A Mandala Ceremony
A mandala can be a powerful tool for change, healing, or to illustrate your personal spiritual journey. It is preferably created outdoors on the ground, but can be done inside by drawing a circle on a large piece of paper.
Before beginning your mandala, collect random items from nature that call to you. Trust your inner self; you will be drawn to elements that are symbolic of the issues you are addressing. Typically, these include natural items such as stones, twigs, and flowers, but you may also include a personal object that has special meaning to you. When collecting items found in nature – especially any part of a living plant – ask permission and then thank the spirit of the plant.
When you are ready, open sacred space and create a sacred circle. You might use stones, sticks, pinecones or leaves, stems, etc. Once you have created your sacred circle, select one of the items and blow into it the healing work that you did or the issues you are working with. Then select other items and breathe into them people, beliefs, situations that are somehow connected to the healing issue. The circle mirrors the medicine wheel of healing as well as the circle of life. Place the items inside your circle in a pattern that feels right to you. Don’t think about it; just allow your unconscious mind to direct the work of choosing, arranging, and rearranging the items. If Mother Nature chooses, allow her to participate in your creation through wind or rain.
Creating a mandala is a dynamic process reflecting the transformation you are working to achieve. It is also a meditation, a pathway to your inner wisdom. Your mandala is a map of your inner energy. When it feels like it’s done, study your creation, paying close attention to the emotions and insights that come to you. You may feel the need to remove or rearrange some of the items – in essence remapping your energy. Go ahead; this represents transformation and healing, and you will likely feel better afterwards.
Leave your open for 3 or 4 days, visiting it daily. Move the things around and continue to remap your energy. Once you are done, dismantle the mandala and thank each element for the gift and enlightenment it gave you. Take the burnable items to a fire ceremony and burn them releasing his issue to Spirit. Then remove all the other items so it is as if there was nothing ever there.
Here is the step by step process for creating your mandala.
Honoring Your Work
Making a Mandala
To honor your work and to continue the transformation process you can make a mandala. This is best done outside but can be done inside. It needs to be done in a place where you can leave it for 3 or 4 days.
Make a circle on the ground (or floor). You can use sticks, pinecones, stones, anything that you find in nature, or you can simply draw it on a piece of paper. You can make it any size you like.
Select a stone or stick that represents that issue that you are working on in your healing session. Concentrate on this issue while holding the stone or stick in your hand. Then blow all that you feel about this issue into the stone or stick. If you are working with a question or a dream for your life, blow that into the stone or stick. Place your stone or stick anywhere you like inside the circle.
Now using leaves, moss, stones, sticks, flowers, dung, etc., or anything you like to represent the people, other aspects or parts of this issue, anything that is somehow related to the issue you are working on and blow each of those into one of the objects from nature. You are making a painting that is a symbolic representation of the problem, question, issue that you are working on. Focus on each person or event that is related to this problem/issue and blow that into the object you have chosen. Place the object in the circle.
Leave the mandala or sand painting open for 3 days. Sit and meditate with it from time to time during the 3 days. Let it speak to you. You might find that you want to move the items, maybe remove some and add others. You might retrieve the rock or stick that represents the problem. Hold it in your hand. Feel it. Examine it and recall your previous identification with this problem. Let the stone or stick speak to you. Maybe it will tell you how this problem served you in some way, let you know your part in this problem, what lesson you are to learn from this problem, or what is it that you need to do to move on. Trust yourself with what wants to happen and what comes to you. After each time you sit with your mandala and work with the stone or stick you might find that you want to remove something from the circle or add something or move things around. During these 3 days, Spirit is mulching and transforming the problem, shifting the energy. The stone or stick and other things you place in your sand painting are representations, visual aids that represent the energies you are working with. The changes are happening in you. Typically leave the mandala open for three days. However, sometimes it needs or wants to stay open a little longer. Check in with it and see if the circle is ready to be closed.
At the end of 3 days (or when the mandala says it is ready to be closed), close the mandala or sand painting. To do this you simply gather up everything that is burnable and make a bundle which you will then burn in a fire ceremony, bury in the earth or release into a body of water. If you’re using one of your medicine stones, remove it and keep it. Then put the earth back the way it was so that no one can tell that there was ever anything there.
Sometimes the mandala indicates that it isn’t finished with its work yet. In this case, leave it open for another day. Then close it out as directed above in #5. On occasion I have left a mandala/sand painting open for a couple of weeks while working with it. Trust your guidance.
Once you have closed the mandala and done your fire ceremony, watch for synchronicities. Watch for shifts in your energy. Watch where your attention goes. You have given this issue to the elements. They are working it. The fire ceremony transforms it all into pure energy so the Spirit can bring the solution or answer back to you in Spirit time and in Spirit’s way according to your soul’s purposes.