"Just be you"

"And please, if you decide to approach this...do it with all the compassion for yourself that you can find. You are probably not a great artist or writer or psychologist or spiritual adept. So don't expect to draw like Leonardo DaVinci, write like Jane Austen, analyze like Carl Jung, or have insights like the Buddha." -
"Just be you."
~ Cheri Huber in How You Do Anything is How You Do Everything - A Workbook

I am passionate about turning others on to the creative, relaxing and insightful practice of making mandalas. There are many ways to make them, from hand-drawn to digital, to coloring pre-made mandalas. What I like most about it is that it's spontaneous, intuitive creativity. It's creativity as self-discovery and release...especially at times when words escape us...we can always make marks and doodles inside of a circle. And..it's so very interesting to see what turns up...and how it changes even as we create it. What's equally interesting is "how we are" in the process of creating, which can tell us a lot about ourselves. Ahh...this is such revealing work.

Whew...I experience a sense of relief and release of emotions and a sense of satisfaction after making/working on a mandala. I often work on one a little at a time, not always in one sitting. That creative time is becoming an Oasis for the Spirit for me. Each stroke, squiggle, squirl, curly-Q and curve... is an inner-mirror and mystery of the self. Only we can determine what it all means...to and for us. For me, that message comes from Spirit as intuition, a flash of insight, or syncronicity of information or a person shows up. My mandalas are often confirmation of an idea, feeling or emotion I've not consciously realized. The answers do come by continually being open to the process, by being open to the mystery, having passion for (seeking) the answers...and exploring the questions. Journaling, self-dialogue, free-writing with the mandalas helps too. I find this entire Mandala Journey of artistry and exploration...is exhilarating and fascinating! I trust that if you choose to exlplore it, that you will too.

Please note: Sometimes there's a tendancy to compare our work with the work of others, that comes with being human. Cheri Huber has advice on that too. In the same book as noted above, she writes:

"Comparing yourself to anyone else is like comparing apples and oranges. No comparison is possible! ...Just see if you can become more interested in the process of comparing than in what is being compared". (Again... "Just be you.")