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Gallery: Mandalas
Carl Jung has written extensively about the informative
and healing power of mandalas, most notably in Commentary on
“The Secret of the Golden Flower,” but most touchingly
in Memories, Dreams, and Reflections. Here, for example,
is an edited version of his description in ‘Golden Flower:’
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
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"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 |
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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. 
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