Gallery: Mandalas
The pictures arise quite spontaneously, and from two sources. One source is the unconscious, which spontaneously produces fantasies of this kind; the other is life, which, if lived with utter devotion, brings an intuition of the self, on one’s own individual being. When the self finds expression is such drawings, the unconscious reacts by enforcing an attitude of devotion to life. …the mandala is not only a means of expression but also produces an effect. It reacts upon its maker. Age-old magical effects lie hidden in this symbol, for it is derived from the ‘protective circle’ or ‘charmed circle.’ Whose magic has been preserved in countless folk customs….Through the ritual action, attention and interest are led back to the inner, sacred precinct, which is the source and goal of the psyche and contains the unity of life and consciousness. ( par 36)
In MDR there is a much more personal voice with respect to the power of mandalas:
It was only towards the end of the First World War that I gradually began to emerge from the darkness. Two events contributed to this. The first was that I broke with the woman who was determined to convince me that my fantasies has artistic value; the second and principal event was that I began to understand mandala drawings…I sketched every morning in a notebook a small circular drawing, a mandala, which seemed to correspond to my inner situation at the time. With the help of these drawings I could observe my psychic transformations from day to day. (pp.186-9)
For our first invitational gallery presentation, members were encouraged to try their hands at their own mandalas.
My heartfelt thanks to all of you who participated in this project -- and to each of you who now take some moments to contemplate their work. We could not have asked for a better illustration of the healing, magical, and ubiguitous power of the mandala. Mandalas are everywhere, as these artists have shown us, in cities and on lakes, on beaches and in sand trays. They can be both found and made - on wood, canvas, stone, and soil. They just ask to be seen. Marilyn DeMario |
| "There is no linear evolution; there is only a circumambulation of the self. Uniform development exists, at most, only at the beginning; later everything points toward the center. This insight gave me stability and gradually my inner peace returned. I knew that in finding the mandala as an expression of the self I had attained what was for me the ultimate. Perhaps someone else knows more, but not I." -- Carl Jung |
I made this mandala last spring when I was beginning to realize that my future lied in clinical psychology, not business work, which I thought was my best choice. Being a Jungian, I was resigned to a life of hiding my real beliefs about the human psyche in academia; however, a synchronistic encounter with David Rosen opened up a new opportunity - the Jungian conference at Texas A&M. It being only the second international Jungian conference, and the only one yet held in the US, gave me the chance to meet like-minded people from around the world. With this newfound sense of hope, I felt compelled to draw my first mandala. It represents the ability of synchronicity to help one reach his or her full potential. Kile Ortigo |
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I think of these small pictures as sketches made with a camera of light on film. The various objects create their own textures. They probably need to be seen as a collection or series, in a sort of dialogue, rather than one off expressions. |
| I first made similar images of this sort around ten years ago. They seem to have a life of their own! I read something by the poet Sean O'Brien recently which I liked: "The work of art, the poem, has its own imaginative life." |  |
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A circular mirror has been placed on a perspex surface which reflects a window, but in a diffuse, muted way. Whilst windows and mirrors reflect something outside, tangible and external, the imposition of the camera as intermediary and frame, in conjunction with the artificial construction of an event between light and shadow, camera and work, aims to conjure something internal, of the imagination. An expression of the psyche creating "reality" - the province of the photographic document. Rachael Steel |
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I take photos of mandalas in the world when I can. This is a landscape artist making a temporary beach double spiral in San Francisco. |
This is a window in a house in San Francisco. It is a mandala blending the light-energy of white and blue in the spectrum through glass bricks that wiggle the image as if sun on water, illuminating a home's interior with celestial light. Nature and architecture. Lee Bailey |
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This is a photo of a mural in the Mission district of San Francisco, The spirit of the tree, usually a symmetrical mandala from above. Soul in the world. Unknown street artist. Photograph by Lee Bailey |
Another mural in San Francisco's Mission District. Mother Earth. Unknown street artist. Photograph by Lee Bailey |
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Return to the Center acrylic on canvas 1977 |
| The Tao of Jung (Sun in Valley of Blue Moon) acrylic on canvas 1993 |  |
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Joy and Hope acrylic on canvas 1997 |
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New but Difficult Beginning acrylic and natural plant on wood 2003 |
| Changing and Evolving acrylic on wood 2002 |  |
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Death and Rebirth carving in stone 2003 I meditate using Active Imagination. The process of making madalas calms and centers me. It's a peaceful process. David Rosen |
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The "bird mandala" represents the helpfulness of seeing at a remove. Einstein said that we can only truly evalute one dimenision from the vantage point of another one, which presents a problem if we want to see and evaluate ourselves and our context. The bird is a metaphor for this possibility and the mandala indicates the promise of wholeness. |
| The birds and animals come to the aid of the people who have developed dysfunctional "habits." I am prompted to say in support of the sand tray process, that we humans can tend to see things too abstractly and to rely on thought alone to find solutions. A sand tray offers the unusual, tolerable and fruitful possibility, in a physical and experiential context, of standing at a remove ( outside the tray) and seeing and making conscious determinations about what we have projected metaphorically onto the tray. If we wish, we are then at liberty to adjust or reframe our projection within the same experiential, physical context. |  |
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I find that building a mandala in the physical context of my life is very satisfying. Later on, whenever I pass by it, I look at it and it supports my efforts. Stonehenge, medicine wheels, Tibetan and other mandalas seem to have an ordering function while providing a sense of potential wholeness. Sophia Hughes |
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This is a child's simple sandcastle, inverted, turned on it's
side and on its side again using Photoshop digital imaging. |
I love the sense of recognition that a mandala brings - the sense that "now it is done." Marilyn DeMario |
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PDF Files
These Mandalas are also available as PDF files. You
will need Adobe
Acrobat Reader installed on your computer. 