Moonstone Mandala

‘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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