Earth Spirit Dreaming: Shamanic Ecotherapy Practices - Elizabeth E. Meacham 2020
Dreaming with Mandalas: Journeying with Sacred Circles
Dream-Connecting Practices
It is difficult to explain the power and potency of mandala work: it is felt and learned through experience. My own mandala meditations are sometimes minutes, sometimes hours, sometimes days. The longer you take to work with mandalas, the more the Orphic brilliance of the circle as a divine symbol will reveal itself to you.
Mandalas are my primary spiritual system for healing and leadership, and for bringing my spiritual mission to fruition on the planet. I nurture many mandalas of different sizes, and in varying locations, for different lengths of time as a regular practice. From this commitment to my practice, I now sense their vibrational power as portals into non-ordinary states.
The depth of self-realization available through working with mandalas provides exceptional topography for visioning. There are myriad systems and styles of mandala work available within many cultural frameworks, and mandalas work quite well as instruments for actualization without the need for complex knowledge and methods for using them. The beauty of this time on Earth is that human wisdom traditions can come together through technologies that allow us to share knowledge in unprecedented ways.
When working with mandalas, we can blend traditions of self-healing to further our spiritual development. So, if you already understand and work with mandalas from any tradition, you may bring this knowledge forth in your Earth Spirit Dreaming visioning process as long as you are true to the intention of the work: to bring our lives into alignment for the healing of the world.
EXERCISE: Visioning Collage Mandala
Purpose
This practice allows the release of the rational orientation of our minds through creative connection with sacred circles. Collage work invites us into embodied imaginal experience. The images in our magazine as we turn the pages, tuning in to our intuition to feel our way toward images that attract us, cutting, feeling the texture of paper, the smell of ink and glue: all of these sensations bring back emotions and memories of childhood, when we knew imaginal experience as a natural state of being. Collage takes us back to this simplicity, a “less is more” state of relaxed intuition. The many sense experiences opened through collage work segue beautifully into the mysteries of mandalas.
With our creativity awake and active, collage mandalas allow us to become submerged in symbols that speak directly from our souls. When making a visioning collage mandala, I ask my helping spirits to direct me. I imagine a beam of light coming through the top of my head and down through my hands. I open to receive images that will guide me beyond my own limitations to create a vision that is oriented toward healing. I trust my body and my imagination to listen to the voice of my spirit as I unearth the depths of my soul.
Description
Begin by gathering your materials for this exercise. Easy and simple materials are fine. If you have one magazine, use one magazine; use more if you have them. Any paper of any size will do. Often, if I can’t find paper, I grab a piece from the printer or turn over a piece of paper that I pull from the recycling. For this exercise, the goal is not to create a collage to hang on your wall as art, but to listen to your inner self (though many of mine do hang on my wall as reminders from my higher, Earth-connected self). If nothing is on hand, a quick trip to an arts/craft store can offer affordable materials.
Children’s sections are particularly great. If this becomes a practice that is meaningful and important to you, you can begin collecting more materials: paper of different sizes, glue that you like (I prefer glue sticks) and a dedicated place to do this form of spirit art. A kitchen table or the floor, or a place outside, are great places to start.
First, open ritual space and connect with Earth and Spirit using practices from earlier in the book so that you are visioning from a place of high vibration. Set a clear intention, as discussed in the introduction above. Allow an intention for your collage to emerge through your art while opening to a circular relationship among the images. I sometimes begin by drawing a circle on the paper as a guide, or by intentionally creating a circle with my images as a starting point. Collage mandalas sometimes include part of a circle, many circles, quadrants and many other variations.
There is no right way to create your collage mandala. As you work, and open to your symbolic knowing by moving your hands, enjoying textures, relishing the beauty of images, let feelings, impressions, images and ideas float up from your depths.
EXERCISE: Circling Mandala Meditation
Purpose
The word mandala means “circle” in Sanskrit, and all mandalas incorporate circles in some way. Relating to these symbolic circles helps us understand ourselves in relation to all of life; they are personal and spiritual developmental tools in many cultural traditions. Thus, working with them helps us to restore and maintain balance and health. The quadrants of the mandalas represent the integration of differentiation and wholeness. Mandalas help us sense the whole in the parts, and the parts in relation to the whole in the world, as well as within ourselves.
This simple practice utilizes the quadrants of the mandala to manifest visions in relationship to the directions, and in various aspects of the quadrants in relation to one another. As you move through this practice of building and circling the mandala, record any thoughts, images or physical sensations that come to you. Draw an image of the mandala in the circle and note where you were in the mandala when each realization or experience occurred. This will help you read the meanings of your visioning when reflecting on your meditation.
Description
Your supplies for the mandala can be simple. Using your sacred stones and your medicine things is a good place to start. You can do this exercise using just your stones and medicine objects or incorporate them as a center or part of a larger mandala with other stones, leaves, sticks, candles, sacred herbs, pine cones and any other art or sacred objects that bring you positive feelings. If you are outdoors without your altar things, nature beings as simple as leaves and grass, and small rocks and sticks, work well for creating a mandala.
Begin your mandala visioning ceremony with the steps of a sacred ritual. Your mandala does not need to be done in any particular way. Sometimes a “nothing special” approach can help liberate us to be free with our intuition as the mandala emerges. Let your mandala come into form in reverence, playfulness and joy. Allow yourself to be as a child, if you can, bearing in mind that in any ceremony, all states and feelings are welcome. Often, we go to mandala work with feelings of sadness, grief, fear or any other possible range of feelings. Let yourself be as you are. There is no right or wrong way to make or be with your mandala, as long as you have followed the ritual protocols to set a healing intention for the experience. Start with a circle and follow your feelings from there. Making a simple circle is the mandala; everything else is an expression of your spirit and psyche in relationship to the Earth and cosmos at any given time.
If you have time and are planning ahead, ask for dreams, places and symbols that stand out to you during the days or weeks ahead of your mandala ritual. Watch for synchronicities to guide you to the right time, place and materials to use for your mandala. Trust your feelings, even if they seem quite out of the ordinary; this is the mandala gateway to magic already beginning to open. Once we intend to create a ritual in our hearts, the web for the ritual begins in that moment.
To create your mandala, begin with a circle and place something in the center to represent spirit, as well as the center of yourself in relation to spirit. I also include the elements of water and air, usually with a container holding water, and with smudging of some kind. Air is also in the wind, so if you are outside, this is your air element. I often light candles, to bring in the element of fire. And, since I’m using things from nature, I am honoring Earth. You can intentionally align the four points of the circle with the directions (north, south, east, west), or not. Sometimes waiting to see where the alignments end up without consciously placing them proves to be an interesting part of the visioning process.
Depending on the size of your mandala, you can meditate sitting inside or outside the circle. I enjoy building a mandala large enough to allow me to sit in each quadrant (you can do this inside or outside, sitting on the ground or in a chair that you move around the mandala). If you don’t have this kind of space, meditate around the quadrants on the outside of the circle. You can choose an amount of time to meditate in each quadrant, keeping time with a timekeeper or by counting your breaths. I count a certain number of breaths in each quadrant, which works as a helpful mindfulness and centering method as I move through the ritual. Also feel free to follow your intuition to decide when to move to the next quadrant.
Circling a mandala is a profound practice for connecting with this ancient divine oracle. A powerful healing symbol of personal growth, mandalas are a portal to feeling ourselves within the matrix of multiple intelligences. Often, in the moment with the mandala it may seem that nothing is happening. The messages may come later. Sometimes, feelings and messages can feel like a crashing wave flowing through you. However the mandala opens to you, invite the feelings to emerge slowly. It is okay to consciously adjust the “flow” of the energy of the mandala. Ask for more or less energy from the mandala as you want or need to during your meditation. Try to let your mind go during your time with the mandala. If your mind stays busy, honor that and just say “thinking” softly to yourself, then return to watching and feeling the beauty of the mandala.
If you do have time, commit a full day or more to working with a particular mandala. Or commit to create a new mandala to work with every day. You can go back again and again to the same mandalas. I have a few in different outdoor locations that I work with alone and with others over days, months and years.
EXERCISE: Inviting Spirit Symbols with Mandalas
Purpose
Along with stone circles, we can also draw mandalas to open to symbolic and wisdom knowing. Drawing mandalas is a sacred art form. The simple act of drawing mandala images creates shifts in the physical, emotional and spiritual body. While mandalas can be complex and entrancing works of art, simple drawings with a focus on process rather than product is the goal in this exercise. I invite you to use this practice of drawing mandalas to open to your own guidance and intuition, and to receive guidance from Earth and Spirit. If you are drawing your mandala outside, this sacred art practice will help to open your natural sensitivities to the elemental nature energies.
Description
First, collect your materials: large paper or poster boards, markers, colored pencils, crayons. Create your ritual using the steps described in Chapter Fourteen.
To start your mandala, draw a circle of any size. Let an image, shape, a word or an idea come to you. Notice feelings in your body or memories and begin to represent these in any way that you want to on your mandala. Pictures, colors, blobs, scratches, scribbles are all welcome. This is not art as we tend to understand it, but rather as a psycho-spiritual process. You can put your image in the mandala in any way, location, size or method that occurs to you. Trust the unfolding process, let your hands move and try not to think!
As an addition to a circling mandala meditation, you can draw a mandala as described in this exercise and then cut or tear it into pieces in any way that inspires you. Use these pieces as part of creating a meditation mandala or add them to a mandala that you’re already working with. You can also create a karmic eddies mandala, as described in Chapter Twelve, then cut or tear that mandala into pieces and use those cutouts with the circling mandala meditation.
Using your drawn mandalas that represent specific aspects of your life with a larger and longer circling mandala meditation is particularly useful for visioning for personal healing and guidance from the spirit helpers with specific issues that may be pressing on, blocking or causing you pain. Healing and clearing in our own lives is always healing the world; the microcosm of our own work to grow and change mirrors the issues requiring attention on a global level.
If you have time, commit a full day or more to working with a particular mandala. Or commit to creating a new mandala to work with every day. Setting up repetitious and consistent methods to work with your mandalas will help you move into the power and symbolic magic of these sacred circles. You can construct them inside or out and go back again and again to the same mandalas over long periods of time. I have a few in different outdoor locations that I work with alone and with others over days, months and years.
Over time your relationship with the energies and helping spirits called into and through each circle will deepen. It was my two-year relationship with the medicine wheel behind my house that led me to my call as a healer and it was there that I crossed over into shamanic reality for the first time. I did not expect or consciously seek these particular experiences. My intentions to seek guidance through the power of sacred mandala ceremonies called the spirits and energies that led me more fully into my spiritual mission. Ask the Earth and spirit helpers to guide you and wait for the gateways to open, remembering that the magic is often just next to and within the most ordinary moments.
EXERCISE: Working with Visioning Rocks
Purpose
The Earth Spirit Dreaming approach continually returns to the voices and energies of rocks to reveal a healing dream for Gaia. This focus on rocks represents their significance to my own path of awakening. I also know from experience that they hold ancient body memories of the planet. Their knowing and relationship to time is long, deep and broad, reaching to the heart and consciousness of the Earth. Learning to speak with the rocks, the “stone people,” is a life-changing skill and a path to true Earth magic.
Description
If you already work with your own set of sacred stones, as described in the exercise Creating a Set of Sacred Stones from Chapter Six, you can start visioning with them as you begin to know them deeply by creating the sacred bond between you. Knowing the stone people comes with intentionally cultivating a relationship with these beings, as you would a friend or cherished family member. Stones are truly wisdom ancestors as they were here long before us and will remain long after we are gone.
To vision with stones, you can work with a rock nearby, new or already known to you. You can also invite a specific vision stone to come to you, by inviting a stone already in your circle to be your vision rock or by asking spirit helpers to lead you to a place and time to meet a vision rock. As you choose a visioning rock, you are opening a connection with the rock by bringing reverence to the process.
Follow the steps to create a ritual and set the intention for visioning with the rock. When you reach the part of your ritual to begin visioning, open a communication by asking the rock if they want to engage in a visioning process with you and thank them for making this connection. Feel the rock with all of your senses. Take your time caressing the rock and holding it with love. Meditate with the rock on your altar, or in a mandala that you’ve made, while gazing at the surface textures and crevices. Allow your vision to go soft and see what images and impressions might emerge.
To enhance your visioning in a circling mandala meditation, focus on your visioning rock in the center of a meditation mandala. Images will begin to emerge in the rock, along with memories from your life, past and present, and sometimes even past lives. Visioning rocks are a window to your own soul and the soul of the world, so you may find that deep, sometimes overwhelming feelings emerge. Also, pay attention to sensations in your body and write them down, along with any animals that emerge as pictures in the visioning stone.
Any thoughts or feelings that we have while immersed in sacred communication with visioning rocks cannot be separated into only our own or only the rock’s reality. The process of visioning with rocks is deeply co-creative and primal. Visions with rocks emerge in the context of the geological time memories that are inherent in “rock-ness.” The first pictures are often projections of our personal hopes and fears. During this time, we may get answers or comfort regarding current situations in our lives. The first period of visioning is a bit like a Rorschach test in that things that are going on in our interiors can show up in pictures on the rocks. This is one way that rocks acknowledge you just as you are acknowledging them.
Now you have started cultivating a relationship with a vision rock, and can bring it into your circling mandala meditation. Thus, your sacred mandalas become stacked with levels of meaning and communication including portals to Earth body memories and spirit worlds, ancestors and light beings. The spiritual net that you create through committed work with healing mandalas and vision stones reaches all around you, across time and space, with broad and deep roots into the web of life that is on, within and surrounding the Earth.
Animals will often appear as images in your vision stone, as well as faces, places and things. While I’m working with my primary outdoor spirit mandala, sometimes deer come from the woods and walk around my circle or across certain quadrants; owls land behind me, hawks call above me; bees, spiders and bugs of all kinds will make their way across my circle. Sometimes there may even be a snake. As soon as you complete a visioning cycle, write down all of these images and encounters. You can later journey to find out more or ask for dreams to come to help you understand your visions with the rocks.
Keep track of these images, sensations, and any feeling or memories, as they are all part of the complex visioning process. You can also later evaluate the location and direction of your images and feelings, and often find guidance for healing and unfolding life direction depending on where you were in relation to the directions when certain images arose. The longer you watch a visioning stone, the more fluid and magical the pictures will become. Often, it can feel that layers are peeling away to take you further and further across time, either backward or forward. Miracles can happen as you deepen this practice.