When beginning a mandala, I don’t think what I am going to create today, what kind of mandala will come out or what I want to achieve. Instead I simply create it step by step. First I make a circle as wide and big as the paper or the canvas, then comes either smaller circles or I start from the middle point of the mandala. Following my inner emotions, feelings and breathing I simply start creating. I choose colors accordingly and if I get in touch with a deep need, wish or dream, I simply follow it.
Sometimes I get my inspiration from meditation or Tibetan Buddhism. I really feel that while painting, the mandalas correspond to the chakras. I start with what seems to the most important chakra at the moment and then try to heal that chakra by using other colors. Creating a mandala is like a meditation. In a painting session I may finish a mandala or a only stage in it. Drawing a mandala is not a 30 minutes’ work; it may take days sometimes to reach the level of depth I want to achieve, but each day that I paint the same mandala is like starting afresh, like new inner stages in the process.
At my work as an art therapist I do mandala therapy, according to the person in front of me. I may draw the mandala outlines or just a circle, and let him or her create the details. When creating a mandala in front of a person, usually they already get inspired to continue with colors. I always notice that the person who is painting the mandala is feel happier and better when they finish it, as if their soul was cleansed a bit. Unlike my personal process, when I suggest a mandala for therapeutic issue with a patient, I try to let that person or child finish their mandala during the same meeting. Creating mandalas is a spiritual, meditative and healing process, connecting to their inner self, their inner truth, and manifesting it with colors.
As part of my personal process I have created mandalas for 25 years now, for different reasons. A year ago I was hospitalized for 10 days due to some health problems and created a new mandala each day for healing purposes. It helped me calm my mind, and heal faster. I could see how each day the mandalas improved as well as my health, an amazing parallel healing process, both physical and spiritual from the very deep tissue level.
The size of the paintings is 50×50 cm.
Photos by Vered Bar.
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