Ya Gotta Have Heart

I am thrilled to be included in Andrea Schroeder's Mandala Blog Hop.  This post also marks my return to blogging in over a year. I will be posting more often now, as Spirit moves me.

Since many of you might not know me, here is a little background. I began creating digital mandalas in 2006. I had found the website earthmandalas.com in 1999. It took a while for everything to come together - the right computer, my own version of Photoshop, and two semesters of digital art classes. I knew when I first saw Komra Moriko's website that someday I would be creating digital mandalas as well. And once I started, I couldn't stop. I loved capturing the everyday beauty I saw around me in mandala form.

But as time went on and my practice deepened, I began to understand that the bigger picture of this mandala art is really a transmission of Love.

You might  know that one meaning of 'mandala' is containing essence. The love that Nature offers us (whether flower, or tree, or crystal, or feather, or cloud, or maybe even bug) expresses the essence of its Love for humanity in mandala form. I am in service to humanity by being its conduit.

At the time of the March New Moon this year, I asked in meditation what most wanted to come forth. This is how I most often begin my mandala meditations these days. I felt the theme of Love wanting to be explored more fully. I chose these four source inspirations - rose, bleeding heart, antherium, and succulent leaf. I created mandalas from each of these sources and blended them together until satisfied with what was before me.

I have created hand drawn mandalas, but I love the magic and thrill of the unknown when I import images of nature into Photoshop and begin the transformation process.

                       

This was the first mandala to find form. I love the three hearts in the center.  Ya Gotta Have Heart is also the name of this love exploration series.

                                                  Ya Gotta Have Heart

     ( This image will also be part of my upcoming 2015 mandala calendar, Circles of Love.)

                                                        Love's Vibration

I was intrigued by the lines in the succulent (which I later found out was an infection caused by insects).  Personally, I saw a message inscribed in the leaves. What do you see?

                                                        Love Light

                      I embedded the word Love in one of the layers of this mandala.

I don't attempt to interpret the mandala images. Instead I leave it up to you to find  your own stories about the mandalas so the images are personally meaningful to you. And I offer it all with Love.

Mandala blessings,
Sue O'Kieffe
Sacred Circle Mandalas



Pssst! Don't forget to click on the graphic below to read the rest of the offerings in this radical mandala sharing!






The Magic of Mandalas Blog Hop is a radically inspiring sharing circle, with artists from around the globe sharing the stories behind their process of creating mandalas. Our mission: To inspire you to see new possibilities for your own creative practice.  Click HERE for a full list of the participants

IMAGE - IN

Magis Pray to the Light of Inner Knowing - (Circles of Light series) - © Sue O'Kieffe 2007

I enjoyed the evolution of this piece. First I took this picture of succulents that grow outside my apartment. I've taken lots of pictures of these plants over the past couple of years. This is one of my favorites.

When I create a mandala, I dont really have an inner vision of a possible ending; I just let it take me wherever it wants to go. I suppose that is true of other art forms; I have experienced it with collage at times, but really I do have a greater sense of the mandalas, in their early stages, guiding me to their end. Then, when the circle is complete, I finish editing it in Photoshop (levels, curves, hue/saturation, sharpening) add more layers, play with filters, finish with circles of outer/inner light -- voila!

With this particular mandala, about halfway through, the figures began to emerge. They struck me as monk-like and wise, perhaps more like spiritual magicians. Recently I finished reading Christopher Moore's novel, Lamb, in which Moore imagines Jesus finding each of the Magis, during the years of his life not mentioned in the bible, who taught him the needed skills to become the messiah. It was, in fact, a fun and fascinating read. With this mandala, I image-in access to that same inner light that I think Jesus both knew we all have and taught us to embrace.

Let your Light shine!

Hey, I sure would like to read your thoughts about my work.