A Year and More of Silence

A long silence of more than 500 days to write and to draw for the sake of writing and drawing for myself only.

It is easy to lose sight of why we decide to do something when we share it with others. It is easy to fall in the trap of doing things so that we can say we have done them and that we can show what we have achieved and not for the joy of simply doing them.

During this long silence, I continued to draw Mandalas even if not as regularly and I continued to write regularly a journal every day with some occasional terrible sketches, these definitely only for my eyes. Now I reached day number 1646 of my daily journaling and my third Mandala sketchbook.

And now, I feel ready to break a bit this silence, I am happy enough with myself for having honoured these two commitments, for having given myself the space and time to go deeper and explored different ideas, for allowing myself in my silence to try, to fail again and again, to forgive and eventually heal, to discover and embrace light and joy and then becoming lost again and again, and then restart again and again but never from the same starting point, always a bit richer in my understanding about myself.

“Within each of us there is a silence
—a silence as vast as a universe.
We are afraid of it…and we long for it.
When we experience that silence, we remember
who we are: creatures of the stars, created
from the cooling of this planet, created
from dust and gas, created
from the elements, created
from time and space…created
from silence.
….

Silence brings us back to basics, to our senses,
to our selves. It locates us. Without that return
we can go so far away from our true natures
that we end up, quite literally, beside ourselves.
We live blindly and act thoughtlessly.
…” Gunilla Norris. Sourced from https://www.tarabrach.com/meditation-reconnecting-silence-presence/

October – December 2020

2021

Sacred Geometry Experiments 2021

A bit more than a year

A bit more than a year has passed since the last post, but not since my last drawing. In fact, I continued to draw, to reflect and to grow but in the privacy of my own life. I think it was important for me to continue drawing and reflecting but without sharing it with anybody else or using it for anything else than to simply do it in order to maintain and protect the focus on what is important for me and not what I am easily conditioned to believe, like many others, is important by society. I often wonder if in our society we can really appreciate that something is beautiful and meaningful regardless if it is visible to anybody else or publicly recognised, and I often wonder, in our society, so obsessed with material success and achievements, how many wonderful and meaningful things happen, all the time, without anybody knowing about them without, for this reason, being less wonderful or meaningful.

A bit more than a year from the last post, today, I’m less than 30 days away from my first 1 thousand days of daily morning meditation and journalling, close to 4 years of mandala drawing, close to 600 days of healthier eating and  250 days from when I started running in the mornings to try to heal and care for my physical and mental wellbeing,   that made me be a lighter, more courageous and powerful version of myself.  It has been a long journey that is far from being complete and fully clear, far for being free of doubts, anxieties, fears, wrong turns and unexpected detours, some good, some less. A mantra refined several times along the way, as life unfolded, has been the light, the map, the trusted friend, the voice of wisdom along with many formal and informal teachers.

Now, I’m far from being perfect or happy and relaxed, but I’m ok with who I am most of the time, it doesn’t mean that now I’m free from my fears, self-doubts, self-judgements, old familiar monsters in my head, old unhealthy habits and little addictions, but it does mean that I don’t let them define me or my life and that I recognise that I’m all of that and much more and that sometimes I even let myself like, love and trust who I am and how I am, because I’m accepting that all life is imperfect, paradoxical, complicated and extremely simple, transitory fragile, groundless, wonderful, harmonious, mysterious in its apparent randomness.

Now it doesn’t start another journey for me, but I continue on the same life journey, made of many, more or less important, rebirths and failures and, only in appearance, pauses to recharge, to appreciate, to make sure that the purpose is not lost or confused again with secondary achievements along the way. But now, I let myself, even if still timidly, to have a dream, to live in the moment with a timid hope for the future and for projects to come and now I recognise the blessings I received and still receive from life and instead of feeling guilty for not honouring them enough, I feel grateful and full of energy for giving back to life what I can.

 

Mandala 2.1 – The Void: Resting In the Darkness

For the first years of my personal work with Mandalas, I only research, randomly and only rarely, information about the philosophy and how of mandala drawing and meditation without a structured or more in-depth approach, preferring to let myself be free to explore this experience with a full beginner’s blank mind and to allow this personal journey to unfold free of pre-conceived ideas about “the why and the right way of doing things” and therefore free from concerns of doing things right that might have stopped or limited me from fully engaging in this experience.

Now, after more than 2 years of drawing Mandalas for meditation and self-discovery, I feel I trust my commitment to this practice and my experience to be strong and settled enough to face a change of pace, mistakes, doubts and normal resistance that any new practice is bound to face, to start working with my mandalas in a more structured and educated way and to give myself the opportunity to enrich this personal journey by learning about tools and ways for self-expression from others. I recently started a new phase of this self-discovery healing journey through Mandalas using the Mandala Workbook by Susanne F. Fincher as my guide. (www.shambhala.com/the-mandala-workbook.html)

This journey is divided in 12 Mandala stages to form “the Great Round of Mandala”. The first stage mandalas are a representation of the origin of life, when in the darkness nothing much seems to happen, it is a time when everything seem to stand still and patiently waiting for life to unfold.

My first mandalas of this first stage are about

• becoming familiar with the original circular motion by drawing free hand, in the air first and on paper after, aiming at creating a circle to contain a personal safe sacred place, at first drawing the circular lines free hand was a slightly intimidating new experience, but then the pattern became familiar as the drawing gather momentum;
• becoming more open to new understandings of my personal experience by switching between my two hands, using for the first time in a very long time my left hand to hold a pencil forced me to be more careful with my movements but I also felt that it released new energy that was not used; at first again the lines with the left hand were more uncertain and trembling but after a while the flow of colours between right and left seemed to flow more and more easily;
• weaving slowly one line at time a progressively  more complex image, like life, spider’s web;
• staying patiently in the darkness trusting the silent process of life unfolding by filling the circle with black and adding very little details hinting at changes that are so small to be unseen.

One Year of Silence

Time passes slowly, sometimes, and sometimes it passes faster than you can imagine and you realise that a year is gone in silence and you realise while, externally it appeared as nothing had really changed, the truth is that something fundamental has shifted internally and you are a different person, what was not possible a year ago now becomes a real possibility, but it takes time even to realise how  you have changed, it needs silence and space for reflection and integration.

Regrets are waste of energy and time, I simply couldn’t have done things differently, lived my life differently, bullying myself to achieve something better quicker, to be better. I’m  who I am and I’m learning that there is much I don’t know about myself and about life and it is ok, because maybe this is what life is: a journey of discovery and constant transformation.

In this year since my last post, I learned more, read more, draw more mandalas, took time off for healing in partial solitute and silence, for walking and reflection, for family time and for simply being and then only when I was ready at my own personal pace for taking action.

 

My Perfectly Imperfect Life- The new blog title.

I have been silent for a while. While I’m still drawing Mandalas, I’m not doing it with the same regularity or commitment and for now, I feel that this is the right way for me. In the last few years, I have been experimenting with different tools and practices to manage my Generalised Anxiety Disorder without medication so that I do not end up, as happened twice in the past in a Depression diagnosis, and I think I am managing quite well considering that is more than four years since I have taken the last medication. What I learned so far is that there is no perfect solution that will fit everybody and will work all the time even for the same person because not only we are all unique, we, ourselves, also change and what used to work for us might not work anymore and we, almost continuously, need to re-assess and re-evaluate our own balance and our own support systems.

Drawing Mandala for a while it was a good self-reflection tool, but when the drawing itself became the focus instead of being a tool, I had to take a step back. It is very easy to forget the real intention behind our action and become distracted and confuse a tool for a purpose.

In the last weeks instead I have been working with the Artist’s way book by Julia Cameron and I started the practice of the daily morning pages (3 pages of longhand, stream-of-consciousness morning writing) and even though I feel some resistance every morning, I am still doing it every morning and feeling the benefit of doing it. More recently, I have added at the start a short 10 Minutes meditation that includes both short breathing and bodyscan meditation. While I cannot share my morning pages on this page as I used to do for the Mandala, as they are private, I want to share the benefit they have brought me so far, in particular, a feeling of joy in seeing that when I do something that resonates with my deeper self and with my way of being I can be disciplined enough to sacrifice something and I can conquer any resistance in order to do it. I think that when we struggle too much to implement a new routine that we think it would be beneficial for us, it might because we are trying to implement something that does not really fit our way of being, we need to experiment and find the solution that is suitable for us.
And here there is my last perfectly imperfect Mandala. It does not need to be even close to be perfect. My own life and I are like we are supposed to be: perfectly imperfect.

50th Mandala and some more – My Heart Desire.

These are the last Mandalas of my first Mandala Sketchbook an explosion of patterns in various degree of black and white and then there is the first Mandala of a new phase of this life journey of discovery of my true Heart Desire.

Drawing Mandalas, like journaling, is for me a coaching tools for inquirying with kindness and curioisty into what is my deepest desire, to discover purpose and meaning and to heal the part of my life that have been suffering of neglect becasuse of my own ignorance and fears. It helps to create a safe space where to go deeper to uncover the truth that is hidden behind a thick black wall but that is starting to show some cracks and through that the cracks I can start to see glimpse of the light of my truest heart desire: my Life Path.

Where do I go from here? Do I really need to go somewhere? Or maybe I can just stay here in this colourful circle: nothing to change, nothing to achieve, nothing to desire, nothing to fear, nothing to possess, nothing to lose. This is the place, this is the moment to say YES, to let go of the search, to stand still and let life unfold with ease and the energy embrace me in a warm colourful embrace: red, orange, purple, green, blue, indigo and yellow hidden in the other colours. Because nothing is missing, everything is already here.

Forty-fourth Mandala – A grounding Mandala

Lively red, Warm orange, Clear non-blinding yellow, interrupted by a blue-green transparent flow and surrounded by the dark blue of the infinite sky.

Roots. It was time to go back to my roots for a little while, replanting them firmly and deeply in the soil and tending to them as I had left them forgotten for too long. I discovered myself groundless, lost in a sea of transparent, fleetings thoughts, drifting along, I became unknowingly vulnerable again to my own insecurities and doubts. So, it was time to re-connect, to restart the journey, but from a new starting point. Even if I continue to get lost, I also continue to reconnect and every time I do it with a bit more awareness, a bit stronger each time. I am learning each time something new.

I reconnected with my roots but with my eyes also up to gaze at the infinite sky. For me it is a constant search for balance between my material life and my spiritual life, so that I can avoid becoming lost for too long in the fears and uncertainty of my daily life which can appear so small in the face of the never-ending universe above my head and I can avoid forgetting for too long how to feel at home in my own body and life.

For few days, I felt the pressure of my commitment with myself to publish something regularly, but then I could not find the words and so instead of forcing myself, I followed the advice I found in the book I am reading now (The Call by Oriah Mountain Dreamer) and I waited, until the flow came to me with ease and along with the words I realised that what I thought before was complete was missing one important component and I added the last part to my grounding Mandala: the dark blue sky surrounding my Mandala. Because life for me is constant research for balance between being at ease with life and the tension to move forward, between creating a strong connection with my roots and a steady gaze on the sky above me.

 

Thirty-fifth Mandala – A Labyrinth Mandala.

I don’t like this last Mandala. At the start, I liked how it was progressing, and there is some part of it that I still like, but a mistake and a direction I didn’t like or consciously choose ruined everything in my eyes.

I made it, I spent time on it and finish it and I don’t like it but I’m accepting it. I accept that sometimes I make mistakes I cannot cover and that the more I try to fix them and cover them  the more they seem to become evident. Before acceptance, sometimes I let the fear of not being able to recover my mistakes to grow, causing too much pressure and not enough clarity or pause which then cause what was a little mistake to grow beyond repair. It feels like running round and round in a labyrinth with no way out on sight, where motivation is lost and clouded.  But when I recognise the mistake and accept them I can move on and free myself from a prison of my own making, it is like finding a way out of the labyrinth.

Life is made of joyful moments, beautiful moments, exciting moments, boring moments, ugly moments, uncertain confused moments, sad moments, desperate moments. I need to be able to live with all of them, to see life for what it is and have the courage to face and take responsibility for my mistakes and move forward with my life.

An empty broken plastic bottle disturbs the natural perfection of bush roses, still, it does not change the honest beauty of nature beneath.

Blind eyes, open eyes, empty eyes, still, the sun and the moon rise every day and night.

 

 

Some of my source of Reflection for this post:

“After the rain

bomb craters filled 

with stars”  (John Brandi)

“good and bad, happy and sad, all thoughts vanish into emptiness like the imprint of a bird in the sky“. (Quote from the Buddhist text The Sadhana of Mahamudra)

Quote and Haiku both extracted  page 31 from the book Haiku Mind by Patricia Donegan.

Thirty-fourth Mandala – A Life Manifesto Mandala

The first thing I bought for my daughter’s bedroom, even before she was born, is a small colourful glass picture with the words Live, Love, Laugh with the hope and desire to make this picture a Life Manifesto for her.

What I wished for her life was To live fully, to Love truthfully and to Laugh freely.

But I feel that something was missing from this all positive and happy Life Manifesto, because I think that:

to live fully, we also have to cry and experience sadness and loss;

to live fully and love truthfully, we need to learn to understand our body, mind and heart, the universe in us and around us;

to live fully, love truthfully and laugh freely, we need to have the courage to accept our vulnerability and trust life and ourselves.

For this reason, I wrote on the frame around this Life Manifesto Mandala these powerful simple words:

Learn,

Trust,

Love,

Laugh,

Cry,

Live.

and framed within these words, your life, your world will blossom into a splendid and vibrant flower.

Thirty-Third Mandala – The Rainbow Mandala

Meditating with a six-years-old can be tricky, it is a juggling game between letting go of the desire to do it right and join the fun when she wants to have some hearty laughs and trying to bring back then some focus on some simple deep breathing and visualisation. We don’t spend much time reading and “meditating” in bed before her sleep and it appears only a simple and ordinary activity but it brings infinite magic and wonder to my daily routine. I remind of something I read recently in a book – Haiku Mind by Patricia Donegan –  about “finding ordinary mind… how subtle and ordinary Haiku really was – and that because it is so ordinary it seems extraordinary.” Meditating with my daughter feels the same subtle and ordinary and eventually very much extraordinary.

Recently we were trying to practice a Meditation called the “Rainbow meditation” from the book “Buddha at bedtime” and that meditation, my daughter laughs and appreciation for the colours and for the idea of being filled with happiness, love, friendship, peace and gentleness inspired my last Mandala.

“Take a breath in… and out, and feel your body relax.

Picture yourself surrounded by red light. Imagine breathing in the red light, and it filling you with energy.

Now see yourself surrounded by orange light. Imagine breathing in the orange light, and it filling you with strength.

Next, visualise yourself surrounded by yellow light. Imagine breathing in the yellow light, and it filling you with happiness.

Then, picture yourself surrounded by green light. Imagine breathing in the green light, and it filling you with friendship.  – Here my daughter was very excited about being filled with friendship. –

Now see yourself surrounded by blue light. Imagine breathing in the blue light, and it filling you with peace.

Next picture yourself surround by Indigo light, breathing indigo light, and it filling you with gentleness. – Here we both had some doubts about what colour was indigo, but we both loved being filled with gentleness. –

Now, visualise yourself surrounded by violet light. Imagine breathing in the violet light, and it filling you with love.  – Obviously being romantic, in the most encompassing way, souls, we both loved this last part about love. –

Finally imagine a bright rainbow carrying all this energy, strength, happiness, friendship, peace, gentleness and love from your heart, into your home, your street, your town, your country… the whole world. Slowly the rainbow fade…” – From Buddha at Bedtime by Dharmachari Nagaraja.

These are the two books that inspired me

 

and this is my Rainbow Mandala

This idea of the ordinary life also inspired some walking writing meditation, that brings my attention to the little corner of the world where I am so lucky to live and to notice things which are at once ordinary and magnificent:

Thick solid grey clouds

Rays of light red and yellow filter through

Like a sign of God’s presence

 

Wonders of Nature

In a little green leave now red on the ground

In the sweet yawn of kitten half asleep in a bed of sun

In the joyful singing of many birds hidden safely in the branches of the trees

The vast blue sky, then almost black and sparkling with the light of countless little stars

A transparent white moon still high in the vast sky in the morning

All ordinary simple free gifts unnoticed too easily.

 

Of the miracles of our everyday life around us

How little we notice and know.

We are outsiders.

We are strangers to our world

inside us and outside us.

We take too much for granted and

We forget to be grateful for our innumerable blessings that

we notice only when we lose them.

Our life revolution is to notice and to appreciate the subtle wonders of everyday life.