On Wednesday, I presented my most recent work in class. For the past three weeks I've been making mandalas. The intention that seems to be unfolding out of the process of creating them seems to be integration. Most of these mandalas rest on a medicine wheel, honoring the foundation of my spiritual life - the Lakota way of life. Everything hold within the mandala of the medicine wheel is symbolic of the unfolding of my spiritual, artistic, cultural, and experiential life.

Along with the symbolic integration within the creation of these mandalas, is a larger investigation of my artistic inspirations in relationship with my artwork. This is very fresh, mysterious, and exciting investigation for me. My understanding of it is evolving everyday.

The main inspiration I'm exploring is conscious hip hop. I have had a radio show, Soultree, for almost two years now on a local station here in Occidental (www.KOWS.fm). I cover a very broad range of genres that all have African American roots. Overtime the focus has become more and more on conscious hip hop and related music, although I still include reggae, soul, jazz, jazz fusion, blues, motown, electronica, and middle eastern music if that is where the flow of music takes me.

Over the past few weeks while I have been creating mandalas, I have been meditating on conscious hip hop and related music, why I am drawn to it, why I want to share it, why is it important for me at this point in my life? I find that meditating on these questions and listening to the music as I make mandalas has already taken me on a deep journey that I am eager to continue.

I have also realized it is time to take my relationship with the music to the next level, although I don't yet know what that means. I'm excited and a bit intimidated by some of the ideas that have come up in this process and been offered from the amazing circle of women in class. My partner, Craig, is also a huge support in this unfolding. Although he knew I was pairing music with my presentation of mandalas, like me, he wasn't sure exactly where it was going. But on Wednesday as I was heading to school to present, he said it occurred to him that there was an essential tool I needed to support my relationship with the music. I left class energized by the response my peers had to the music and mandalas and eager to work with the music. I arrived home to a "beginner" DJ mixing board that my husband bought while I was at class! Ok, so the next step is literally integrating the music. It's going to take some time to learn how to use the mixer and the software, lots of practice, but it will provide a vital skill that will facilitate an uninterrupted flow music, a mandala of sound. I can't wait!!!

Integration Intention

This card holds the both conscious and subconscious intentions. The intentions I'm aware of at this point are:

Integration/Balance

Music/Art
Masculine/Feminine
Heart/Mind
Native Way/Eastern Spirituality
Earth/Energetic

Biodiversity/Cultural diversity

Rural Life/Urban Life

Group consciousness themes I noticed and noted at our first class:

• Masculine/Feminine - She-King/HeQueen
• Authentic transformation & integration
• Obstacles / Ganesh - the remover of obstacles / Elephant
• Insecurity and doubt
• Authority - personal and external
• Being a traveller of the road less travelled, not fitting into cultural norms

Things I love about this seminar already:

• The smell of burning sage as I approached Studio 2
• An altar of chocolate, fruit, flowers, light and sage
• beautiful circle of women, some new to me, some I've already met, all I will know more deeply because of this circle
• The immediate depth, openness, and trust of this group

Something I would shift:

• I appreciate the dim lighting for gentleness and I also struggled to see more than silhouettes of the people across the circle. I would love to have one light on the altar that might provide just enough light to see each other without loosing the gentle ambiance.

Gratitude for the unique souls that show up in this sacred circle of woman artists, for the creative energies that bless us, guides us, and teach us, for all the struggle creativity generates in it's relationship with soul and the profound transformation that comes from that eternal dance. Blessings on this brief seasons we spend together in sacred creative communion. May we honor each other with presence, authenticity, support, and respect. O Matake Oyasin.

The Unfolding Begins

The Sacred Circle has been moving through me the past three weeks. It makes sense to me that this is the physical form that holds the process of integration for me. The integration of my spiritual roots from the Lakota way of life held by the sacred hoop of the medicine wheel, with the Eastern influence of The Tao held by the yin/yang symbol and Hinduism and Buddism held in the sacred circle of the mandala. It seems the intention I cast out to the Universe in 2006 as I began to shed the skin of my previous life, is still an unfolding lotus. The desire I whispered into the wind for the integration of the many aspects of my life, still chimes in the tinkling of leaves in the trees and reminds me the Universe only functions through interconnection and is always acting on behalf of Gaia's higher consciousness by ushering in integration for all beings on all levels at all times.

Mandala:

"Mandala (मण्डल) is a Sanskrit word that means "circle". In the Hindu and Buddhist religious traditions, their sacred art often takes a mandala form. The basic form of most Hindu and Buddhist mandalas is a square with four gates containing a circle with a center point. Each gate is in the shape of a T."

-Wikipedia

"...(in Jungian psychology) a symbol representing the effort toreunify the self...

Any of various ritualistic geometric designs symbolic of the universe,

used in Hinduism and Buddhism as an aid to meditation."

-Dictionary.com