100 Days For Mandalas – Session Three – PAUSE – Sharing

September 3rd, 2013

This is the third week of the third session of 100 Days for Mandalas. The inspiration for this and the following week is PAUSE.

PAUSE is that place of silence. It is that stopping point between breathing in and breathing out. It is that place of quiet between laying down to rest and falling asleep. It is that point between night and morning and afternoon and night. It is that place our mind and body settles into when we meditate. We are not asleep, but we are not active. We are pausing.

Pause is a place of all possibilities. We as westerners don’t allow this place of pause to be part of our awareness or part of our lives as often as it could be.

Take time to pause before making marks on your mandala this week. Settle into that place of possibilities before beginning. Listen to the meditation and then begin.

Mandala Meditation PAUSE (click here to listen)

I began the pause mandalas be first writing “Pause” on a piece of paper and then writing down the other words come to mind. The first word that came to mind after the word pause, was prayer. For me prayer, and meditation, are those places of pausing. I decided to create mandalas that were prayers for my children (sons, daughter-in-law, girlfriend).

I added the words on this image to explain what I did to begin my pause mandalas. I cut a long 1 inch wide strip of lightly gridded paper. I wrote the prayers for each person on the paper, then folded it up and put it in the small vellum paper envelope.

I created a mandala circle that is a sacred embrace to holds words and a prayer envelope for each child. I created the art paper strip on the side that I will use to bind these mandalas together.

I am sharing these two PAUSE prayer mandalas this week. The other two and the binding of them will come next week. There are lots of mandalas inspired by the words of this session and nature below.

SHARING MANDALAS

This mandala by Tina Sparks uses calligraphy and the word remember. I love the color combinations. The next four mandalas by Tina also show word and nature inspirations.

This mandala shows Tina’s Native American heritage and love of nature.

All the words of this session of 100 Days for Mandalas. Love it!

Remember Joy – yes of course.

BINDING

I am binding together the mandalas and art journaling words for each two week word inspiration in this session. For the word REMEMBER, I punched holes on the side of each page and bound them together with twine. I added beads to the ends of the twine. I put a piece of orange vellum on top as a cover, and stamped the word REMEMBER. I like how the images and words work together in book form.