This mandala arrived quite spontaneously on a retreat to Maui to process the loss of my sister, Nancy. The retreat location supported my goals in turning inward to gain more awareness of the meaning of our relationship. This descent was a powerful one and during my retreat there I met a woman, Isabela, with whom I discussed the necessity of expanding one’s heart to contain the pain and sorrow of loss – any kind of loss. This expansion often transforms pain into compassion and takes an incredible amount of patience and self-compassion to sustain. It becomes a practice if one has the devotion and commitment to the process.

We agreed that the capacity to take this path can provide a paradigm for healing – self, society and planet. We dedicated ourselves to this process at a sacred heiau on Maui and vowed to follow this path. My sister Nancy practiced unconditional love for most of her interesting  life and was a true model of maintaining this stance through very challenging life situations. I showed this mandala to Lama Gyaltsen at the Maui Dharma Center and he asked me to name it, dedicate and show it to as many people as I could as a vehicle for healing. The mandala is dedicated to my sister Nancy.

This mandala was the second one I did on Maui. It was to honor the Sacred Mountain that I have such a connection with. I had been making a necklace that was inspired by a conversation I had with an angel I met at Castle Lake in the Shasta area. The necklace was inspired by my understanding that the radiance of the heart needed to be protected in healers who often have open hearts in a culture that does not “see” this. I started to make a breastplate out of one thousand crystal beads, planning to include the shape of a pink heart fashioned by pink crystals in the center of it. This necklace is represented in this mandala by the inner circle of white dots. The snakes encircling the inner circle symbolize transformation and the red feather represents the passionate commitment of the activated heart.

The whole mandala is set on a background of cosmic stars and the central star represents radiance and light, the most healing energy of the cosmos and a key element in our current healing crisis. The necklace can be seen in the near future on our sacred jewelry section of this website. The mandala is dedicated to the Angel whose name I do not know.

After creating primarily geometric shapes in the mandalas I was doing, I began to feel the need for more organic, living symbols. Having worked with animal medicine for years, I decided to start with the butterfly, an ancient symbol of transformation as well as transmutation. Changing shapes is a powerful and important skill in the shamanic world and the butterfly can be an important reminder of this capacity in all of us.

In creating this mandala, the butterfly started to take shape and led to a wonderful process of spontaneously developing the shapes surrounding her. The wave shapes in the Circle were hand drawn and represent light waves in motion interspersed with jewels of light. Later, the diamond shapes presented themselves and lastly the Circle and the Star of David. This mandala was dedicated to my friend Isabela whose friendship inspired this artistic opening for me.