It seems like all I had to do this year was find my sunflower child. And I did that.
I found her in an image I could not ignore. A sweet child placing her soft face right into the center of a large sunflower.
I put her in the center of my Intention Mandala for 2013. I look at this often and so the presence of this sweet child is with me throughout the days.
But more than that, she keeps appearing in images I come upon in other places. She was on the East Coast with me when I enjoyed my weekend at the Women Writers and Artists gathering. Of course she was! My 2013 Intention Mandala is “The Year of Joy and Fun” and I was certainly joy-filled and having fun with my women companions, enveloped in writing, art and reverence for the larger story of us all.
During one of the workshops, there was my sunflower girl in a pile of images to be chosen for our projects. You know I chose her!
And today, as I begin preparation for the SoulCollage(R) and Daily Word workshop I will facilitate at Unity of Kalamazoo in September, I found her once again, as an image in the front of the September/October Daily Word. What a blessing and confirmation for the work I desire to do with this. I have read the Daily Word as a subscriber since 1979. It always lights up the next step in my path with Scripture and Affirmation Truths. I trust it with my whole heart and soul. Perhaps, that is where the desire comes from to play and pray our prayers and affirmations into image through the wondrous process of Seena Frost’s SoulCollage(R)
In the accompanying poem, “All I Had to Do”, by Donna Miesbach, a question is asked:
“Why, then, did I Not see You?
How could I have
Missed your Presence
When all I had to do
Was stop and look
Within my heart?”
That is exactly what we will do when our workshop gathers and selects the scriptures and affirmations they want to “see” through their own images selected at random from many magazine visuals I have spent tearing from sources recycled and given to me. The perfect images will be present, just as the sunflower girl has been present to me. The attendees will have an awed sense of “All I Had to Do” was…..put some pictures together to express a heart and soul-felt confidence that “this is the Truth of me.” The Scripture, affirmation and image will continue to live in them in a “best friend forever” sort of Presence.
All I had to do when I first came across my sunflower girl image was imagine her at the center of my mandala. This Intention Mandala is based on the work of Janet Conner and her “Lotus and the Lily.” I’ve been making this type of yearly mandala since 2010. On these mandalas, we put whatever we can imagine we want the most to manifest in our lives on the outside circumference of our mandala. Then we don’t really think about them anymore.
“When the right conditions are present, there is manifestation.”
She also insists we put “big things” on the mandala, not necessarily things we think “possible” to get, because the manifestation comes without effort from our “making it happen”, if your focus is in the right place. Some of my “big things” have been: a home I love; check; a large weight loss; check; good health and fitness; check; travel abroad; check; financial supply for workshops and training; check; live and love with Tom; check. These are big! These are manifest.
To get to the right place, we first concentrate on total forgiveness of others and of self. And to stay with that, working on that whenever and wherever needed. I do that.
Next, we state the conditions we agree to live. These conditions are written out and placed in the center of the mandala. Mine have changed over the years, but they are my guideposts when they appear on my mandala. So for my year of 2013, My year of Joy and Fun, these are the conditions I live by, as witnessed by my sunflower girl:
It seems like this is “all” I have to do to live a balanced and centered life. “All” is always a very small word, but sometimes “all I have to do” is a very large thing to do; other times, it is as easy as floating with the waves. In any case, when I am doing these things, I cannot miss “the Presence” that is always right within my heart.
Napkinwriter 