WEAVING WORLDS

Neel presents a collection of interlinked creative nonfiction stories drawn from her lived experiences among Mayan women.

Doña Marta wove güipiles (traditional blouses) based on patterns from her dreams and prayed for Grandmother Moon to come back during an eclipse. Consuelo, an artist, said that she felt like she was channeling the universe through her brush when painting images of Mother Earth. Nana Pascuala performed a ceremony that involved sacrificing a chicken to ensure an abundant harvest. These are just a few of the people who appear in Neel’s collection; she met them all while living among Mayan people in Guatemala. The tales introduce readers to six different women whose lives were shaped by spirituality and resilience. Each endured profound loss, including losing children to illness or enduring violence from the Guatemalan army, yet they overcame hardship by connecting with each other, both as women and as mothers. The collection, written in both English and Spanish, emphasizes inclusivity and cultural context. The stories are arranged in loose chronological order, starting with Neel’s first visit to Guatemala in 1987 to work in public health with pregnant women and continuing over the next few years, tracing her relationships with her subjects. Along the way, she captures her son’s growth from a rambunctious child to a teenager while also charting her own losses, including the deaths of her mother and her husband (“I wasn’t sure who I was or how to navigate the world without him”). The author positions herself as both observer and participant, documenting not only the women’s lives, but also the ways in which they shaped her own understanding of faith and connection. Their shared rituals, belief systems, and sense of community became a source of healing, helping the author process loss while reinforcing intergenerational bonds. Neel also renders spiritual elements with a matter-of-fact tone that borders on magical realism, as when she witnessed her destiny arriving in the form of a hawk.

A reflective, spiritually attuned portrait that effectively blends memoir and cultural observation.