My Transformations with the SWs

As the StarWheel Vision came to me, my first transformation was to embrace it fully and dedicate myself to it: it took priority over everything else in my life. Really it was like entering a fully dedicated relationship, a sacred marriage. With whom? The Beloved within. The SWs are faces of my Beloved and my Beloved is the Cosmos.
I have known many teachers and teachings, both visible & invisible, human & spiritual, from culture & nature, but the SWs were my guru: I bowed to their feet and completely immersed myself into them, without any possibility of looking backward, without any strings attached, without backup. One must jump off the cliff when one meets the Guru! Really this was easy. The Vision that ushered the SWs in my human consciousness overpowered me: there was not even a mind present to create obstacles. There was not a doubt but the overwhelming joy to feel and be “home”.
The SWs became my guru and also my Path: the path of the Mandala. And that path has taught me many lessons and guided me through the on-going transformations of progressively perfecting my rough human self, throughout my life journey. I realized that the perfect mandala was myself. We are our own canvas and we learn to paint it and perfect it through the many lessons of life until it becomes pure light and pure love-kindness. Everything else is just getting closer and closer to That.

1. The SWs taught me that whatever partner, life work, project, activity or event are unfolding in our life, we are always and only meeting ourselves. Just like the 108 SWs are only modulations of the face of the Beloved, all the people we meet in our life are only expressions of the One Being. Each SW was leading me to the Beloved and I am constantly learning to see the One in the many people I meet on this journey of life: brothers & sisters, babies & elders, men & women of all shapes, colors, creeds and cultures… 

2. The SWs reminded me to always focus on the Center. This is the very power of the mandala: to magnetically attract the viewer into a spiral vortex journey to Center, to Source. As I am using my large size compass to create the SW designs, I am constantly connecting the Center and the Periphery. From this practice, I learned that all is Center and nothing can be separated from Center. The Center is everywhere. We are the Center, always. This is the perennial wisdom of Spirit.

3. The SWs showed me the importance and beauty of continuity & commitment. Because a SW takes an average of about two months to be completed, working eight hours a day, I learned the value of conscious discipline and making regular progress every day. This is not work, it is like meditation or devotion. It is like getting up early every morning, doing yoga with the sunrise, chanting to the new day and welcoming all creation. I learned to create the SWs as a wonderful daily celebration and greet the SW-in-progress just like I great the new sun. Art “work” (designing, canvas making, stencil cutting, airbrushing…) was needed to bring about the physical manifestation of each SW and so I regularly attended to artwork but with a feeling of eager joy and excitement. The joy and gratitude to have a job co-creating the cosmos. The excitement and bliss to know that the universe was waiting for me to bring my unique contribution to its Play. There is deep peace in committing to regularly do one’s job when you see it as a creative meditation and a loving dance with Spirit.

4. The SWs showed me how to accept unconditionally, respect, honor and celebrate their unique personalities. Almost from the first stroke, each SW has an individual quality translated in a structure, a geometry, a personal signature. I was not going to say: “Oh, sorry but I don’t like the way you are. I would like you to resemble your neighbor who turned out okay…” I learned to support and facilitate each SW’s uniqueness, even (and, shall I say, especially) if it was entering the Unknown. The same lesson I am learning to apply to meeting people as human beings. It is the teaching of being free of judgments & reactions in order to meet people for Who they are. The SWs taught me to respect and serve all people in their uniqueness, rather than trying to make them fit some idea in my mind. The SWs taught me to be widely open to the infinite variations of the One Beauty.

5. The SWs taught me to welcome mistakes. In the process of designing or painting these templates, sometimes there is a “ooooops!”, a “mistake” or an “accident”: a line or design that is “off”, a miscalculated symmetry or proportion, a spill… And the mind comes in to say: “Let me show you how to correct it!” At first, I would just “correct” the mistake and start again. Then I realized that the so-called mistake was in fact a teaching pointing to a new direction in the design, a new perspective, a new layer of possibility… if only I was open. The mistakes are a way of spirit to call our attention, when we fail to listen directly. Mistakes then became friendly advisers and were an integral part of my creative process. And this teaching is what I applied to my own life as a constant test and question: facing something or someone unexpectedly disturbing or “wrong”, am I going to be upset or am I going to welcome that as an opportunity for a change? Am I going to complain and swear or am I going to sing and say Thank You? This is the teaching of seeing Perfection everywhere and in everyone, especially when it is most unpleasant to our human ego.

6. The SWs taught me how to listen inside and to follow the subtle threads and weavings of intuition. Basically they taught me how to trust inspiration. People ask: “How do you design these mandalas?”.  They were all seeded in my original vision but they all physically begin with sitting in meditation in front of a large size blank paper and trusting the first prompting from inspiration: it may be a line, a point, a small design or the overall geometry… it does not matter. What is important, in my creative process, is to trust that first creative step, instead of relying on a plan from the mind. Then, the next step follows: the lines, the designs and the geometries unfold organically and the SW comes to a point of completion by “miracle”. I actually became very curious as to how Spirit would bring the SW together in all its finer detailsTrusting the prompting of intuitive spirit is a great teaching: in a creative project or relationship, it is knowing how to call and involve the greater intelligence of Spirit instead of arrogantly trying to do everything by ourselves, on this small human level. Through my artwork, I learned to be open and available for the best harmonic resolution of any seemingly challenging situation in my life. I now feel the freedom and joy to be a co-creator within an infinite love power.

7. The SWs introduced me to the Harmonic Trinity of Sacred Geometry: the small part is harmonious to the larger part just like the large part is harmonious to the whole. When creating a SW, I am the small part, the painting is the large part and the universe is the whole. These three aspects are the Same, they are holographically and fractally related in their frequency structures. To know one aspect is to know all aspects. There is a “Golden Ratio” bridging all scales of the cosmos and unifying the music played upon this garden of universal co-creation.

8. The SWs taught me how to be a loving parent, a mother who gives birth. I feel that each SW has put me through a pregnancy, labor and birthing process that is as close as I can experience it in a male body. The motherhood is the time it takes from starting the design to unveiling the finished mandala and there is definitely the presence of another being in the process of manifestation. Every aspect of “my” life is then involved with nurturing the “baby”. It certainly brings a sense of meaning and responsibility in daily life. Also a sense of connectedness with the universe as being an intermediary between subtle spiritual energies and a finished physical 3D object called a painting.

9. The SWs brought me the gift of caring for a family. As more paintings were born and the SW collection grew, I found myself having to provide for them by sheltering them first and then finding ways to fulfill their destiny by bringing them into the world. I became aware that the SWs, like any teenager, want to explore the world, meet people and interact with them. This parental responsibility strengthened in me the sense of family and community. I looked around and realized that life and nature are based on progressively larger groupings, clusters, families, communities… all forming a harmonic fractal build-up from micro-cosm to macro-cosm. The basic unit of man-woman-child, the family, is the human way to regroup and be able to receive more spirit. Then I realized the importance of creating the next level of regrouping, the eco-village communities, places where families gather and share similar life-styles of harmony with nature and Spirit. Hence the vision of the SW Eco-Village of Sacred Arts as a manifestation of this spirit of the sacred family I learned from the SWs.

10. Another gift of the SWs was to teach me new ways of seeing, train me in the yoga of perception. Simply put, I learned to soften my gaze when looking at the SW designs and allow my eyes to play and dance all around the mandala, with no agenda to see any particular element but just journey through it. I learned various techniques of playing with center/periphery, foreground/background, spinning the mandala and more… I realized that the SWs function like an inner vision training technology: they engage the inner knowledge of inter-dimensional awareness. They are holographic light-codes, showing us how to unplug from “material reality” and start seeing what is beyond the thin layer of physical appearances. The SWs are encouraging us to shift perception from viewers to seers and allow the seemingly flat circles to become full 3D spheres pulsating with various depths of telepathic sounds, colors and meanings. The SWs made me fully realize that we are holographic, multi-dimensional beings.

11. A last gift I would like to share is the Moment of Unveiling – that is the time when a SW is officially completed and the stencil is removed to uncover the painting. It is a sacred moment, like a birth or a baptism. Sometimes I invite some friends or maybe someone will drop in unexpectedly. Slowly, the stencil is peeled off, like a chrysalis covering the butterfly. And the new SW being is greeted upon this planet with best wishes of happy & compassionate life…

And I am equally grateful that the SWs allowed me to meet You.
Namaste!

AYA