Once a month, I put on two hats at once and lead a Satoyama Yoga class that incorporates Drawing Meditation. Today we worked with mandalas.
Before we started to draw, each of us set an intention or asked a question by writing it on the back of our sheet. The seed of my drawing reflected a small concern. I wrote on the back of my sheet “a week of happiness, alone and healthy.” And then I turned it over and drew for 25 minutes.
We drew using inspiration from our yoga poses: mountain pose forms a vertical line; in palm tree pose, variations of hand positions make different shaped petals; downward facing dog creates a triangle. There are lines, spirals, circles waves and triangles in many of our yoga movements.
At the end of the session, we took a look at our drawings and noted and places where the art answered or was inspired by our written statements. Mine had a lot of arrows and pointers in it. I wasn’t sure what it meant, but hoped to get some meaning from it later. That often happens in drawing meditations; the message hidden in the drawing might jump out at you days after you draw.
I finished my mandala after class, adding more detail and giving it some color. I am not sure yet how this is going to guide the coming week, but I will post it where I can see it and look for insight as the week passes.
