100 Days for Mandalas – Day One – Creativity Retreat

Welcome to Day One of the 2nd session of 100 Days for Mandalas.  This is a creativity retreat that will hopefully inspire the making of mandalas. It is a retreat in the quiet time,  when the warmth of inner creativity burns as a fire in the center of the soul.  There are many ways and reasons to make mandalas.  Find your way and your reason, then join in.  The purpose of this retreat is to find comfort in how ever many mandalas you make, and whatever kind of mandala you make.  It can be one or one hundred.  The materials are whatever calls to you: paper and paint, stick and stones, water and ice. However many mandalas and however made, know that there is a community of others who have joined you on this creative journey.

This time of year is when quiet and long night sky help us spend inward time.  The light of the sky sends star and moon energy into our lives. A bright light in the dark illuminates our way. In this quiet we can listen, deeply listen, to messages of our soul.  And we can honor those messages by bringing them to the surface in mandala form.

(Mandalas above by Christine Torlina)

Mandalas can help us notice the big lessons of life, like impermanence and ever shifting changes.

(the above two mandalas by Gail Haverdill)

These Buddha Board mandalas were created by brushing water on a paper surface.  The water leaves ink like marks that evaporate within a few minutes.  The strong line becomes faint and disappears.  Like the painstakingly created sand mandalas created by Tibetan Buddhist monks that are swept up after completion, these mandalas remind us of life’s ever changing nature.

Mandalas can remind us of the wisdom of others with the images and words we record.  A book I am reading about how Shamans navigate multiple worlds, reminds me that the heart is how I need to see, love and know.

Mandalas can help with healing.  The recent shock of the sudden illness of my beloved twelve year old golden retriever and discovery of something that may cause her soon demise, has left me in emotional turmoil.  Creating mandalas that sooth my heart, let me uncover feelings and become intimate with them has been a blessing.  In the making of these mandalas, images of a flame, a tear and a leaf have all emerged to become symbols of my healing.

Please join in this retreat of mandala making to enjoy creative expression, to remind yourself of the wisdom of your soul or others, to help with healing, or for any reason that feels right for you.

PROMPT
The prompt for the week is – LISTEN.  Listen in the quiet and let your deep wisdom speak.

MANDALA MEDITATION
Here is a guided meditation to help you in the listening.

Mandala-Meditation-100 Days for Mandalas-Week One

ENJOY & CREATE  – week two will start on Monday January 21st

SHARE – If you would like to share your mandalas with others, please send them to me through this blog (email contact above) or the email: Linda (at) CreativityForTheSoul.com.  The email uses the @ symbol and there are no spaces.