Moonstone Mandala

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.

The earth rebirths me

Powerlessness is a sickening feeling in the pit of the stomach. It is also a call to become something new. The gift of powerlessness invites us to enjoy the grace of surrender.
-Joan Chittister, Benedictine nun.

Life took on a strange roller-coaster feel recently when I moved to a rather potent chunk of land called Windgrove in Tasmania. I could put it down as feeling deracinated from the move, but it all felt oh-so-much bigger than that.

Here, in this particular environment, a ceaseless ocean empties itself repeatedly on the shore only to return to a greater body of water. A peace-fire has been burning continuously for five years and acts as a popped cork to release the earth’s tension allowing for renewal and regeneration. Each flame that flickers is a life born and lived. The land here, she speaks of purification and rebirth.

“Take off your muddy shoes before you enter my house!” she seemed to be demanding.

Sometimes it pays to be small, meek and quiet, to bow down to the faceless powers that confront, allowing the demands of the elemental world to wash over us, through us. There is benefit sometimes in surrendering the frail ego and experiencing the raw fragility of humanness, to be broken down, stripped back, peeled away to begin anew.

… Sometimes with
the bones of the black
sticks left when the fire
has gone out

someone has written
something new
in the ashes
of your life.

You are not leaving
you are arriving.

— from The Journey by David Whyte

The Taoist food chain

We follow the earth;
earth follows heaven;
heaven follows the Tao.

Tao follows its own true nature.
— Lao Tzu

From stardust to human form, and quicker than we know, we dissolve back into the elements that birthed us. How cocky we are as humans, what a mountain of ego, pretending to be cosmocrats ruling and dominating the earth when we cannot even lay claim to the elements that compose our bodies.

According to Taoism, we humans find ourselves, not only subject to the laws and influence of the forces of heaven and earth that most of us recklessly disregard, but also under a greater mandate that permeates all within the cosmos.

We loan our bodies for a momentary flash in the immense expanse of time, and our spirit and soul truthfully follow a higher mandate than the crude governance of our lesser minds. If we were to melt into the humility of the insignificant reality that we each are, perhaps then from a space of humbleness we could start again. We are, after all, at the bottom of the Taoist food chain.

Like vanishing dew,
a passing apparition
or the sudden flash
of lightening — already gone —
thus should one regard one’s self.
— Ikkyu Sojun