Mandalas As You Have Never Seen Them Before

Let me introduce you to Sue O'Kieffe, an avid mandala designer. I found her through the "Hearts for Haiti" Etsy shop, where she had donated one of her exceptional prints. I had a real problem selecting pictures for this post, as all her mandalas are breathtaking.

What is really interesting about them, is that they are a blending of the natural and technological worlds. Sue takes pictures of flowers, stones, shells and then digitally transforms them into magical new patterns.

Let me give you an example. The delicate mandala at the left was created from the picture of plum blossoms you see underneath. "When I create mandalas", Sue says, "I think of them as portraits of the spirit that resides within the flowers or stones that I use as source images."

She has been making mandalas since 1995, and her first nature-inspired digital ones were born in 2005.

Mandala is a Sanskrit word that means "containing essence." A significant part of many spiritual traditions, mandalas have been employed for focusing the attention, establishing a sacred space, or as an aid to meditation.

Living in an urban society, we tend to easily get disconnected from the nature and Sue's mandala designs remind and assist us to reunite with it again.

Links:

• Etsy shop
• Blog
• Facebook fan page

Which of the three mandalas do you like the most? This is a hard question, isn't it :)