100 Days for Mandalas – Session Three – Images & Words

August 12th, 2013

Welcome to the third session for 100 Days for Mandalas.  It is a retreat into creativity that lets a person express their own unique and powerful inner wisdom by creating mandalas.  100 Days for Mandalas is time and space to share and be inspired.  This session will be a little different in that each week there will be a word of inspiration as a prompt for creativity.  This word can be used as a starting point, or just something to think about in general.  Each guided meditation will be centered around the word, or words, as a guide to connect with inner creativity.

IMAGES
Mandalas have traditional forms as seen in numerous spiritual traditions. The intricate one below is a sand painting created in St. Louis by Tibetan Buddhist Monks of the Dalai Lama lineage. It took three days to create.  After it was created, the sand was swept up and taken to the Mississippi river to flow away with the water,  as a reminder of the impermanence of life.

Completed Sand Mandala for Peace, before dissolution ceremony

But a mandala can be whatever a person creates with the image contained with an circle.   It can be created with paper and paints. Or created out of nature’s materials outside.

The essence of a mandala is the circular form that encloses a sacred space for expression, it is the embrace of the shape of wholeness.  A mandala image can be shapes, line and colors of any form.  Words can also be part of a mandala, so that it is a way of art journaling.  Feel free to create images alone or with words that speak to you.

WORDS
I have chosen seven words for this 100 Days for Mandala session.  The words are simple, but have a multitude of meanings.  One way to explore each word is to write a list of synonyms and also a list antonyms.  The energy of each word also contains its opposite. Just as we have  light in our lives, we  also have shadows.  This is what creates the completeness and balance of our being. Each word is connected with the other and they flow together.  The guided meditation for this week introduces these words and their connection. (Link to audio meditation below)

WORD LIST
Each word will be the prompt for two weeks, so the fourteen weeks of 100 days will have a two week time frame for each word prompt. Here is the list of words and dates.

This first week is an introduction, so the first word “remember” will go from August 19th – September 1.

REMEMBER – August 19 – September 1

PAUSE – September 2 – September 15

LISTEN – September 16 – September 29

AWAKE – September 30 – October 13

RECEIVE – October 14 – October 27

DREAM – October 28 – November 10

HOME – November 11 – November 24

This mandala was created when I sat down to meditate after a long absence. The words that inspired this mandala were “remembering” and “forgetting”.  It was as if these dark planets of forgetting  burst so an inner  light and guidance can be seen, but only when I remember to be in silence.  I forget so much about what I deeply want to do with my limited time.  It isn’t even forgetting, as much as being unconscious of yearnings that are invisible, in the darkness, unknown to me.  Once I let myself experience silence, I remember and the yearnings of my soul burst into light.

MANDALA MEDITATION – This is the first guided meditation of this session. It is twelve minutes long.  Each of the seven words are part of this meditation.  This meditation guides you through the connectedness of all the words.

Mandala Meditation – Word Inspirations

SHARING MANDALAS
100 Days for Mandalas is a place for sharing creativity.  Please create in the way that works for you.  If you would like to share your mandalas, please take a photo – the higher the resolution the better – with a digital camera on a smartphone or camera.  Please leave enough space around the edges.  I can easily crop the photos. Email the photos to me at: linda(at)creativityforthesoul.com.  Use the @ sign please in the email. If I type it in here as a hot link, I will get tons of spam.

INSPIRATION
Please let the words and mandala images of this blog inspire your creative spirit, that yearns for expression and to be your guide on life’s journey.

MANDALAS THAT INSPIRE ME
The mandalas below were created by Ann Brune, who has been sharing her quiet and powerful creativity in my mandala workshops and get togethers.  She let me photograph these elegant mandalas.  Each one is a wonderful meditation piece.  Enjoy.

The two mandalas above this last one were created on Yupo paper, which isn’t really paper, although it is recyclable. It is a plastic paper, that is non absorbent.  Watercolor “floats” on the surface, creating a very “watery” effect, which can be seen in these mandalas.  Ann gave me some of this paper, I can’t wait to try it.