Mandala Gallery

Created over the course of years, this page offers you a view of the full collection of Wisdom's Mandala Whispers. By clicking on each image you will open a larger view and joanne's reflections and poetry. If you are interested in purchasing a mandala the product info page will lead you through the options.

Awaken

Ever increasing gratitude for the growing awareness of original blessing rather than original depravity.

Original Blessing: Putting Sin in Its Rightful Place, Danielle Shroyer, November 1, 2016.

Beloved

Opening to living life loved launches a journey into the unknown, and the first yes for me as a codependent was to be honest with and learn about myself. My life-long teachings were that doing so was selfish and not to be trusted.

Yet through therapy, a deep desire and longing to understand and learn about myself, and coming across a particular article, I came to the realization that “You cannot give what you do not have”. I don’t know the author of that quote, but it landed in me, and I more and more opened to Plato’s “An unexamined life is not worth living” – that it made sense if I really desired to know authenticity. But yes, it is very scary because of the unconscious, unacknowledged fear that it will just confirm my deepest belief that I REALLY am “not enough”.

Yet with inexpressible gratitude, the words came one day as to how I “tasted” the reality of Ephesians 3:14-19.

https://sojo.net/articles/sin-guilt-and-psychology-what-i-wish-all-pastors-knew “Sin, Guilt, and Psychology: What I Wish All Pastors Knew.” (Dated 03-04-2014 by Derek Flood)
Ephesians 3:14-19

A friend of mine recently emailed to let me know how the Beloved mandala spoke to her during a trying event in her life: ...I felt like the clanger in a bell, banging up against opposing emotions... battered. During this time my heart and my mind kept returning to the "Beloved" mandala that you sent me. Sometimes it made me feel like that word had been emblazoned on my heart, and other times it felt like a wax seal on my heart, like an icon for the chant that says, "place me as a seal upon your heart". It speaks to me of being loved and held.

Coming Out from Behind the Curtain

Having always been (and will always basically be) an introvert and socially shy and “inept”, it was exhilarating to begin peeking out from behind the curtain of codependency and inadequacy and take some steps into the shallow water of an individual selfhood, but learning to have and enforce boundaries, especially emotional boundaries in primary relationships, would often make me “run backstage”.

Being “thankful” does not begin to touch my depth of love and gratitude for Spirit’s gratuitous Love, guidance, and provision of the support of a Spiritual Companion, Therapist, and the practice of Centering Prayer as I journeyed along. And despite not being able to fully understand another’s journey or even agree with it all, I was lovingly supported by my daughters, my siblings, and many growing friendships.

Connected

It wasn’t something I had to work hard to understand. For me, it just is – the sense of being connected to one another. I resonate in a very small way to Thomas Merton’s famous “Fourth and Walnut” experience:

In Louisville, at the corner of Fourth and Walnut, in the center of the shopping district, I was suddenly overwhelmed with the realization that I loved all those people, that they were mine and I theirs, that we could not be alien to one another even though we were total strangers … There is no way of telling people that they are all walking around shining like the sun.
~ from Conjectures of a Guilty Bystander

Equanimity

I do not recall how this mandala came to me – I am just thankful for the possibility of the state of equanimity. As Cynthia Bourgeault enigmatically said:

“Don’t correct back to positivity if what you want is equanimity.”

Huh? I have no idea if this is what she meant, but to me, equanimity is a beautiful virtue of being able to remain centered, stable and steady of mind and emotions to whatever IS – whatever situation you may find yourself, whether ‘good’ or ‘bad’. It is usually easier to try and ‘find the positive’ or ‘dwell in the negative’, focusing on one or the other, but equanimity allows what IS, thereby able to better respond to any possible action or non-action that may be required. It is one of the four great virtues in Buddhism (along with compassion, lovingkindness, and sympathetic joy) that Buddha taught his disciples to cultivate.