This is one of my personal favourite mandalas ever.
The content is meaningful to me – it is a moment of calm on a day filled with waves of violent storms. It is a pause, bringing the relief that remind us how little we really control, despite how well we can fool ourselves otherwise.
He does not need opium. He has the gift of reverie. ~Anais Nin
Daydreaming is also a pause. It can refresh our minds and our spirits and help us be in this moment in an unmeasured way. That’s why this mandala is one of my submissions in the Edge of Wake, an art show about daydreaming going on right now at Milk Coffee Bar (downtown Windsor, ON).
Today’s post includes two mandalas inspired by some suspiciously radical-looking daisies growing in my front garden.
Wikipedia has an good essay of Flower Power movement of the late ’60s and early ’70s.
And to help make the experience more complete, here is Pink Floyd with “Us and Them”
Us, and them
And after all were only ordinary men.
Me, and you.
God only knows it’s not what we would choose to do.
Forward he cried from the rear
And the front rank died.
And the general sat and the lines on the map
Moved from side to side.
Black and blue
And who knows which is which and who is who.
Up and down.
But in the end it’s only round and round.
Haven’t you heard it’s a battle of words
The poster bearer cried.
Listen son, said the man with the gun
There’s room for you inside.
I mean, they’re not gunna kill ya, so if you give em a quick short,
Sharp, shock, they wont do it again. dig it? I mean he get off
Lightly, cos I would’ve given him a thrashing – I only hit him once!
It was only a difference of opinion, but really…i mean good manners
Don’t cost nothing do they, eh?
Down and out
It can’t be helped but there’s a lot of it about.
With, without.
And who’ll deny it’s what the fighting’s all about?
Out of the way, it’s a busy day
I’ve got things on my mind.
For the want of the price of tea and a slice
The old man died.
“The complexity of things – the things within things – just seems to be endless. I mean nothing is easy, nothing is simple.” — Alice Munro
And now for something completely different.
I’ve been wanting to use the bird in this photo I took at Ojibway Nature Reserve for some time. I’m drawn to the shape but I was never happy with the texture or colours in the image, or in any mandalas I made with it.
I’m content with this new result. It makes me think of Victorian ceramic tiles and that somehow makes me happy.
It’s not so much how busy you are, but why you are busy. The bee is praised. The mosquito is swatted. — Mary O’Connor
The tree doing the flowering struck me as busy busy busy, in a happy and good way. I think the resulting mandala has the same quality. There’s just so much going on.
The sheen of the petals makes me think of ribbon, hence the title. The source photo was taken in the neighbourhood on my way to pick up coffee filters. The sun was glorious, the branches laden with blossoms and one song bird serenaded me when I photographed his tree and his fine self. Perhaps he’ll make it into a future mandala.
