Psychedelic Mandala Art!

If these don't wake you up

I don't know what will!

Wow!

That's bright!

The above images are from this website. The one below is my own contribution - a fractal mandala you can download and use as desktop wallpaper - if your eyes can stand it!

Tired of Speaking Sweetly

Love wants to reach out and manhandle us,
Break all our teacup talk of God.

If you had the courage and
Could give the Beloved His choice, some nights,
He would just drag you around the room
By your hair,
Ripping from your grip all those toys in the world
That bring you no joy.

Love sometimes gets tired of speaking sweetly
And wants to rip to shreds
All your erroneous notions of truth
That make you fight within yourself, dear one,
And with others,
Causing the world to weep
On too many fine days.

God wants to manhandle us,
Lock us inside of a tiny room with Himself
And practice His dropkick.

The Beloved sometimes wants
To do us a great favor:
Hold us upside down
And shake all the nonsense out.

But when we hear
He is in such a "playful drunken mood"
Most everyone I know
Quickly packs their bags and hightails it
Out of town.

Rumi from 'The Gift'
Translated by Daniel Ladinsky

Chaos Mandala

For obvious reasons - I call this one Chaos.

I love the freaked out faces all around the circle.

A Mandala To Color

Here is a really interesting and totally cool mandala for coloring.

The artist is skinnystraycat.

I think it's eally nifty the way picture illustrates the theme of harmony and cooperation!

Click to enlarge, then download, print, and color.

Natural Harmony

I love this picture!

It's looks like a natural mandala - and provides a great example of cooperation and harmony, as does the image below:

I do not know who the respective photographers are - if you know - please tell me so I can provide credit and a link.

The Trees and the Bees

There was once a forest of trees, which lived a magnificent and beautiful life. Due to the natural development of their surroundings, the trees "climaxed," and then gradually died, giving way to smaller species that lived below them. Various groups of bees made their nests in the hollow trunks of these dead trees and became very happy making honey. Gradually, the trees, one by one, began to decay and fall.


The various groups of bees debated amongst themselves why this should be and concluded that it must have something to do with the various merits of their hives. Some felt that when a tree fell, the bees in it were being punished for improper belief. Others felt more charitable and wanted to bring the homeless bees to their hive, saying "It could have been us, after all." Still others felt that the hives of the homeless bees must have been flawed in some way from the beginning and so were predestined to fail.

The trees gradually continued to fall, one by one, and each time one fell, the bees in those trees still standing developed more speculations. Finally, all the bees were homeless and had to move on. Each group had been caught by surprise, believing their hive to be the true one destined to survive and bring in a new age. Each hive had failed to recognize that all trees fall eventually, and so it should finish its work and find another forest before it lost its tree. Each had failed to look further than its own hive and consider the effects of the tree, the soil and the rest of their ecology and its own survival.

From: The Sufi Book of Life
Art by: Lili Lovemonster

Flower Peace Mandalas

Flower Peace - Attraction

Here is a collection of Flower Peace symbols I made using my mandala art as a base. Some of them are available at Cool Mandala Art (our Cafe Press Store).

Flower Peace - Beloved

Flower Peace - Deep

Flower Peace - Meditation

Flower Peace - Solarium

Flower Peace - Snowflake

Flower Peace - Daydream

Flower Peace - Festival

The Historical Peace Symbol

In 1958, British artist Gerald Holtom drew a circle with three lines inside, intending the design to be a symbol for the Direct Action Committee Against Nuclear War (DAC).

The design incorporates a circle with the lines within it representing the simplified positions of two semaphore letters (the system of using flags to send information great distances, such as from ship to ship). The letters "N" and "D" were used to represent "nuclear disarmament." (The "N" is formed by a person holding a flag in each hand and then pointing them toward the ground at a 45 degree angle. The "D" is formed by holding one flag straight down and one straight up.)

Holtom finished his design on February 21, 1958 and the design was then first introduced to the public at a DAC march on April 4. The symbol quickly spread. In Britain, the symbol became the emblem for the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND), thus causing the design to become synonymous with nuclear disarmament. In 1960, the symbol migrated to the United States and began to be used as a symbol for the peace movement.

This symbol has become internationally recognized and is still used by peace activists today.

Article by: Jennifer Rosenberg
Source: About.com

A Lovely Visiting Mandala

mandalas, originally uploaded by sara biscuit.

Here is some lovely mandala art by Sara Biscuit.

The Guardians of his Beauty

We are the guardians of His Beauty

We are the protector

Of the Sun.

There is only one reason

We have followed God into this world:

To encourage laughter, freedom, dance

And love.

Let a noble cry inside of you speak to me

Saying,

"Hafiz,

Don't just sit there on the moon tonight

Doing nothing -

Help unfurl my heart into the Friend's Mind,

Help, Old Man, to heal my wounded wings!"

We are the companions of His Beauty.

We are the guardians

Of Truth.

Every man, plant and creature in Existence,

Every woman, child, vein and note

Is a servant of our Beloved -

A harbinger of Joy,

The harbinger of Light.

- 60 Wild And Sweet Poems of Hafiz

Solar Halos

A solar halo looks like a giant mandala of light in the sky.

Wikipedia says: A halo (from Greek ἅλως; also known as a nimbus, icebow or gloriole) is an optical phenomenon produced by ice crystals creating colored or white arcs and spots in the sky. Many are near the sun or moon but others are elsewhere and even in the opposite part of the sky. They can also form around artificial lights in very cold weather when ice crystals called diamond dust are floating in the nearby air.

Here are more cool images collected from various sources:

Images courtesy of Way Cool Pictures, Black Holes and Astrostuff, web biz 2u, Geoff Cloake, Science Photo Library, and elsewhere around the web.

Mandala Mama's Color Me Mandala

Here's a cool mandala to color!

You can view and print it by visitng Mandala Mama, the artists page on flickr.