Peace Mandala

Mandala art by Shirley Gibson

Why Religion?

Religion means "to bind back." Its purpose is to turn us back into ourselves, to the well inside from which we are endlessly creative. God is a well that does not run dry. Religion is the process by which we constantly check in with God, as a child checks in with her mother. Once she feels secure, she is free to roam and wander. So do we need the constant reassurance that we are loved and protected, guided and watched over. There we have the strength and self-esteem we need to show up fearlessly in a fearful world.

~Marianne Williamson

An Unusual Mandala for Coloring

Here's an interesting mandala for you to color.
Click to enlarge, then download, print, and color.
Have fun!

The Seed of God

The seed of God is in us.

Now

The seed of a pear tree
Grows into a pear tree;
And a hazel seed
Grows into a hazel tree;

A seed of God
Grows into

God.

~Meister Eckhart

More great mandala art and poetry can be found at my new website, Mandala Madness, hosted at shirleytwofeathers.com

Green Peace

Here is a desktop wallpaper created especially for you. Add some serenity to your workspace, and download the full size image here.

I looked for myself

I looked for my self,
but my self, but my self was gone.
The boundaries of my being
had disappeared in the sea.
Waves broke. Awareness rose again,
And a voice returned me to myself
It always happens like this.
Sea turns on itself and foams,
and with every foaming bit
another body, another being takes form.
And when the sea sends word,
each foaming body
melts back to ocean-breath.

~Jelaluddin Rumi

Beautiful and Sacred

From the Golden Light Centre,
we have the spiritual art of Francene Hart

Meditation for Starting Out in the Journey

With one hand lightly on your heart, breathe easily and gently, feel the awareness of breath and heartbeat creating a clear, spacious place inside. Breathe with the sound of the word bismillah (BiS-MiL-LaaH). When we remember to connect our heart to the Heart of the Cosmos, we recall that, as the Sufis say, "God is your lover, not your jailer."

~Neil Douglas-Klotz

Beginning

The Sufis often begin something new by breathing the Arabic word "bismillah", which can be translated poetically:

We begin by remembering
the sound and feeling of the One Being,
the wellspring of love.
We affirm that the next thing we experience
shimmers with the light of the whole universe.

~Neil Douglas-Klotz

Oops! Mandala

Mandalas don't have to be serious. Here's something fun.
Art by Shirley Gibson

It is too clear

 

It is too clear and so it is hard to see.
A dunce once searched for a fire with a lighted lantern.
Had he known what fire was,
He could have cooked his rice much sooner.

- Zen Saying

For Your Coloring Pleasure

Here's an interesting mandala to color,
Click to enlarge, then download, print, and color.

The artist is unknown to me.

If you created this mandala, or know who did, please let me know so I can provide credit and a link.

Have fun!

Happy Fourth!

Poi Circles, originally uploaded by hendriko.

Long exposure shot of poi artist Nick Woolsey from playpoi.com.The pattern Nick is spinning here is known as compound circles or flowers. For more information on this pattern see Nick's video tutorial "The Secret of Poi Flowers".

The trouble with the future is that it usually arrives before we are ready for it.

~Arnold Glasow

Squaring the Circle Revisited

The mosiacs from the Squared Circle group at Flickr tweaked my curiosity and I started wondering if a Mandala really does qualify as a "squared circle." My internet search for the meaning of this phrase landed me at Wikipedia from which comes the following explanation:



"Squaring the Circle is a problem proposed by ancient geometers. It is the challenge to construct a square with the same area as a given circle by using only a finite number of steps with compass and straightedge. More abstractly and more precisely, it may be taken to ask whether specified axioms of Euclidean geometry concerning the existence of lines and circles entail the existence of such a square.

In 1882, the task was proven to be impossible, as a consequence of the fact that pi (π) is a transcendental, rather than algebraic irrational number; that is, it is not the root of any polynomial with rational coefficients. It had been known for some decades before then that if π were transcendental then the construction would be impossible, but that π is transcendental was not proven until 1882. Approximate squaring to any given non-perfect accuracy, on the other hand, is possible in a finite number of steps, as a consequence of the fact that there are rational numbers arbitrarily close to π.

The term quadrature of the circle is sometimes used synonymously, or may refer to approximate or numerical methods for finding the area of a circle."

Well, that started out simply enough, and then it went right over my head. Math was never my best subject.

Mandala Mosaics at Flickr

From krazydad at Flickr, we have these wonderful mosaic images.

A Sufi Story

One day a neighbor found Mullah Nasruddin sitting in a tree in his garden, in the process of sawing off the limb on which he was sitting.

"Mullah, you'd better stop, otherwise you'll fall down," said the neighbor, then went back inside his house. Sure enough, Mullah kept sawing, the limb broke, and he fell. Mullah ran next door and pounded on his neighbor's door.

"O, great one, please forgive me," said Mullah, "I didn't know I had a psychic for a neighbor! Could you please predict what will happen to me tomorrow?"

The neighbor tried to deny that he could predict the future, saying that what he had told Mullah was just common sense. But Mullah wouldn't listen and kept after him. Finally, the neighbor became exasperated and said, "Mullah, for heaven's sake, for all I care you can drop dead tomorrow!"

The next morning, Mullah woke and said to his wife, "Our neighbor is a psychic and he told me that I would drop dead today, so I have to prepare." He took his donkey along for company and went to the graveyard, then dug a grave for himself and lay down in it. As the day ended, he was still lying there and thought, "I must be dead now. This isn't really so bad!"

Then a pack of dogs came by and started harassing his donkey. The donkey began to bray and make a racket. Finally, Mullah yelled from the grave, "You dogs - get out of here! If I weren't dead I'd get out of my grave and give you a thrashing!"