The Flower Mandalas blog has a dual purpose:
- To explore the use of art as a means to healing and transformation.
- To ask for your help in completing The Flower Mandalas Project.
Purpose #1: My intent is to use my own Flower Mandalas and related ideas and thoughts as a springboard for a broader exploration of the topic of art, healing, and transformation. I invite you to contribute your own experiences with art, healing, and transformation to the Art, Healing, and Transformation group on Beliefnet.com. I hope that a lively discussion will ensue there. I will moderate this group and, with your permission, post a selection of your contributions on the Flower Mandalas blog. You may also contact me directly at phototransformations@davidbookbinder.com.
Purpose #2: I’d like to ask for your responses to the Flower Mandala images posted here, either briefly as comments to the blog posts or in detail on the Behance Network Fifty-Two Flower Mandalas page. My plan is to create a book of 52 Flower Mandala images, each one paired with an inspirational quotation and original essay which in some way complement the image. My hope is for each image-and-quote-and-essay triad to resonate with a fundamental aspect of human experience.
Thanks for listening and sharing.
- David
David J. Bookbinder, LMHC
Subscribe to the Flower Mandalas mailing list
posted July 20, 2008 at 9:24 am
Your blog is absolutely beautiful.
Love, love, love
Maria
posted July 24, 2008 at 11:05 am
Absolutely beautiful..but looks to me more like an open Balloon flower than a pansy?
posted July 26, 2008 at 2:10 pm
I hadn’t thought of the Baloon flower, but yes, it does look a bit like one. However, the original photo was indeed of a blue pansy.
Best,
David
posted August 3, 2008 at 9:50 am
Beautiful work. Thank you. I find Blue Pansy I to be a healing mandala. I also love White Dahlia I. As a mandala, White Dahlia I brings me a sense of balance and clarity.
posted September 14, 2008 at 1:07 pm
A couple of years ago I went through a physically and spiritually difficult time. I started drawing 6 sided “figures” and coloring them, not even realizing other people did this. Later, I learned they were called mandalas and am still in awe that other people started drawing during a crisis also. I still wonder why?
posted September 14, 2008 at 1:24 pm
I think the six-pointed star, as well as the hexagon inside it, is built into us. We may even be physcially wired to prefer it, as we seem to be wired to prefer a blue sky, a sunset, or a flower. The triangle is a powerfully balanced shape, and structures made from them are very strong (think how stable a three-legged stool is when compared to a four-legged one). Uniting two equal triangles creates a union of opposites with what I find to be a special balance quite unlike that of other shapes.