storm is past, I think we will finally be in fall weather.

A murky, watery light today signals autumn to me (autumn on its dark days), and I've been in an autumn mood all day.  Since we do not have fall colors on the trees yet, I thought I would do a fall mandala.  Here was my original black and white drawing.

I constructed this using my trusty Safe-T Compass.  It's inexpensive, very light weight, and while hardly engineering-standard accurate, it's "good enough" for basic mandala work.  It's a cheap instrument and you get what you pay for--the reviews on it are all over the map.  Once I learned what it could and could not do well, I've been very happy with it.

Tangles used:  the center is "ad-libbed," then I used Fandance, then, moving out from the center, Beadlines.  The next layer started off as Flux but got morphed somehow; the outer layer is Finery.  Next I added some autumnal colors.

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Honestly...I feel sort of "eh" about this mandala, although I did learn a lot from it.  For example, I realized almost immediately that I had made the center too small and fussy; it was hard to color in an effective way.  That was a useful lesson.

The colors--which aren't true in this photo but are not too far off--are not what I normally would choose.  But after all, I did say in an autumnal mood.  In fact I noticed some sadness while I was working on this, along with the usual intense concentration.  I don't have anything to be sad about--but doesn't this type of moving meditation sometimes bring things up for all of us?  And when things come up, do we have to have a reason for them? 

So I just noticed the sadness and kept working, and it was fine.  Peace and tranquility were restored by the time I was done.

Working on this brought up questions for me.  I'd be interested to hear from other tanglers and especially from CZTs with responses.

• What do you notice when doing this type of work?  What do you learn from it, on any level--practical, emotional, spiritual?
  
• How do you preserve those "lessons learned"--Write it down?  Talk about it?  Blog about it?
• Or do you find that you are so focused that you are not thinking at all while tangling?  This often happens to me.
• How often do you notice feelings arising when doing this work?
• What do you write on the back of your tiles--just name and date?  Tangle names?  (I've started always adding tangle names used) Do you add more information about events and/or mood, and why?

The Morns Are Meeker Than They Were -
A Poem by Emily Dickinson

The morns are meeker than they were--
The nuts are getting brown--
The berry's cheek is plumper--
The Rose is out of town.

The Maple wears a gayer scarf--
The field a scarlet gown--
Lest I should be old fashioned
I'll put a trinket on.