EXPRESSIONS OF WELLNESS
Mandala Artist and Teacher
Lily Mazurek (for May, 2008 issue of Holistic Health Magazine)
By Candice Russell
Creating art of a specific
kind is the purpose of the mandala workshops taught by Lily Mazurek of
The term mandala, a word
from the classical Indian language of Sanskrit meaning circle or completion,
has a long and storied history. Hindu in origin, the word is found in other
Indian religions such as Buddhism. Adopted by many spiritual traditions, the
mandala has different uses as a teaching tool, a means to establish a sacred
space, and as an aid to meditation and induction into a trance state.
The ancient Aztec culture
used a circular calendar to keep time and express their religious beliefs.
Indigenous people in
While long embraced by
Eastern religions, mandalas have only recently found an audience among Western
religions and secular cultures. These complex circular designs have power.
According to writer Bailey Cunningham in the book "Mandala: Journey to the
Center:" "Awareness of the mandala may have the potential of changing
how we see ourselves, our planet, and perhaps even our own life purpose."
The mandala's applications
are far-reaching. This circle with a center is often found in architecture.
Structures built around a center include Buddhist stupas, Muslim mosques and
Christian cathedrals. Mandalas are also found in flowers, seashells and rings
of tree trunks among various manifestations in nature, as well as in biology,
geology, chemistry and physics.
In practice the word
mandala is a generic term for any plan, chart or geometric pattern representing
the cosmos. It is also a microcosm of the universe. "Many cultures have
mandalas," says Mazurek, who has a slide show in her workshop explaining
their global significance. "Tibetan monks today travel to cities to create
them and chant to get themselves in a meditative state. When they're finished
making a mandala, they sweep up the mandala's powdered pigments and put them in
a flowing body of water to carry their messages and blessings where others
go."
Learning to deal with a
diagnosis of breast cancer in 1996 focused Mazurek on this unique and
purposeful form of circular artwork. "My belief is that mandalas appear
when you most need them, to bring you back to a state of wholeness," she
says. "I feel we're entering the age of the mandala. I needed to help
myself get through surgery and radiation. I was going through a huge upheaval.
I had seen a video of circular shapes and one thing led to another and another.
I developed a process of reaching for imagery out of my subconscious. Making
mandalas helped me psychologically."
Through the encouragement
of friends, Mazurek decided to share her gift with others. "I started
giving workshops and the feedback I got was powerful," she says.
"People found help with a variety of problems including weight loss,
financial problems and incest. I lead people through the process. I've
presented workshops at churches, universities, cancer centers, an AIDS conference,
salon groups, birthday parties and a conference for oncology social workers. I
can do workshops one-on-one or in groups, as in a family with all the relatives
working on one group mandala. I can also conduct workshops in a corporate or
business setting for team-building purposes."
Meditation and creative
visualization are the processes used by Mazurek in her workshops prior to her
students setting to work on making a mandala. "Mandala is an energy
medicine made manifest," she says. "It's a body-based process to
bring imagery forward, which then goes into a mandala. You change the frequency
of a problem through color and shape. In meditation you get in touch with your
emotions and feel them as color or shapes. When you put them on a mandala it doesn't
stay the same because new revelations come forth. The mandala is a starting
point as something to meditate upon, which leads to another realization The
problem can be healed or you gain a new perspective on it."
While most mandalas are
regular and symmetrical in shape, the mandalas created by Mazurek and the
people who take her workshops tend to be otherwise: "They are organic and
irregularly shaped," she says. "The processes we are using to go to
the subconscious and the body link to a problem Creating mandalas has a real
purpose because the mandala is a basic structure in life that reflects the
psyche. It mirrors back to me where I am. The mandala is a handy expression of
self that I can learn from. I can go into the process of making a mandala with
a particular problem and come out with a better feeling. Sometimes it's very
intuitive."
Making one mandala
sometimes isn't enough to address a certain concern. "If I'm not able to
get to the heart of a problem, I've had to do four or five mandalas in a series,"
explains Mazurek. "The last series had to do with relationships and
unresolved emotions. Doing the mandalas helped me get over them. This isn't at
all a cerebral process. It's a totally gut-centered process that leaves you
feeling differently and thinking about it. To me mandalas are almost alive
because they continue to move and change."
Getting people prepared in
her mandala workshops takes some coaxing. Some hesitate to pick up their
colored pencils and begin drawing on paper. "People are often so
intimidated to make artwork because they don't have any previous artistic
experience at all," says Mazurek. "But this is about expressing
what's inside yourself and getting people in touch with their own symbolism and
colors. I give them templates so they can trace a circle and they can create
their own structure inside of it."
Mandalas had a vocal
advocate in decades past. One of the world's most famous psycho-analysts, Dr.
Carl Jung, found mandalas useful in his work. He believed his paintings of
mandalas enabled him to identify emotional disorders and work toward achieving
wholeness in personality. He saw the mandala as "a representation of the
unconscious self."
Using symbolism with
personal meaning perhaps only to themselves, the students in Mazurek's
workshops confront difficult problems. "People are putting shapes and
content into their work, whether it's abstract or dealing with people and
relationships," she says. "I've had children going through their
parents' divorce who make zig-zags which can indicate pain, confusion or
sadness. I have a de-briefing at the end of the workshop and allow people to
speak. Most people do speak and their realizations become clear as they talk
about them. I also allow cross-talk so others can describe what they see in
your mandala in order to provide extra insight."
Attendees at Mazurek's
workshops are channeling their issues through art. "While painful things
come up, it's a safe environment and such a fun process," she says.
"I've made one hundred mandalas. I usually date and scribble on the back
of the paper. When I come back to the mandalas later, I sometimes don't even
remember what I was going through at the time, which means the energy is off of
it."
Other forms of holistic
healing are also part of Mazurek's repertoire, including Reiki, emotional
freedom, and herbal medicine. "I seem to be a medical intuitive," she
says. "I started out teaching on my friends as guinea pigs and the results
were bigger than I expected. I was told I really had a gift. Mandalas are such
transformative tools that can have profound effects on people. It makes me feel
good to be able to help people this way." To contact