I know a goddess. That sounds presumptuous or delusional, I know. But there is a goddess in human form who walks the portion of the earth known as the Valley of the Sun, and it has been my honor to spend some time with her.

Her hegemony in the pantheon of personifications is Pattern. Of the more than 37,000 images in her smartphone, never mind her thumbdrives and computers, many of them reveal something mortals such as myself usually miss. Some day, if you are lucky, you will visit a museum to see the latest collection of astonishing images she has compiled. I will not deprive you of the “shock of the new” thrill you will get by posting any of what she has done here.

Many people can say that they have had a sonnet written about them. She has had at least two, done today, and the day is far from over. Here is the non-acrostic one:

Pattern Goddess

A Goddess strolls the earth in human form.
Her bailiwick is Pattern—its discernment,
Appropriateness, shift, free flow or storm;
Disorder’s secret orderly internment.

A lizard’s swept his tailtip through the dust.
The goddess reconstructs the “crime” (it’s not
A crime at all: he’s doing what he must)
And wishes Brother Lizard all he’d sought.

Awareness of her Earthly limitations
Enhances her awareness of the lunar
And its ellipsoid mood-shift imitations,
For Mood is Pattern too, and she’ll attune her

Sensorium to guide her through each strait, sure
To hone her stewardship of Unforced Nature.

Those last two words–“Unforced Nature”–well describe her interaction with the environment. She visits but does not impose beyond the level of rubbing a leaflet to get its scent, as she did on a hiking venture I asked her to include me in, so that I could see through her eyes. We did two hikes that day, and between hikes I did a two-minute drawing of her hand. Later she disclosed that while she liked ladybugs, “it is the cute & curious jumping spider that really calls my name.” So I finished the drawing, with either fakery or “artistry” depending on who you talk to, and included a hand-evoking jumping spider:

There is also her hand, holding an alginate CAST of her hand, in the circle on the life-modeled hand. Such is her influence that I am more aware of the pattern inherent in motif.

Here is the second, acrostic sonnet:

pattern goddess

paved parking lots have rendered her agog
piled branches give her thrill and chill and zing
a shadow stripéd path’s a travelog
and cracks evoke the dynasty of Ming. o
to be a light-ensorcelled see-er, led
through labyrinths of fractals on a strand
then dot-connect, dispelling woe and dread
the message clarifies and takes a hand
eureka! (“I have found it!”) word or phrase
epiphanatic—it’s the Great Because.
regardful of the Moon, she marks her days
refractively—reflecting what she does.
new wisdom of her making aids our Gnosis.
no wonder she’s attained Apotheosis.

And here is my portrait of her, based on a photo I took of her at dusk during a subsequent outing:

Somehow, almost against my will, a cat snuck into the drawing. (Sylvia does cohabit with three cats. I haven’t met them.) The Moon over the cat’s ear is easy to understand, though. Sylvia keeps track of moonrises and moonsets, and occasionally informs her friends of ideal viewing times.

I do not Live Each Day As If It Were My Last. As mentioned before, I’d be a weeping mess, shrieking that I didn’t want to die, if I did. But every visit with Sylvia, I treat as if it were my last. A, you never know; B, you just don’t take a Goddess for granted, Friends. 🙂