Giving thanks for seeds of light, gorse and rainbow bright, emerging from the depths of night;

A triple triskele, woven of bone deep instinct and purest spirit, blessed as our wildest dreams.

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Giving thanks for each step along the way revealed in calm moments of clarity; 

For courage to continue moving through, undaunted and truly trusting Life's mystery and magic.  

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This mandala began at Winter Solstice and reached completion at the Spring Equinox, spanning the late winter months which I find most challenging; as the short days limit outdoor time, with cold and damp gloomy weather, colds and coughs and lingering lurgies. For our ancestors these would have been, and still are for many (including self employed artists!), the leanest months of the year; 'The Hungry Gap' between the winter stores diminishing and new growth of spring appearing.

Yet within this feeling of scarcity and knife-edge balance of survival, a flame of hope exists and gradually grows, fed by the return of the sun and our steady determined creative ingenuity, to not give up, however bleak the current circumstances may seem.

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So it's a mandala of Hope. I nearly called it 'Active Hope' after Joanna Macy's work, as my experience is that passive hope is not enough: to change things for the better requires that steady and determined effort.

Instead the title 'Wildest Dreams' seems to sit better, as in 'beyond our wildest dreams'; as a prayer of active hope for the blessing of thriving life, now and for generations yet to come, in the face of cataclysmic change.   

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As with all the mandalas I create, I started with the seed of an idea and the basic geometry and gradually worked out the content, colours, emphasis as it went along. It was quite a challenging birthing process, mirroring my own internal process at this time of emergence!

 

Represented in the design are:

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Buzzard and Mountain Hare

The dynamic of hunter and hunted in the circle of life and death. Buzzard holds the overview, wheeling and soaring on the wind, high in the sky, watching and waiting for the moment to take action. Mountain Hare is on ground level, swift and adept at evading danger, changing course, hunkering down as need be. Her coat turns white during the winter months, perfectly camouflaged in the snow, but not so great in warmer wetter winters.

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Gorse and Holly

These thorny, prickly plants, evergreen and steadfast, offer a flash of welcome colour in the sometimes monochrome landscape of january and february. I include them here as a reminder of an edgy kind of beauty. Medicinally, Gorse may help restore faith in the face of hopelessness,  while Holly offers resilience against negativity.

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Feather Moss

Just a hint of this beauty; so fine, so vividly soft and welcoming.

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The Geometry

Ninefold geometry (Enneagon) underpins the design, expressing 'the highest attainment to be achieved in any endeavor', a sense of both completion and a reaching of edges. As three times three it is a trinity of trinities, holding the quality of 'throughness' that emerges from the transcending/union of opposing forces.

Central to the pattern is a tangle of trinity knots or 'triskele'; with three smaller triskele containing rainbows for an optimistic outcome.

The triskele appears often in celtic artworks, symbolising the eternal cycles of Life, death and rebirth.

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