meditation with mandalas

Psychoanalyst Carl Jung used the drawing of mandalas to calm himself. Several years ago I took a workshop with a Jungian-inspired writer who challenged us to pick an image from one of our more elaborate dreams and then to write about it. The workshop culminated when we were prompted to draw our own mandala using the dream image as subject matter for the form. I've been drawing them ever since.

To create a mandala, you start at the center and work outward in 360 degrees. Many paintings are Mandalas used as objects of meditation and prayer common to many of the world's religions. As opposed to a maze that is meant to confuse, a mandala is a visual labyrinth that the viewer follows first from the center and then  travels outward to the edges. Working backward from the outside edges back to the center, the mind travels in and out getting not only lost in the pattern, but calmed by it and the slow contemplation of the form.

For me, drawing my own mandalas is even more calming. And I've been making a few lately. I draw them freehand with a magic marker, then bring the black and white image into Illustrator and then use "Live Trace" to create an electronic web of the pattern, then use "Live Paint" to fill in the lines with color and pattern.

Here are few more recent ones: