It’s so much fun to feel inspired, and creating flower mandalas again! Life is even better when you include time to create, and it had been far too long since I set aside time for making new mandalas. One seems to inspire the next. As of yesterday, I have seven new ones completed, including last week’s Medicine Woman mandala. They can each take many hours to complete, and I love making them. Very soon I’ll be putting my mandala calendar together for 2013!
This is the Gentle Way mandala. It was made from my photograph of Queen Anne’s Lace. The energy of this one is soft and gentle, with quiet strength. Below the mandala is a chapter from the Tao Te Ching (Book of Changes) that explains the gentle way so well.
In a gentle way, you can shake the world. ~ Mahatma Gandhi
Gentle Way – Flower Mandala
Give up and you will succeed.
Bow, and you will stand tall.
Be empty, and you will be filled.
Let go of the old, and let in the new.
Have little, and there is room to receive more.
The wise stand out,
Because they see themselves as part of the Whole.
They shine,
because they don’t want to impress.
They achieve great things,
because they don’t look for recognition.
Their wisdom is contained in what they are,
not in their opinions.
They refuse to argue,
so no one argues with them.
The Ancients said: ‘Give up and you will succeed.’
Is this empty nonsense?
Try it.
*If you are sincere, you will find fulfillment.
~ Lao Tzu’s Tao Te Ching, Chapter 22
*In a different translation this line (above) is interpreted as “Be really whole and all things will come to you.” I think that makes the meaning even clearer.
