Week 51. Earth.

Winter solstice, the moment of bottom touch before rising up again. This week's mandala needs no words actually, the message it delivered was the feeling with tears rolling down my cheeks when I looked at it later at night. It looked like the ecosystem of the earth, so fragile, delicate, lighthearted and beyond beautiful.

Winter Solstice, New Moon. Nuf said.

Week 50, pt. 2. Trust.

Water has been (and continues to be) one of my greatest teachers. Therefore the rather lenghty story:

For as long as I remember, when it comes to water I've fantasized about floating. Yet everytime I go swimming and try, my legs begin to sink. Last summer, on a beautiful sunny day, I tried again. I really concentrated and began to give weight to the water, to relax. I sensed into it, relaxed my body conciously, and the more I relaxed, the more clearly I heard this anxious inner voice telling me I'm gonna sink like any heavy object and die. For a moment I could sense the fear and yet stay relaxed (and float!), but soon it took over and I had to stop. It was an intense experience.

This week floating suddenly came up in a conversation and a friend said it : "You can not float because you don't trust the water." This was one of those insightful moments when something you thought you understood sinks even deeper. Yeah, you don't do floating, you float. You don't make effort to float - the water carries you, whether you understand it or not. All you need is to trust that and enjoy. Paddle a little to move around, but floating is something that just happens.

Logic and control are such wonderful tools for operating in this world, but unfortunately they're also quite effective in creating and holding up bubbles which soon become exhausting paradigms (as for a bubble, or actually any object to survive, there is a need for constant tension). You so yearn to float and try your best to figure out a solution to do so. And you keep on trying... But trying to float is the same as trying to float inside the bubble, which isn't really possible. Floating is only possible after the bubble of control has burst, but it's terrifying to the mind. The mind can not be sure what is outside the bubble, what will happen outside the bubble. Logic screams - chaos! Control screams - too much to handle! There are so many bubbles we live in, bigger and smaller, inside each other and overlapping.

What's all this got to do with the mandala?

I wanted to create a mandala as a gift to the waters of this world. The oceans, rivers, lakes, streams, the water inside my human body. I've had it in mind for a few weeks already, but it wasn't until now that it felt like the right time. I had created a picture in my head of how it would have harmonious wavelike patterns and all, but as I began creating, it didn't turn out like I had envisioned at all! Frustration! Anger! Disappointment! I took a deep breath, wiped it off and began anew. Floating in creation. The point in intuitive working is that you do not know where it is going. What it's gonna look like. What it's gonna say. Whether it'll be ugly or pretty. You do not control the process, you do not designate the outcome. You are creating together with all that is, so there's no way of knowing it all, controlling it. You trust that whatever you create, it is the right pattern to emerge, whether you understand it or not. Whether you like it or not. And that is exactly what makes the process "creating". It has never been before, manifested nor envisioned, it is happening here and now and there's the value, there's the beauty. That's floating.

So Week 50, happiness and trust. One and the same really, floating.

Made with seasalt, heilerde, much love, much respect. 

For the water that nourishes, cleanses, teaches and keeps this 

ecosystem alive. Inside and out.

For the water that carries.

Week 50. Happiness.

Two weeks have passed without a new mandala, but lesson nr. 1 - you don't force it. The mandala comes when it comes. The mandala of week 47 stayed on the floor for over a week, it was called for. And it wasn't until yesterday I felt the call to create again.

This week's mandala is a powerful reminder of how happiness is present in every moment. Happiness is not a feeling, it is simply being alive, being life. It has been very gray, I've been ill and frustrated with things not "moving on" and all that. Yet when I heard the call and my hands started creating, along with the mandala my spirits began lifting... All it really took was the 4 dried pink flowers that my cactus had dropped earlier (the cactus which rarely blooms, so these babies are much appreciated!) placed on the blue cloth and boom! I crossed over from thinking about my situation to happiness! I still felt ill and stuck, but the mandala forming before me was so beautiful that I realised it - I'm alive. What more could I ask for, need?
Isn't it funny really? Happiness?
I truly believe, like it says in the wonderful Nick Cave song "Nature Boy": "In the end, it's beauty that is gonna save the world."

Week 50. Happiness is a way of being alive. 

Whatever your situation, scrape the mud from the surface

and see that you are alive. You cannot but be happy.

Week 47. Death.

Just when you think your whole life is falling apart, you suddenly notice that it did, and you're in the middle of a beautiful new dawning.

Week 47 was such an intense struggle to hold on to things that once were so important and fulfilling. Once you lose the feeling for them in your heart, you feel angry and dissappointed, terrified and desperate, for what is left once they're taken away? Nothing? So you try to tell yourself it'll pass, you're just having a bad day, until the weight of the lies crushes all those covers... That's when the new dawn emerges. So sudden, so soft, so full of light air. And you see how nothing actually died, it was just time to step onto the next level and expand. The circle is really a spiral...

Making this was not easy. Death was lingering all over and setting all the rice grains, mungbeans and lentils was such a test for the nerves.

I went to bed feeling uncomfortable with this, wanting to wipe it away.

However, the next morning I saw it in a new light and felt peace.

Life is miraculous.

It is still on the floor, third day.

Week 46. Movement.

Creation that happens in the now and leaves no structure behind to hold energy in place is a wonderful opportunity to study (and celebrate!) your relationship with the eternal momentariness of everything. Like dancing - the very moment the movement manifests into existence it is gone. You can not hold on to it, keep it, freeze it. A little like the mandalas that exist only for a few days. Creation becomes more intense, more precious, when you are consciously aware of the fruit's brief existence in space and time.

Building mandalas which need to be deconstructed as a part of the process help me, among other things, practise letting go. Sometimes I want to prolong having the mandala on place although I get a strong feeling that it is time to take it apart. Like this week. Having created a farewell mandala to a loved one I had to part ways with, it was really difficult to take it apart. I felt it would be like cutting the final chord between us. It was so beautiful and felt safe, yet I had this feeling in my heart that it was time - the energy held in place by the pattern was turning restless to move on. Letting go often generates grief, but stuck energy always generates unneccessary pain and frustration.

What a powerful week.

 

Week 46 began with a powerful conjunction between Mars and Pluto.

To me, the mandala suggested that the fierce fires of transformation would

be delicate and compelling.

Stayed for 4 days.

 

And they were. 

Stayed for 2 days.

November, beginning

November - a month to dive deep, focus on the internal, explore the treasure cave... No choice, as the darkness falls and the energy gets heavy, in a soft and velvety way. You breathe with the Earth's rhythm. A good time to birth a project of building intuitive mandalas. I'm excited about what comes of it...

Building mandalas on the living room floor is a perfect way to live through the creative process as a whole - materia takes shape and scatters again. Birth, growth, flowering, fading, death. Ah, life!
The energy of the mandala, which fills the room and sometimes even lingers on you where ever you go, is sometimes strong and assertive, sometimes airy and subtle, sometimes playful, anything really. Sometimes the mandala speaks, gives words, sometimes it is still. But the message is always there for the reader. True understanding is beyond understanding...

"Welcome, November darkness" was the whisper in it's rhythm.
November's darkness is actually supportive and nurturing, once you lose the collectively
supported idea of it as depressing and draining.

The first mandala to begin the project. Stayed for 3 days.
I'm so happy!