I love being out in nature and observing every single detail. The idea for the first mandala came one year in late spring when lots of petals had already fallen. So I had the idea to create a mandala from what I found. While laying the mandala I realized the meditative effect it had on me. At the same time, I enjoyed creating something beautiful. So I became kind of addicted. Some mandalas I make because I want to give something back to nature and the local spirits, some I make for a place that I feel needs some attention/balancing, and some I lay for a person/an animal (birthday, illness, death).
“In April 2023 Barbara Terris once sent me some very helpful lines:
“James likes to be hospitable to both weeds and flowers, or at least not categorise things in this way which can lead to hierarchies. for example he asked me to type this the other day…”
“This ever-fresh openness is always available if only we opened fully to it, letting go of the imaginings with which we construct our familiar world. Once we are unaware of unborn openness and the unborn ungraspable nature of all that appears within it, we take ourselves seriously as we seek to maintain the integrity of our selves while utilising so much of what we take to be the other. The illusory ego-self pays a huge price to maintain its delusion of separate inherent existence. It becomes the watchful gardener, alert to the corruption of her plan. Relying on the tools of conceptualisation, she seeks control through weeding out the not wanted, and planting the fast-fading flowers that are desired.”
Initially, I used to collect just the “beautiful” petals. Once I read these words I started to include weeds, dried leaves, etc.
It was a deep teaching. Difficult to put in words. It´s all in the mandala. Beauty is in everything. Better to try it out yourself.
Andrea Pieper
Expressions – Dharma inspired Art