A while ago I got the urge to buy some pastels. On buying them I immediately felt guilty, "what do I need them for?" was the first thought. "I do not do art, I am not an artist," was the second. Hearing these thoughts I still went ahead.
I was going through a very challenging time where the usual means of helping and dealing with difficult situations no longer seemed to be an option. So instead, I decided to create the energy of what I felt I was in, the old energy which I felt was being turned around. I became immersed in my feelings. I started rubbing at the pastels on the paper and enjoyed how they came together. I didn't really think at all, I just did and it felt natural. I was trying to manifest in art my frustration at the situation I was in.
Someone I loved was going through a very difficult time and I felt that it was symbolic of the old energy, the atmosphere of the house was saturated and it was very hard to be myself within it and be with them through it. The whole situation was fear based (and I don't mean that judgmentally or that it was irrational fear, it was just generated from that polarity) and fear was momentarily incrementing and augmenting the situation.
I was upset at this force and the power it seemed to have within the person I loved and around them. So I tried to depict it with all my heart. When I finished I thought it was a black piece, smacking of something I wanted to see the back of. I felt it to be a pictorial representation of toxicity.
It was only later, once I settled, that I realised that there was much light within it. Now I really like the piece. In the beginning I had it in a corner of the room, not quite hidden, but not openly present, I was almost scared of it, which makes sense. But now it feels like a piece of creation. Within the darkness, beneath the darkness, the light vibrates and shines.
Throughout the most challenging situations in my life, (and there have been quite a few) the light never went out, though I swore blind at the time that it had. They were the turning points, the moments I had to walk through to get to where I next needed to go and often it was into the most uplifting situations. I would not be as I am today without the struggle. It was the path I chose (and not always consciously), it was what I needed to learn the lessons I needed to learn.
Now when I look at the darkness, the real darkness of a light absent room, I see oscillating particles, like television static, all around me. I know that even within this there is the potential of light.
I had a dream a while back where I was able to work with the particles and draw the light forth. It was a wonderful dream and it has informed my waking since. That is what I have come to believe that every situation holds within it the seed of its potential opposite. It is through the recognition and acceptance of the states of being or the potentials that we achieve balance.
Fairly recently I read a book entitled: 'The Law of One, Book 1, The Ra Material'. One part examines the polarity of our existence: p. 87:
'Where you find patience within your mind you must consciously find the corresponding impatience and vice versa. Each thought a being has, has in its turn an antithesis...The mind contains all things. Therefore, you must discover this completeness within yourself. The second mental discipline is acceptance of the completeness within your consciousness.'
It goes on to say that once this has been achieved, the next step is to do the same with others.
This has stayed with me, within us are all things and sometimes it is harder to accept the light, our own power and joy than it is to accept the dark, though that side too is very hard to sit with. The mandalas became important for me because it was the first clearly physical step I took towards a different way of "doing". Only much later did I realise that I had "done" something with my drawing.
For me these mandalas became anchors to different intentions. I am always told that it is important to make physical what we experience. If I meditate, when something happens, it is good to give it form, through sound or colour, whatever appeals to me. But it is important to anchor it on our plane. It was also about recognising that there were other options, different modes to express and cleanse both myself and the space around me.
I had opened up another space to explore things. I had found simple enjoyment, childlike, in something that I would otherwise never have embarked on. It began to open doors. If I had wanted to know what the point of it was before I embarked on it, I would never have known and thus would never have done it.
The reality is that we more often than not, don't know at a given time what the next step will bring, things only become clearer as we embark on the doing of it, no matter how silly it may seem at the time.
Here is the mandala I drew, in reality it seems much darker:
Mandala II
After having done the first mandala, the very same day I did a second one. This one was the energy of where I wanted to be, the one I felt I resonated with and was trying to hold. I felt this to be more akin with the light and I kept it on my altar for a few months. It always made me feel very comfortable, as if I was held. I suppose I had drawn from within me what I wanted to resonate with and be. It did not need to come from beyond, it was already here. Perhaps that was the sense of comfort, I was tapping into something already existent and within was without.
Mandala III
I did this mandala the following day and it was completely different to the other two. It gave me a sense of cool clarity. Till today I feel as though it is a representation of another kind of dimensional existence. It feels very fluid and very clear. By doing the mandalas I open something in myself that goes beyond words.
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