Wednesday, July 31, 2013

Mandala Project 2013


Yesterday I washed all that I had gathered on my walks for the July mandala. Washing these dirty, broken bits of paper, metal, plastic, and wood unexpectedly took on sacramental significance. I felt intimately connected to the individuals who had carelessly let the things drop, thrown them away, or unknowingly abandoned them. The shambles collected on my studio table made me aware of my own fragility. But for the mysterious life that animates my body, I would be like these fragments: just substance dissolving. This was not a morbid thought at all. In fact, it washed me into knowing how embedded I am in the cosmic rhythms of all that is. I was filled with a light, fluid, joyful sense of being: part of an eternal process ongoing from beginingless time. Closely following this epiphany I remembered the Buddhist belief of dependent arising that has become meaningful through this ongoing mandala project: all things depend for their existence on other things.

No comments:

Post a Comment