The Mandala and the Miracle Tree

Blog Post Entry # 13 -- Monica Rae

-October 18th, 2020-

I stood in front of my bedroom wall deciding on the color of acrylic paint to outline the square inside my hand drawn mandala. Music was blaring on my phone propped up by books beside me as my dog laid beneath my feet.

Each evening as I extended from the circle, I had drawn on my wall, I felt a profound sense of contemplation. I knew I could not take what I was creating with me. In fact, I probably would not get to finish it and the new owner of this home would inevitably paint over my seemingly insignificant doodling!

I ordered the paint from Amazon anyway…

Christopher Tin’s song Songo di Volare (“The Dream of Flight”) inspires my center circle—the horizon in yellow and orange. It plays on repeat as I climb into my painted meditation. Translated from his French he sings, “…Filling the universe with awe and glory…Once you have taken off, you will decide.”

I start at the horizon, expanding out to the green of earth, into the silver and blue of storm and sky, into the flowers’ edge shaded in purple. Circular in its nature, not confined to my wall, the mandala seems to have no end.

It is believed that entering and proceeding the center of a mandala guides you through the point of suffering into light and happiness. Creating a mandala can take weeks, the process of being pulled into the detailed and balanced beauty of curves and symbols quiets the mind. The meditative purpose of the art rescued me at my day’s end, centering my soul once again.

After a mandala is complete it is supposed to be destroyed…to align with the belief that nothing is permanent…It is hidden now under a new memory in the making.

Change.

Newness.

Becoming.

We fear it more than the dark. When my daughter was young I would find books to match each anticipated ‘stage of change’: she’s learning not to hit at the playground—there must be a book for that; she’s potty training—there must be a book with pictures for that; she’s learning about boys—well, we don’t need to check that book out just yet!

As adults we busy ourselves preparing, covering, and protecting the young in our lives as the inevitable seasons of transition come with each growth spurt and birthday party.

We almost cringe at the thought of purposefully letting go of our accumulations because it would suggest we failed or had to start over. Why would you leave that job, it paid so well? Why would you get divorced when at least you had ‘someone?’ Why would you move, buy, sell, give up…? Why would you choose ‘change’ when the routine and predictability allow for comfort? But what if it doesn’t? What if the only difference between routine and change is our fear of not being in control—of not knowing the outcome?

I do not like that phrase ‘start over’…as though we erase what brought us to the present. The pain, confusion, longing, tears we do not yet understand all in motion before the change. They are seeds planted. Trees waiting to take root, growing over and around us…

The mandala got erased and painted over, but what it taught me remains to inspire.

We are creatures of habit who were meant to change…

To be honest I still get afraid. Not of the dark or whether I fit in with the cool crowd. My fear now is found in ‘what if I don’t even try.’ I see the time stamp making marks faster with each passing year and wonder how much of my life I have let the fear of change keep me from trying.

It’s true—wisdom comes with age. Now I know the pain that awaits in the loss of loving someone that is not meant to stay in my life. And the uncertainty that comes with promises made but not kept.

What if I stay seated in the awkward, plastic, lopsided chair of regret…what then? Change requires trust—not in knowing what the outcome will be—but in the willingness to risk comfort to find out what it can become.

She lays beside me now, my young girl, my mirror. She sees me happy and strong, having packed up so much of our material life, having moved us into other people’s homes. Wondering how I can be smiling more now than ever; she is confused by the unknown. I changed her world without apology because I trust the path of peace laid before me.

I am not busy trying to keep her from the truth, the questions, the risk that change requires. No empty promises or attempts to get her to ‘like me.’ Instead, I tell her stories …

…stories like the one about a tree called The Miracle Tree found in the African landscape.

My teenager rolls her eyes to the left and then, as she allows her body language to communicate just how uncool she thinks I am, I continue in my rantings…

“This tree is so amazing. It originated in Asia and Africa and …”

I have not even finished my second sentence and her attention has dissipated!

Much like the wisdom we chase away in our fear. We are afraid of what we cannot see and often we are not willing to sit still long enough to listen, ask the questions, feel the pain that leads us to the whispers of our soul.

My favorite Gambian, Agie, sits under the wispy leaves of the Miracle Tree, aka the Moringa Tree. I am captivated first by its beauty and second by how I have never heard of it before! I ask him to tell me more. He

laughs as he relays to me how so much of it is full of nutrients, vitamins, and medicinal properties and that it is one of the most nutrient dense plants on our planet.

The sun makes the delicate, feathery leaves sparkle, creating a whimsical canopy around Agie. Nearby him roosters crow and doves call to each other as we talk of our lives, our dreams, and the changes ahead.

He and I will plant some of our own—the coming together of gratitude and vulnerability—in the soil and rain we will be transformed by our choice to trust instead of fear.

I wonder if a mandala is ever really complete. Or, like so much of our lives, is its destruction necessary so something new can be built? The miracle of the Moringa Tree is like the mandala—you must ask the questions to find the story and the purpose.

If you cannot be fully present in the becoming, in the creating, in the change…then you are ultimately absent from the opportunity and blessing that comes with it.

The question then is not, how am I?

But who will I be?

… After the wind blows me every which way …

I will be changed…planted but moving…rooted but untamed…covered and free

DEDICATION: To the friends who have covered me in so many ways, especially recently, allowing me change beside them. To a creator who showers me with the beauty of whimsical trees, soul stretching art and my child mirror. And to Agie, who is teaching me how to smile more and be unconditionally loved.