A Month for Mandalas – TRUTH – part 4
January 30th, 2017
STANDING UP FOR TRUTH
“What you love is the cure” is an African proverb. How can my love for (fill in the blank) cure my life and the world? We find our highest truths when what we love is formed in the light of love. What we love is the vision that creates the foundation of the future. Bringing highest truths into the world is The Great Work of our time. It is how we stand up for our truths.
Karen Martinez Mandala – Words She Heard when Walking a Labyrinth
DID I SIGN UP FOR THIS?
The future is uncertain and is up to us to create the cure. A calling comes to each of us from the future. It pushes us to reach deep inside to find the strength to bring our truths and what we love to the surface. It’s usually not easy giving birth to our truths in our actions, but we are urged on by poet Mary Oliver when she asks, “Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?”
My Prayer Mandala for the Curing & Blossoming of Earth – A truth I stand up for
THE GREAT WORK
“The Great Work before us … is a role given to us, beyond any consultation with ourselves. We did not choose. We were chosen by some power beyond ourselves for this historical task. … We are as it were, thrown into existence with a challenge and a role that is beyond any personal choice. The nobility of our lives, however, depends upon the manner in which we come to understand and fulfill our assigned role.” These are words of Fr. Thomas Berry*, Catholic priest, ecologist and cultural historian. His words are about the ecological crisis we are in and how we are all being called to cure this. His words are about us bringing all our truths, what we love, our cures, into the world.
The Truth of the World Mandala – NASA photo of Earth from Space
My favorite mandala ever
FIERCE TRUTH, FIERCE LOVE
The Great Work often pushes us to act, to create, defend and make visible our truths and what we love. It pushes us in ways that bring passion and power. Thomas Berry talks of the significance of our actions to determine history, “For the success or failure of any historical age is the extent to which those living at the time have fulfilled the special role that history has imposed on them….”.
Karen Martinez Mandala – Strong Passions & Words
FINDING OUR TRUTHS
“Embrace Your Power” were the words Karen found when walking the labyrinth. Martha Schermann found hers in the words “What I will become is yet to be … but it will be spectacular”.
Martha Schermann Mandala Book – What I will become
Martha Schermann – Inside Mandala Book
Martha Schermann – What I will become mandala book – inside back cover
CREATIVITY PROMPT
Gather your art materials. Let the words from the African proverb, Mary Oliver and Thomas Berry inspire you.
“What you love is the cure” – African proverb.
“Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?” – Mary Oliver
“The Great Work before us … is a role given to us, beyond any consultation with ourselves. We did not choose. We were chosen by some power beyond ourselves for this historical task. … We are as it were, thrown into existence with a challenge and a role that is beyond any personal choice. The nobility of our lives, however, depends upon the manner in which we come to understand and fulfill our assigned role.” – Thomas Berry
MANDALA MEDITATION
Listen to the meditation and then create a mandala or mandalas that calls upon the truths you are, or will be, standing up for. Listen deeply.
Let this blog inspire your creativity and help you find your truths.
PLEASE SHARE YOUR MANDALA CREATIVITY
Please share the mandalas and art journaling you create by sending an email with attachments of your art. Please use a high resolution – which can be a smart phone camera – with enough surroundings in the photo. I can easily crop the image. Please send to linda (at) creativityforthesoul.com. Please use the @ sign and no spaces.
ENJOY & CREATE
THE TRUTH OF LIGHT
Next week is the beginning of the second Month for Mandalas session, with the theme LIGHT. As the northern hemisphere transitions from darkness to light, it is time to see our truths in the light.
FEBRUARY 1 -CELEBRATIONS & HONORING THE RETURNING LIGHT –
The midpoint between the Winter Solstice & Spring Equinox is the time of early spring, the return of green and light. It takes place on Feb. 1st. Imbolc is the Celtic celebration of first signs of spring with the returning sun. It is also a day of celebrating the Celtic Goddess Brigid, the Goddess of poetry, healing, metalcraft, and midwifery. St. Brigid’s Day also takes place on Feb. 1 and honors the Catholic Saint of Kildare who established monasteries in Ireland in the fifth century and has many of the gifts as Brigid the Goddess.
*Fr. Thomas Berry, was a theologian, historian and defender of the earth. He called himself a geologian. His many books and work are at the forefront of work to save earth from the perilous path it is on. His work lives on in many ways.
Visit these websites:
http://thomasberry.org/ – Thomas Berry Website
http://fore.yale.edu/ – Yale Forum on Religion and Ecology, created by students of Thomas Berry