STARRED Book Review: Patterns by H.L. Gaydos

Reviewed by Erica Ball

A beautiful take on how the moments that make up the story of a life can only be fully revealed with the perspective of time

In Patterns: The Mystical Journey of an Ordinary Life, visual artist, professor, and long-time psychiatric nurse Honey Lee Gaydos combines memories and collage art in a look back at pivotal moments in her life. 

Though to outsiders these moments would seem mostly unremarkable, they are laden with a rush of feeling for the author, and they lead to changes in her life that are at times small and at times large, from adjusting her outlook to uprooting her life and moving to another state. These are the moments that took Honey out of her daily rhythm, the times when she experienced something almost otherworldly and transformed as a result of it. 

From the perspective of her later years, these moments form important parts of the patterns she can now see in her life, and with this book, she attempts to explain them as they now appear to her. 

To do so, she draws on her extensive reading in spirituality, philosophy, and psychology and weaves in fascinating topics such as the study of the unconscious mind, explorations of the sacred, and even tarot symbolism. She also touches on the possible conclusion that there are forces or structures at work behind the observable world, but what these look like and how they work can only be speculated.

As a long-time artist, each section is accompanied by stunning collage art of various colors, patterns, and textures surrounding a central human figure. She uses both art and writing to convey the same search for meaning and they touch upon themes of beauty, the sublime, and metaphor. 

The author’s artistic sensibilities and attention to detail make her a master at evoking time and place. In addition to exploring the contradictions in the religions of her beloved grandmothers and trying on different denominations and traditions for herself, there are a number of near-mystical realizations—like when a stranger appears and declares something she’d been struggling to put into words, a reality-bending moment in a Navajo healing ceremony, and a moment of confluence on a mountain top that feels like true Jungian synchronicity. 

Throughout, her discussion is packed with references to sources that expand on these concepts. The extensive Notes section at the back of the book serves as an annotated book list of works on the themes she touches on and includes Thomas Moore, Mary Oliver, Henry Van Dyke, Joseph Campbell, Carl Jung and so much more. 

Because the author has the talent of an excellent teacher in making abstract and convoluted subjects accessible, decades of lived experience as a nurse and professor, extensive education, and a compelling and straightforward voice, this book is essential reading for those interested in spirituality, self-transformation, and art. These topics are woven—or collaged—together in such a way that they bleed into one another seamlessly. Readers can only hope she will be moved to share more of her wisdom with us in future works.

Patterns: The Mystical Journey of an Ordinary Life is an exquisite combination of powerful art and evocative prose. It’s a journey into beauty and emotion by embracing one’s own complicated nature and the confounding forces of the world we inhabit. It’s about the search for satisfying answers to the questions we often can’t put into words and the transcendental moments where we feel we may have found them. 

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