Flamingo Pink & Aqua

This is Part Four in my four part series about my vacation this August.  You can see the other posts here:

Part One:  Great Barrier Reef

Part Two:  Port Douglas

Part Three:  Stranded in Palm Cove

The Mandala Magic retreat in Ubud was the whole reason that I booked my vacation.  I started drawing mandalas in April & currently have an ongoing mandala practice where I draw at least one mandala every morning.  This practice has led me to change my thesis topic to “Creating Mandalas as an Intuitive Practice”.  I booked the retreat in May and Karen & Gary Scott (who organize & run these retreats) were such a pleasure to get to know before, during, and after the retreat.  We all had delays getting to Bali because of the volcano, but they were so helpful in organizing transport for everyone from the airport & in rearranging the workshop so that we could get as much out of it in our shortened time as possible.

 

I arrived late Tuesday night & got to work Wednesday on some art.  We did two projects, a soul journal–which is an art journal about yourself (so much deep inner work here!!!), and a mandala.

On the second day of the retreat we began work on our mandalas.  Karen has been teaching mandalas for almost 20 years & is amazing at it.  The process is a bit different than mine, and I struggled with that, but it taught me something (everything about creating mandalas teaches me something).

The next day we worked on our mandalas some more & if we needed to we also worked on our soul journals.  Then we had another free night.

For our final day we all presented our soul journals to each other and Karen did readings of our mandalas.  She has been doing this for so long & has so much insight.  By the end of the workshop I felt convinced that I need to take more workshops with her.

Luckily, Karen & Gary are planning another retreat in France next June, so that will be my graduation present to myself.  Also, I’m going to look into seeing if Pacifica will sponsor some sort of workshop with them so that they could come teach here.  I think it would be a perfect fit.

Something big shifted in me while I was in Bali–largely due to the work that was done while creating the soul journal.  So, my morning mandalas have changed a bit since I got back to the States.  I’m more experimental with them and am delving into deeper darker backgrounds.  Please follow me on Instagram if you’re interested in seeing them!!