For eons, the mandala has served as a fundamental archetypal focus for the human psyche. Dr. Carl Gustav Jung, Swiss psychiatrist, recognized the mandala as a core image for personal symbology, noting that this symbol occurs cross-culturally in dreams and artwork. Mandala is an accepted Sanskrit word for a circle. Jung had discovered the value of drawing mandalas for his own personal healing and centering.
Why should modern people feel compelled to draw circles and create mandalas? Research in psychology and child development indicates that circles are part of the fundamental structuring of personal identity. The ability to recognize circles is built into our visual apparatus. Researchers have found that our eyes organize visual input into patterns even before transmitting perceptions to the brain. According to Gestalt psychology, simple, closed forms, such as circles, are more quickly perceived and recognized as being meaningful. Circles intuitively clarify random visual input and are recognized as being known and familiar.
This journal is your personal healing tool. Enjoy the process of filling the circle macrocosm as it reveals the microcosm of your inner self. The personal dynamics of centering yourself creates a sacred space. Personal intuitive counseling with your own creative expression results during the journaling process.
ARTS MYSTERY JOURNAL
Your challenge is to enter this deceptively simple blank circle journal. Only you alone will discover the complex meaning of your very own personal paradox. Be prepared for a sometimes tedious journey that can suddenly be transformed into bliss. What is this challenge of personal paradox? You and I are the living paradox of who we really are and how we actually live.
Why a blank circle Arts Mystery Journal? Blank because the nature of our souls is not realized. A circle is also called a mandala, a Sanskrit word for a simple circle. The circle is a universal symbol of the self, earth, and the cosmos that holds infinite possibilities of the universe. Do you have the courage to enter an empty circle leading to the abyss of self knowledge? To enter the microcosm of an established circle is to enter the perpetually endless macrocosm of yourself.
Previous experience is not necessary to begin your travels into the wilderness of your unknown self. The value of focusing your attention upon only filling the emptiness of the circle is your challenge. The difficulty is to not use known symbols or tokens identifying something of culturally visible significance. Filling the circle acts as a mirror to peer inside yourself. Why do we need a mirror to peer inside of ourselves? Good question! The materialism of our culture has caused a blindness to the invisible realities of the subtle worlds we also live with.
Allow your random thoughts to wander during the concentration process of filling the circle. Write the thought(s) down under the circle when completed. That thought may be a valuable clue to your inner self. Over time, as you open your journal, the date and a word, phrase or paragraph will remind you of where you were at the time of filling the circle.
Repeated use of the blank circle experience as often as possible will open the previously closed doors for you. Each filled page records a valuable rewriting of the inner private story to yourself. Desire to truly know who you are with clarity of meaningful life purpose is the only pre-requisite for this process of life.
ARTS MYSTERY JOURNAL DIRECTIONS
You don’t have to be an artist to participate. This sketch book is appropriate for most dry pigments: pencil, pen, colored markers, oil pastels, and colored pencils. First write the date for future reference before beginning. Then use the art supplies to fill the circle.
Each filled circle represents a portion of the secret mystery of who you truly are. Your challenge is to enter the circle without caring or judging what you do—or how it will look. Please only yourself.
After the circle is filled, jot down the first thought that came into your head during the process of filling the circle — at the bottom of the page. That thought might be a valuable clue to the complex subtleties of the inner core of yourself. Daily or near daily entries will reveal your inner processes and the meaning of your activities.
Only you can find the clues that can solve the mystery of your inner circle by using this personally created journal. Your only true job is to make sense of it, to find your individual path in to your very own center. Please remember that you and I are just another person in the process of living.
ARTS MYSTERY JOURNAL EPILOG
Many years ago, throughout the world, most people believed new born babies had empty blank minds. Parents believed their work was to teach and train the baby as best as they could. The infant just smiled. The parents understood the smile as permission to do whatever they wanted for their child. Names were given to identify each new born person. The name identified the child as who he or she actually was. Proud parents were happy and pleased when the child responded to the name. However, sometimes there were problems when the child did not respond as expected. Rewards and punishments were developed to control their children’s behavior.
Creation stories of the earth, sun, moon and cosmos offer logical explanations for humanities existence on earth. The stories told us who we are and our life’s purpose. Over much time different religions sprouted that continued the parental use of reward and punishment. Gradually and experientially, humanity began to understand that the myths and imagined creation stories did not truly explain anything of lasting value. Today, many of the known sciences have proved that humans are not born with empty blank minds.
Known sciences have proven the ability to observe and witness ourselves. Understanding of our human nature within the complexities of interdependent systems is now being revealed to us. We are not who we think we are as we were taught. Our memories only explain the parental teachings. We have discovered how connected, interrelated and integrated we are with each other, all other life and the earth itself.
Written histories of ancestral memories tell us where we were; and yet give us no hint of where we might be going. Our histories speak of deeply hidden aspects of who we are as humans living on earth. It is a known fact that we did not enter this world as a blank slate. We are much more than our known memories. Our births pushed us into a confusing and foggy impersonal maze of a world. With time, we are told to obediently follow the directions of family and teachers. We may not agree with their directions because they may not feel correct for us.
We are left with a huge challenge to discover for ourselves who we actually are. Have you found your individual path and purpose for this lifetime? Are you ready for the process of this adventure to experience this personal mystery? The process is yours, it may take some time. Do you have the intent to follow your very own path of self discovery? Your intent to enter yourself demands some continuity of purpose over time. This sketchbook journal is a key to open and unlock your own developmental process. Your thoughts of today will change and not be the same tomorrow. The directions are simple. Take the challenge and just do it! You do not have to be an “artist” to enter the circle. Just be yourself.
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About the author:
Barbara Master received her BS from New York University and her MFA at the Maryland Institute. Ms. Master has been an arts educator for 50 years. She developed an Arts Journal, published as AURA of the Arts for 6 years. Her art works have been exhibited widely and she has been the recipient of grants from the National Endowment for the Arts, National Endowment for the Humanities and the Maryland Arts Council.