197. OF MANDALAS, RANGOLIS & YANTRAS - the SACRED GEOMETRY

A friend had asked what's a mandala. I'll let the pictures do the talking and inject some spiritual connection into it. Mandala is a Sanskrit word meaning Circle.

Everything in Creation is in cycles...

Sunrise Sunsets = day & night
High Tides Low Tides = ebb and flow
The 4 Seasons = an endless cycle
Births & Deaths = Reincarnation
Every Action a Reaction, every Sequence a Consequence, every Cause an Effect = Karma
The Women's menstrual cycle = the Circadian Rhythm

The 7 major chakras along the spine and the minor chakras throughout the Spiritual body are circular - Chakra is Sanskrit for wheel, there are 114 chakras - energy centers - in the Spiritual Body...

A Mandala is a symbolism in Hinduism and Buddhism, these 2 are closely interlinked. To Hindus, Buddhism is a spin-off of Hinduism - a strain.
Tibetan monks 'draw' mandalas as part of their practice. They are very intricate and may take several monks to produce one large one. In the process, they are totally focused. It's like art, when I'm painting, it's such a focused activity, it's meditative, one pointedness...nobody speaks...

Begin with a Sacred Geometry

At the end of each day the mandalas are erased as a show of detachment...that everything in physical life and the physical manifested world is impermanent. The monks create mandalas nearly everyday as part of their practice. The perfect circle of mandalas denote the Universe - a circle has no beginning no end...

Finely crushed white rock is dyed, the sand gives it a glistening effect...

The last act of detachment from his physical body upon death is to feed his remains to vultures on a hill (sky burial) where fellow monks chop his body into smaller pieces and literally throw him to the vultures...been done for centuries...it's a ritual, a tradition in Tibetan Buddhism - accompanied by chants and prayers for a good send-off.

Because they are erased each time, no 2 mandalas are ever the same...

a snowflake - a feathery ice crystal has a typical 6 fold symmetry. It's formation is a science - physics - details can be had in Youtube, it's fascinating. No 2 are the same...the finished product is art...

numerous black and white photographs were taken by a young American, barely 20, Wilson Bentley (1865-1931) whose curiosity and fascination led him to record snow crystals over 40 decades. This was in the 19th Century. It was later compiled into a book in which he spoke about impermanence

Rangolis

These are mandalas created for decorative purposes by ordinary folks to observe festivals like Deepavali, Pongal, the New Year, birthdays and their numerous festivals. I've come across them outside ashram doorways, temples, shops and homes. Done free hand with coloured rice grains, flour or sand or powder or flower petals...men and women excel in it - they sweep it away or the public walks over them for the same reason as the monks - as an act of non-attachment, impermanence...

Yantras

These are installed at home or a workplace based on Indian Feng Shui calculations (Vastu). The yantras are charged with mantras and prayer rituals done by astrology monks - they are customised for individuals based on their natal charts...

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And to release creative energy, one may create one's own mandalas like those an English friend did, below...

with semi precious stones

floral, fruity, leafy decorative home mandalas

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And to string all this together as to how, in what way is this a spiritual symbol - once again I look at Creation, I turn often to Mother Gaia as she's all around us. Mother, the female creative aspect of 'God' - the Divine Feminine - the one we can see, feel, touch - She's in all her 3 Kingdoms - Mineral, Plant, Animal, in all its diversity...

The dandelion is a simple creation, it resembles a mandala. Fields in my childhood years, were filled with dandelions and I go around blowing them! When examined under a microscope, they are quite complex really - designed from a sacred geometry, like a basic building block...her cells looking very much like mandalas...

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Come to think of it, covid-19 does resemble a mandala - is this Mother Gaia's idea of a joke to teach the small humans a lesson? She's cleaning up the mess left by the humans, hurting her Body, the environment, her creatures, her trees, her water bodies, she's putting the small humans on hold so she may heal and care for the other life forms she supports...

196. FASCINATING ORCHIDS

Of all the flowers I've peered at, I find orchids the most diverse. Even the hybrid ones are spectacular like this phalaenopsis which was dyed a bluish hue...

Singapore may have the Vanda Miss Joaquim as her national flower but they are not commonly seen except in the orchid section of the Botanic Gardens. On a recent visit to Gardens by the Bay, the orchids were not the unusual kinds that I had googled, so shall  save those for posterity as they exist in other parts of the world, mostly South America, maybe one day, we may have an exhibition on them...

A recent visit to Gardens by the Bay produced these shots on  peach and cherry blossoms - can't beat the real thing of course in Japan. This was a collaboration with some Japanese tourism/cultural body...

The theme for this season...the exhibits change with each season...this season's theme is the Japanese Matsuri cultural festival...

This is brilliant - the kapok (cotton wool)...makes for a surreal ceiling decoration, would be perfect for a Christmas theme...

The Plant Kingdom fascinates me - these above are like sea anemones  - the succulent cacti is like a sea coral with its tentacles fishing for food in the passing currents - Mother Gaia replicates and duplicates her various life forms, it's in her handiwork on land and in the seas - for instance, many reproductive parts of the Plant Kingdom resemble the reproductive parts of the mammals of the Animal Kingdom which includes the human mammal. They were created to seduce and induce the help of pollinators to grow the species...

Peer at them closely and you'll see the petals are like a ballroom gown and there's a little face which actually looks girlish - Mother has fun with her creations but I do think these are hybrids but nevertheless, still glorious...I never tire peering into flowers wherever I go...my other posts carry more pics of plants/flowers I come across on my travels or within Singapore...

Muah! What's more seductive than red red pouty lips...Mother is having fun with naughty ideas! It's designers that are the copy cats...Yogis have taught not to take life too seriously, lighten up, loosen up, be less uptight - some workshops I've attended make participants dance around the room to express ourselves according to the music we hear. In Sanskrit there's a word Leela or Lila which means Divine Play. Be hard to fathom for those caught up with the business of living...there's always another life. For me, I want the experience of knowing in this life...

it's a boy!                               

More dancing ladies - Mother seems to enjoy this, some looking like ethereal fairies, others angelic...fairies/angels - they are the same entities...

...this one looking like a ballerina on pointe...!

Let's dance...!

Mother has a sense of fun...! These specimens below look like bees having a good laugh - the bee is their chief pollinator...

Left to her own devices, Mother Nature hums along in perfect harmony and synchronicity. There is now concern there are not enough bees - so we need to Save the Bees this time...I earnestly hope, with the world in lockdown, bees can replace themselves super fast

Wrapped in swaddling petals...

Mother Gaia's sense of humour can border on the macabre when her mood turns dark and ominous - that's so like a female...!

Film makers would have got their ideas studying Mother's creations...

Other creations are fun and playful like a Leela - Divine Play. Orchids are found all over the world some are so very rare. Experts are producing more weird award winning specimens, they are too numerous to reproduce here, I'm including those that are quite unusual and may never be seen in Singapore...

This one looks like a comic character on TV 

These lot look like aliens...Mother uses the same design for land and sea as these below look like the octopus and jellyfish, She tweaks the designs a little...

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We are all Creators - of our own lives, destinies...we create our living environments, the meals we consume, our hobbies, our likes and dislikes, like how I streaked my hair multi hued! A myriad other things...and if we don't like them anymore or they don't serve the purpose anymore, we dismantle and start over...Change is the only constant. Everything in Creation is about Diversity...and it's in the Mineral, Plant and Animal Kingdoms...not the kingdoms created by men to plunder and dominate, in today's world, they colonise minds through religion...