The Mandala has long been a symbol of the Self or the Soul in all spiritual cultures. Through its visual expression we see how transformation can occur well within our own depths of awareness and in our daily experience. So the mandala is a symbol of a point within our consciousness from which we can be become aware. It is our reflection, the expression of our center. The experience of the birth-death-rebirth cycle in our lives is part of our own psychic awareness or our own being, as we live out our daily lives. Through this process we have the possibility for growth, transformation, for movement. Like the flower, our conscious awareness starts as a bud and moves through the process of growth and blossoming until decline and death. Then, there is magic. The cycle begins again. The flower can be seen as a living mandala, a living symbol of our inner world made manifest through its own life cycle of birth-death-rebirth. CK
