Mandala as a Tool of Transformation

Here is an excerpt on the subject of mandala as a tool of transformation from my upcoming book, " Phoenix Descending"

Jung describes the mandala as a pictorial representation of the Self. The center of the mandala radiates with the essence of our being while the periphery contains the dynamic of our story of maturation. Like the plant that moves through its various stages of growth to its final flowering, we too, observe our lives striving toward the release of our authentic spirit. Although in the mandala this spirit emanates from the center, all the other components that are held within the circle must find their resolution for that center to be freed. And so we find ourselves in struggle or in process in life with all of those variables of our nature and circumstance, moving toward creating balance and inner truth.

The mandala is a mirror, a pictorial representation of the contents of our life drama at that moment in symbolic form. Not unlike the dream, the mandala seems to create itself out of the symbols and archetypes of the unconscious, with an intention or movement toward resolution of the opposites that naturally arise in our life. Thus the mandala is understood to be healing, a healing device through which greater integration of the disparate parts of our being can take place.

Mythic symbols constitute one of the great keys unlocking the preconscious reservoir of the mind. Where ideas are expressed in symbols, they serve as doorways into the inner courts of understanding.

From Strong Eye of Shamanism Robert Ryan

Jung says "the symbol represents or personifies certain instinctive data of the dark primitive psyche; the real but invisible roots of consciousness." The act of linking with the archetypes of the unconscious takes us from a limited and personal self into an expression of the transpersonal spirit. This spirit self crosses all cultural and religious boundaries, expressing from the deep heart of Nature.

"the mandala in its purest form is a link between the microcosm of the individual and the macrocosm of the cosmos. Literally a map, its patterns lead us back to clarity and wisdom, to our higher selves. Whether we are shedding light on our unconscious patterns, illuminating deep truths about the universe, or both, the mandala, says Cornell, makes the invisible visible."

Judith Cornell from an interview in Yoga Journal Nov./Dec. 1997

To create a healing mandala we can put ourselves in a receptive state. Reshad Field, a Sufi master calls this 'living in the question'. The mandala can be created following any ritual that connects us with Spirit: the making of an altar, the offering of a prayer, a meditation or a shamanic journey, a trance dance session. Our intention might be to receive healing, to receive the answer to a long sought question, or simply to connect more deeply with the inner self. Jung describes our relationship with the inner self as circular, not linear. He talks about how we circumambulate the soul making a psychic mandala in the process. So the creation of a physical mandala is interesting because it just mirrors our own psychological dynamic.

Although we might hold a specific intention as we begin, it is important to release any conscious designs or images from the mind. In that way a space can open up for the unconscious (and what Jung calls the collective unconscious), which holds the collective symbols or archetypes of humanity to come through. In the process of meditation or journeying you might encounter certain images, feelings or colours and these will dominate as you begin to choose the colours and shapes you are inspired to draw. Following the Judith Cornell method of mandala creation, I work on black paper with coloured pencils. The black paper is a powerful symbol for the unconscious and as you enter the dark, armed with the light of your white pencil, you begin to illuminate those dark places within. Perhaps you will be drawn to the centre initially or not. Perhaps a geometric or realistic image begins to define itself slowly. Staying in that state of suspended logic, allow colours and shapes to pick themselves. Marvel at how, over time, each part of the mandala takes its place within the whole, like pieces of a puzzle fusing. Feel the palpable healing effect of the colours you are drawn to. Don't be afraid to apply them in layers, again and again.

As you enter the dreamtime of the mandala, the experience is timeless, not unlike the experience of trance dance. You disappear and the inner artist takes over, mastering what you yourself could never achieve, expressing from the deep ground of your being through symbol what you could barely articulate. Hours might go by until you suddenly emerge into real time realizing you have been somewhere else, far far away.

Your mandala might take several such sessions to complete. Each session is a meditation as you circumambulate that central self. Take your time. Get to know the territory. There are often times while travelling the mandala where we encounter doubt, frustration, and even self loathing. We feel we have moved far from the center and are tempted to give up before the mandala is completed. Struggling through these very patches often proves to be the most valuable time we can spend. It is in these very struggles that deeper psychological healing takes place and it is not unusual to emerge from our mandala making feeling a deeper peace, a greater sense of harmony. The fear of making art if carefully analyzed often speaks of a deeper fear of expressing our truth. How empowering it is when those symbols and colours emerge that are our own and yet profoundly universal. The process links us to the deeper structures of life's experience.

Where ideas are expressed in symbols, they serve as doorways into the inner courts of understanding.

Robert Ryan The Strong Eye of Shamanism

Art made in this way is truly an act of creation. It is the expression of creation flowing through the personal self in an act of focused surrender. The needs of spirit or the transpersonal nature are met when we stand out of the way and allow the wisdom nature to guide our act of creation.

I thought of an artist as one who paints or sculpts rather than one who is capable of using certain subtle states of consciousness to bring about inner and outer transformation.

Judith Cornell from an interview in Yoga Journal Nov.Dec 1997

When we can return art to the heart of creation, it becomes imbued again with spirit. So often, mainstream art is disconnected from the inner life, lacking meaning and purpose. Rather than reflecting harmony and healing, contemporary art can be dark, mechanistic and even toxic. If making art can return us to spirit, creating healing and inspiration for both artist and viewer alike then it remembers its original purpose as a language of soul.

The drawing of a mandala is a meditation. The circle serves a protective space, a sacred space, which we can enter in a ritualistic way by the making of prayers and intentions. In our classes we work with an altar, candles perhaps crystals and flowers. Sometimes the altar is a medicine wheel, a mandala in itself, expressing the macrocosm. Sage or other incense can be used to purify the atmosphere, the participants and the drawing tools. The making of ritual is an opportunity to shift our awareness away from temporal reality and into the eternal present.

It is in the eternal present that we can fully enter the circle of our being. Perhaps we are looking for healing, for deeper understanding of some aspect of our lives, for greater harmony in relationships, or for the courage to confront difficult issues in our lives. We enter our mandala, a circle on black paper, armed with the penetrating light of our white pencil.

The mandala becomes the crucible of transformation. The symbols we draw down, the colours we invoke induce their own power of healing and meaning. Some mandala artists will be drawn to make abstract and geometric designs, others will make images or intricate scenarios. We each find a way to express our own uniqueness through pattern, shape and design.

"drawing a mandala is akin to capturing a moment of our being. It's like a documentary of the soul."

Judith Cornell from an interview with Yoga Journal Nov./Dec. 1997

Traditionally, mandalas have been used for healing in many diverse cultures. The Navaho sand paintings are mandalas invoked by the medicine man using sacred sound. The patient is invited to sit in the centre of the sand painting, which is erased when the healing is completed. The images of the sand painting depict a world order, a cosmic arrangement that is deemed necessary for the healing of each particular patient. The use of chant and sacred sound is an integral part of the healing ceremony.

Buddhist and Tibetan mandalas are also cosmic arrangements. The entire complexities of particular teachings are depicted in a complex pattern of Buddhas, demons, landscapes and atmospheres.

The viewer enters the mandala from its rim and moves toward the centre layer by layer. At the outer rim are stairs or stupas that take the viewer inward. At the centre of the mandala, the meditator is expected to pierce the veil and enter cosmic dimensions. At each stage, the meditator confronts Buddhas and demons reflecting aspects of his own nature. The journey is a journey of awareness and heightening consciousness.

ENTERING THE MANDALA

In the same way we can learn to enter our own mandalas. Take your time, as you become familiar with the perimeter of your drawing. Enter slowly and meet each of the shapes or images within. Allow the colours and designs to trigger feelings and emotions. Allow the images to speak. Feel free to dialogue with them or using active imagination, let them inform you of their true significance. This might take some time. Often a mandala has to be entered several times over several weeks or months to reveal its layers of meaning, like a dream. Savour the moment of piercing the veil as you enter the centre of your circle. Allow transformation to take place. The mandala is a crucible, an alchemical vessel. It invites you to enter and be transformed.

In subsequent illustrations, the mandalas I created often held chalices or symbols of the Holy Grail within them. I saw these as vessels of birthing and gestation.

THE SPRING EQUINOX ALTAR

The process begins in a sacred space. An altar might include salt (representing the element of Earth), a candle (representing the element of Fire), water or flowers to represent the element of Water and incense or smudge to represent the Air element.

This altar is a mandala in itself, quartered in the four directions and holding a centre of light that represents the spirit self. Crystals form the next circle, representing pure vibration or sound. The next circle represents the breaking down of sound into elemental form. Seeds form the next circle, representing form coming into manifestation. The circle of roses represents the world of polar opposites, the ten thousand things.

As we open the altar, lighting candles, smudging ourselves, calling in guidance, we prepare to open ourselves. The altar begins our meditation and we proceed into our specific journeys. Each journey is unique, exploring different aspects of our being.

The circle too, is a sacred protected space. As you draw your white circle on black paper, allow yourself to enter the sacred space of your own being and explore what wants to reveal itself in your mandala.

Allow the colours and images to come to you. You are simply awake and aware to receive them and record them. Trust in the process without grasping. Enter the mystery.

POWER ANIMALS MANDALA

In this mandala I created, after a journey to find the power animals, four helpers, associated with the four elements emerged. The kingfisher, associated with the water element, is shown here gazing deeply inward, representing introspection. The woodpecker, representing the fire element, is shown drumming representing penetrating insight. The crow representing the air element is shown taking an objective overview of the situation. The dolphin in the center is making a quantum leap as it grasps the golden ring of wholeness retrieved from the cave to the right. The rings around the dolphin represent the veils we break through as we awaken.

HEALING SYMBOL MANDALA

This mandala was created imaging the Blue Medicine Buddha and asking for a healing symbol for a chronic illness that had affected body and mind.

MEDICINE BUDDHA HEALING SYMBOL

The healing green snakes and the specific colors were later taken into daily meditations and applied to the chronic pain. After a length of time, healing took place. The chalice, which had first appeared in the belly of the phoenix, filled with alchemical fire, now held pure and cooling light.

Joseph Campbell says of the chalice or Holy Grail:

"The Grail becomes the -what can we call it? - that which is attained and realized by people who have lived their own lives. The Grail represents fulfillment of the highest spiritual potentialities of the human consciousness.

The Grail becomes symbolic of an authentic life that is lived in terms of its own volition, in terms of its own impulse system, that carries itself between the pairs of opposites of good and evil, light and dark.

Joseph Campbell from The Power of Myth pg. 196-97

In the following mandala, a journey was undertaken to meet the inner shaman. This shaman appeared as half human, half snake in an environment that might have been the rainforest or a tropical jungle. The power of the snake continued to be the power of healing as seen in the caduceus, or healing staff of Hermes. The other aspect of the snake had to do with its ability to change skin, or transform itself. My life was calling for a radical transformation.

SNAKE GODDESS MANDALA

DRAGONS OF TIME MANDALA

After this came a confrontation with the self; the lengthy evaluation of the events of life, represented by the hot and cold dragons of experience. Out of the synthesis of all life's experiences, a realization of the evolution of consciousness, after gradual acceptance, pictured here as taking place in the cocoon of the chakras, under the watchful eye of the witnessing self. This time, all of the threads of the inner life are held in the chalice, which opens like a birth canal into time.

The seed of new life was stirring within. I had no idea what new self would be born, only a sense of striving and impatience. A tremendous energy seemed to be slowly emerging. Turquoise and purple colors kept coming back in each mandala. I thought about the phoenix that I had painted almost two years before and how it continued to come to birth in my art.

SEED MANDALA

BIRTH OF INNER WISDOM MANDALA

I felt the stirring of a new self, expanding from within. It was empowering and exhilarating but at the same time felt like a crucifixion and death of all I had identified with. My feelings vacillated between euphoria and despair.

The chalice appeared again, this time designed with a crucifix. Resting in its stem lay a dark, seed-like fetal shape. Something new had come to earth and was waiting to be born.

Above it, in the dreamtime, swans swam in lemisticate patterns. The chalice cup became a pregnant belly birthing a wisdom eye. The wisdom eye was born out of Nature's realm.

"There are a number of sources for the Holy Grail. One is that there is a cauldron of plenty in the mansion of the god of the sea, down in the depths of the unconscious. It is out of thee depths of the unconscious that the energies of life come to us. This cauldron is the inexhaustible source, the center, the bubbling spring from which all life proceeds". Things are coming to life all around you all the time. There is a life pouring into the world, and it pours from an inexhaustible source."

Joseph Campbell from The Power of Myth pg.217

THE EAGLE'S GIFT OF LIGHT

A new awareness began to manifest. It had to do with honoring the gifts and talents of spirit and allowing them to become manifest in the world. The chalice bloomed into a lotus, symbol of the divine life unfolding. The silver moon and golden corn come together in alchemical union of masculine and feminine principles. The corn provides nurturance from the core or central self.

The inner healer was awakened and power was restored on every level.
THE INNER HEALER