Moonstone Mandala

“All consciousness separates; but in dreams we put on the likeness of that more universal, more eternal man [woman] dwelling in the darkness of the primordial night. There he [she] is still whole, and the whole is in him [her], indistinguishable from Nature.” -Carl Jung

Enlightened by a soft yet vivid light the radiance in this mandala is more like that of the deep winter sun or a moonlit night, burning cool and bright in a darkened sky.

Circular forms, smooth and silky, eddy and glide into the centre and back out; their swirling potential hint at something forthcoming. In the heart of the mandala an arctic fire glows so cold that it emits a hot radiance; there is a sort of transition here where the darkest hour begins to shift towards the light of daybreak.

Ghostly reflections of that which lie at the centre are mirrored at the edges. Something like a passageway lies behind each, seemingly leading back to the interior: a return journey to the source of origin.

Dream-like in its cool burning radiance, trance-like in its circulating circadian rhythm, something otherworldly haunts this image. Like the lingering reverberation of sound on water, this mandala is an echo of an alternate reality. There is a slipperiness that permeates this image, a silky intangible fluidity that whispers of something ungraspable, like the dark cool wilderness of predawn.

A sense of solitude saturates this mandala. Although dark, much like shadowy oceanic waters imbued with the florescent radiance of a coral reef, it is not dreary. The solitude here is one of rousing aloneness rather than a sinking melancholic loneliness.

We spend much of our time in the tamed conscious part of the mind -thinking, planning, analysing - whilst the untamed mind burns in the depths of the subconscious like an internal wilderness, alive, awake even in the darkest hour. What would happen if we were to dwell in the wilderness of the imagination and subconscious, unleashing them into our lives?
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There is a Secret One inside us;
the planets in all the galaxies
pass through his hands like beads.

That is a string of beads one should look at with luminous eyes.

-Kabir

Stars, diamonds, pentagons, triangles and rhomboids are some of the shapes that form this kaleidoscopic mandala. Together they create a pattern; a web of interconnection where each form is dependent upon and shaped by other forms. It is an interwoven whole, like a single piece of carefully folded origami paper.

Although not immediately evident, a precise tension holds this image together. If one individual component were to be carelessly shaped, the whole pattern would be altered. Perhaps, like a kaleidoscope, an entirely new design would emerge from this one shift, or perhaps the image would become a disjointed shambolic mess.

The mandala, despite its seeming stillness, appears to encapsulate a frozen moment in an unraveling sequence; a snapshot of a transitory shifting pattern where various forms are in the process of either opening or closing.

The mandala is like a prism where the original source of white light has split into a glorious spectrum of colour. A crystalline permeates the image, a self-radiating splendor where the source of light is not apparent and seems to glow from within.

Do we, the manifold forms of life in the cosmos split into our various forms, all stem from the one original source of light? Are we all one big piece of origami paper collectively shaped, shaping? Or are we part of a wonderful web of kaleidoscopic pattern shifting and ever changing? What a responsibility it is to be a part of a greater whole where our graceful, or disgraceful, actions influence the pattern of the entire cosmos.

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Dark and dim
In it there is life seed
Its life seed being very genuine
In it there is growth power
- Tao De Jing

All the colours of the rainbow spring from an infinite indigo black. This seed of life sprouts from the abyss abloom with the zest and beauty of new life. Bands of vibrant colour, smooth and unblemished, are alive with lustrous newness.

Although bursting with verve and vigour, the image is distinctly contained; the crisp outer limit sharply delineates it from the boundless surrounds. It is like a seed that encases and protects the secret kernel of a vibrant new life-force.

Towards the middle of the image a blue shell is seemingly prised open by the swelling expansion of the red root-like structures and the emergent growth within. The shoots of new life are lively and erratic in their impulsive sprouting.

The deep indigo expanse, in which the germinating seed is enveloped, is present also at its core. Perhaps, like the seed of life, we humans too emerge from our surrounds, the kernel of origin alive at our core.

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Song of the Dream Garden
Pillowed on your thighs in a dream garden,
little flower with its perfumed stamen,
singing, sipping from the stream of you –
Sunset. Moonlight. Our song continues.
-Ikkyu Sojun

The mandala: ‘Oasis’

Plant-like organisms are in various stages of growth - dormant, budding or blossoming. Organic flowering forms encased in rich foliage open, bulbous and buoyant, rich and radiant in their unfurling. Others remain clenched, awaiting, perhaps quietly yearning the time of release. This is a process of evolution, an opening and flowering not yet in full bloom.

At the heart of each budding or blooming flower, is an enigmatic blue globe. In the budding forms, the globe appears solid and sturdy, smooth and glassy. In the flowering forms the sphere appears malleable and fluid, rippling out from a softly glowing centre; the glassy shell has been penetrated.

An organic opulence permeates the imagery. Chlorophyll-rich greens speak of thriving lavish vegetation whist deep reds and golden oranges evoke the deep sacredness of a Buddhist temple or Tibetan monastery. An iridescent light imbues the plant life like sunbeams gleaming through stained-glass windows of churches.

There is a sacredness, a preciousness to this mystifying garden, as though the plants themselves are transparent vessels filled with a divine light. The growth and expansion of this holy garden is a treasured journey, radiant in it’s unfolding, yet full fruition is yet to be realized.

What nutrients or fertile soil nourish this flourishing utopian garden? What is the candescent life-force that infiltrates these organic vessels of air and light?

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God is the energy of the cosmos
— Joan Chittister, Benedictine nun.

The mandala: ‘Cosmic Dust’

There is a smallness within an expansiveness in this mandala. The initial vision that unlocked the journey of this painting was of an atom. The atom is represented as a small white dot in the centre of the painting. The outer limits of the mandala are reminiscent of the plasma membrane of a cellular wall, dynamic and pulsating. This microscopic theme sits within a greater spaciousness, suggestive of the expansiveness of the universe.

There is powerful motion within this painting that only relents towards the centre where the atom is pinpointed and accentuated. The mid and outer limits of the painting appear to be spiralling outward creating tension; a straining and tearing away from the point of stillness. The energy is released, dissipating and exhausting itself where the miniscule meets the macroscopic.

The mandala thus embodies the microcosm within the macrocosm, and a tension and communication between the two. The atomic and cellular components of the mandala suggest a revisitation to a very microscopic level of self. There is a strain, a sort of tearing apart and peeling back within the painting.

The painting process unleashed mini-epiphanies, unlocked elapsed memories and forgotten dreams. It was seemingly a process of delving deeply into the archives of self and activating a process of opening and undoing. Reflected in the mandala of my life, something in the matrix of self felt as though it was being rewritten, a destruction and resurrection of sorts, was taking place.

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Emerge into life, enter death
— Lao Tzu

The mandala: ‘An Emergent Reality’

Bubble-like forms hover over a partially transparent image creating a rather ethereal feel. There is a sense of delicateness and tenuousness to this painting, as if, perhaps, without the sturdy golden yellows and oranges, one could blow it all away. There is a grace to this painting; it is both steadfast and afloat. Perhaps one could say that it is suspended between two opposing forces.

There is a gentle inward-outward movement contained within the mandala. The bubble forms and shafts of light both lead one in towards the centre and out towards the periphery. Similarly, the two interlocking linear forms spiral in opposing directions: the one clockwise, the other anti-clockwise. The combined effect is of a subtle repulsion-attraction dynamic, where, whilst spinning, the one force holds the other in careful check, much like the protons and electrons of an atom. The tension created by this dynamic equilibrium is delicate but crucial. There is the sense that if this balance were upset perhaps the image would either collapse in on itself or expand forever outwards.

Within both the centre and periphery of the mandala there is nothing -nothing but emptiness. There is the hint of a journey within this painting: a circuit from nothingness to something back to nothingness. The only difference between the emptiness of the centre and the emptiness of the periphery is that the peripheral emptiness contains the whole memory, all the information of the ‘something-ness,’ within it. Much like the journey of life and death, life and death.

Is the image form that is spirit-infused, or spirit that has taken form? Is it coming or going? Is it moving or static? Is it anchored or afloat? Is it empty or full? The questions begin to fall away -the answer is always neither and both. It is whole. It is a composed state of balance, poised whilst gently rhythmic; a dynamic equilibrium. A precarious and delicate space to hold. I wonder what, if anything, emerges from this space of wholeness?

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‘We live our lives as wanderers until dead we finally come home.’

Mandala 1: ‘Tides of Tao — Going Away’

Spears of light strike out like sharp morning sun reflecting off window glass. The energy here in the centre is so intense it forces open the four-fold gate and creates ripplets in the world outside. Dawn has cracked and the energy then moves towards that of the flooding midday sun; intense orange streams of light reach their bounds at the painting’s border. A change of course takes place at the canvas edge. Light bounces from here to there like photons shifting direction when striking an object. A soft overlay of cooling green reflected from the centre intermingles with heated oranges. Like stairways they lead steadily back to the centre, growing richer in hue. Here, near the centre, bubble-like forms hover serenely over the image and hot gingery golds soften into an orb of pink; there is dusk to this day, soft and gently lingering before dipping into the cool blue-green of twilight. The red gates near the centre are seemingly another place of transition - dawn breaks and the journey repeats itself.

Mandala 2: ‘Tides of Tao — Return’

Light glows softly in a luminous aqueous realm: a quiet lagoon, serene yet not stagnant. Organic cellular-like structures evoke a richness of life, like cells drawing nutrients or photons into their soupy cytoplasm. Wisps of reedy forms follow gentle currents, spiralling gently around and in. There is spaciousness within this mandala, not the weightless spaciousness of light and air, but the liquid vastness of deep ocean.

At the mandala’s perimeter is a portal-like structure, a gateway through which one seemingly peers – peers in through, or peers out of? And, does one look down into a realm contained in a vessel-like structure, or look out from a contained space at another, perhaps, limitless realm?

Unlike the closed circuit of ‘Going Away’, the journey of this mandala is left open, uncertain. Where does it go next?

Mandala 3: ‘Tides of Tao — Convergence’

At a moments glance this mandala embodies a hovering stillness. This stillness, however, is infused with movement. Winding and weaving forms interlace to create a dynamic current inlaid with lesser counter-currents. Within each golden sphere forms spin this way and that way. The electric green spiral ripples endlessly out and back; an eternal journey embodied in this motion.

Two distinct entities are within this mandala. A green spiral reminiscent of a great snaking vein or umbilical cord provides armature to the floating orange spherical encasings containing spermatozoon-like forms. Towards the centre they become softer, more transparent, blurred; a transformation is seemingly taking place. In the core of the image a mysterious unformed entity begins to blossom behind a membranous barrier.

There is a womb-ness to this mandala and although there is spaciousness, it is seemingly a warm contained spaciousness, rich and incandescent. Something brews and gestates within. Inside the gold encasings, something is taking place, something like miosis the moment before cells divide suggesting that something may transpire from this splitting.

This mandala has four quarters, each containing a golden encasing and a green spiral. Yet both entities snake out to interact with other segments, a greater circle uniting all. Maybe there is an unfinished story to each segment: micro stories woven into a greater story.

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