Mandala Monday: A mandala for beginning

mandala & journal pages

Mandala for beginning
{extra fine sharpie marker}

October 1.  If I was a resolution maker, I’d be making some resolutions, because for me this is the beginning of the year.  I used to think it was because I’ve been on a school calendar for most of my life, but after years of gardening and listening, I now know it has more to do with the fact, that I’m tuned into cycles.  The circles and the coming and goings of seeds and seasons.

sunflower seed headAs I was driving down the road last week, over about a 10 mile section of road, I saw three different sets of vultures circling.   A reminder to set my eyes on the circle of life.  Leaves are starting to fall, the garden is a bit of mess in the loveliest of ways.  Alive with migrating butterflies and seed pods and deadheads that are feeding the birds now and falling to the ground for next year.

handful of October leavesNew things are beginning.  Odd to be so aware of them when everything seems brown and tired.  But the crisp air, fresh apples and pumpkin candles smell like Hope.  And my orange sweater with the big brown button is my party attire.

Speaking of new things.  IGNITE starts today.  IGNITE is ten month, highly intensive FEARLESS® Painting Teacher Training program.  Tonight, twelve of us will gather and begin this journey together.  I’ve been painting pages and cleansing spaces in preparation for the soul work ahead.  I’m not really a resolution maker.  Resolutions feel too much like the performance-for-affirmation hoops I’ve stepped away from.  I am however an intention setter.  These are my intentions for IGNITE and this next season:

Dried hydrangeasI wish to begin with courage, reverence and authenticity and with eyes, arms and heart wide open.  In this season, I choose to honor individual story, approach and timing as I trust the Holy Spirit to reveal Path, plumb depths and clarify Voice.  Bendiciones.

 

 

List it Tuesday: January Books

I like to open up my journal whenever I’m on the phone to doodle and capture anything important that gets said.  This is a page in my everything book with a list and some phone call doodles from a chat with my friend Candi.  {Sharing the list over at Artsyville for List it Tuesday}

January Books

{stationary scrap, ink, Acrylic, Pilot G-2 Ultra Fine 0.38}

Mandala Monday: More Qualities of the Circle

Mandala_Workbook_cover

Circle

Continuing to move through Susan Fincher’s The Mandala Workbook with more Circle exercises.  The bleed through on the paper, in this handmade journal found on Etsy, was initially a source of frustration.   But I am incorporating the bleed through into entries on subsequent pages and learning a lot about working with what I’ve got in front of me instead of putting a ton of energy into something that I can’t change.  The following two mandalas are a case in point.  The circles and dots in the teal mandala were created around the structure of the bleed-through from the spider web mandala.  The quote from pg. 42 really spoke to me as I am in a the midst of an extended fast.

“The mighty task is to submit to the unknown within and without and allow yourself to be transformed by the experience… Fasting, going without sleep, and separation from the community were often part of these rituals of transition.”


spider web mandala

when the other page bleeds through

Moving forward.