The start of something, 1996

This is the first mandala I ever drew as an intentional mandala, knowing something of what it meant to draw a mandala. I had recently finished the class on CG Jung where I began to develop some understanding of spirituality beyond what they taught in Hebrew school and what I’d come to understand in a few years of atheism. I had also recently broken up with my boyfriend of almost 3 years, the one with whom I used to do a lot of collaborative psychedelic art.

I’m pretty sure he had come around to try to get me to take him back, or at least to get me into bed, but it was pretty transparent and I was pretty much through with him. Instead, we ended up painting.  Not collaboratively, though. I don’t remember what he worked on, but it wasn’t my mandala. I told him a mutual friend had confided her attraction to him and he left happily, although our friendship was sort of rocky.

Looking at the huge lapses in symmetry, I wonder if my psyche was that deeply out of alignment, or if I just lacked any skill with a paintbrush.