Tara Mangalartha

The Tara Mangalartha Mantra is a prayer to restore climate balance. 

Oṃ tāre tuttāre ture Maṅgalaṃ śrī mahā pāṇi svāhā

Tara Mangalartha, the 12th Tara

Translated as, "she who brings about auspiciousness." This mantra is a sacred chant associated with the deity Tara - a revered figure in Tibetan Buddhism.

Tara Mangalartha (Drölma Tashi Dönjema) is the twelfth Tara, depicted as peaceful and golden yellow goddess. Seated serenely on her lotus flower with an auspicious infinity knot.

Sandra Ingerman | shamanic journeying for healing

Today is the start of a new course with Sandra Ingerman - "Shamanic Journeying for Healing" at the Shift Network. 

Shift course page

It is perfectly timed - opening 2024 to much of it potential and possibility. Exploring an ancient practice intimately intertwined with the elements of nature. Journeying into non-ordinary realms in ceremony - for healing, support, and guidance. 

Sandra Ingerman in an intimate connection with helping spirits and nature beings of these unseen realms. Into worlds beyond our world - shamanic journeying to connect with multidimensional guides and their insights since ancient times. 

Sandra Ingerman teaches how to experience firsthand what it looks, feels, and sounds like to explore other worlds and be in true physical presence with the divine beings who dwell there. 

Providing options and solutions to our greatest personal and collective challenges to share - with family, friends, colleagues, and community. A truly life changing experience. 

May we all contribute in the creation of a better world for all. A glorious 2024 to all!  

more mandalas

With the publication and launch of my coloring book, Mandala Cycles, I circle back to the cause and inspiration that led to its creation initially. 

Within its intricate circular patterns, there are common symbols throughout mandalas. Traditionally, they depict an abstract form of Buddha Mind. 

Most common sacred symbols are the wheel, tree, flower, or jewel. At its center the dot - representing being free of dimensions. The starting point, the beginning of contemplation, and devotion to the divine. 

coloring book art by Issa Urra - image by MayeeFab

From there, the center expands outward - lines and geometrical patterns symbolize the universe. All these encompassed by the outer circle - representing the cyclical nature of life.  

advent season

Many of us are looking forward to the end of this challenging year of horror. Even with the virus still raging out of control we find ourselves more hopeful with the advent of the holidays. 

This time last year few of us were aware or alerted to the news of COVID-19. None of us ever foresaw how far and deep the devastation would affect us all around the world. Yet as our world crumbled around us many resorted to more inspired ways of being.

homey Advent candles

Much as we love the holidays, Christmas tends to lose its magic and charm as we grow older. Participating in Advent may bring back that awe and wonder our younger selves enjoyed so well. 

The rituals and traditions associated with Advent are both ancient and fluid. Churches have observed Advent for centuries, but each congregation and individual may participate in different ways.

Many light candles each Sunday, telling a different part of the Christmas story leading up to Christ’s birth.

Isaiah 9:2

Advent is a gift. A time to behold the wonders of this expectant time of year. Embracing the themes of hope, joy and preparation we feel God more tangibly in his message of love and salvation and the birth of Christ.

Advent invites us to slow down and enjoy the hope and miracle that each day of life brings us. Instead of overeating, traveling, stockpiling — we fill our deepest interior with a holy presence.

We reset our internal watch to God’s time. We listen to the divine within instead of the constant barrage of buy, buy, buy.

Hope springs eternal in us

Honoring this time reminds us of the lessons in waiting, the joy in anticipation, the pricelessness of hope.

ceremony

Ceremony is a conscious act performed, uniting in ritual and purpose, the specialness of an event or occasion. Cultural or traditional, religious or civil, communal or private - a ceremony is a creative, powerful, and impactful means of communication and connectivity. 

Canterbury Cathedral Altar

Adding ceremony to our daily prayer is valuable because it consciously directs our purpose and intent. Prayers are universal and every individual prays one way or another. Prayer is deliberate communication issued or action taken to connect with spirit, the divine, all that is, source, the God of our heart. 

A Shinto Kamidana [home altar]

When we pray we are either naming, asking, or declaring with prayers of invocation, petition or decree. The idea expressed or action taken are an expression of honour, worship, or devotion. 

The Opferstein or sacrificial rock, Austria

ancient & ageless

In the early 70s I was a rebellious teenager in an all girls Catholic school run by German Benedictine nuns. Lucky for me a young nun came to be our high school principal and she was more open to having us express our new found angst in more productive ways.

We had much to vent as it was not just the birth of flower power and the all too controversial contraceptive pill, it was also the coming of age of the infamous Philippine dictator, Ferdinand Marcos. But that is a long and sordid tale I shall save for the more appropriate telling in my Change Warrior blog instead.

Jesus & Horus

Back then I thought being a hippie chick was the coolest thing. I loved beading my own headbands, wristbands and chokers. Embellishing and embroidering my clothes with thread, leather, cords and fringes would just put me in my creative zone.