Vibrant colors, playful doodles, and gratitude are the ingredients in this Gratitude Mandala Project for reducing stress and raising your vibration.

Originally published in my book, “The Mandala Guidebook” and posted to my blog several years ago, this project seems timely.

Get Grounded & Awaken Your Heart

In light of the swirling energies and fear around the coronavirus, I’ve been spending a lot of time reflecting on art making as a self soothing, grounding, and heart opening activity. Working with the root and heart chakras come to mind as two energy centers within the body that can help you to feel safe, secure, and loved.

If you have my chakra stencils, I invite you to go on a scavenger hunt around your home to find items that you can use to trace the chakra design onto. Here a file folder in beautiful reds and florals captures the color, feeling, and tone of the root chakra. To see the chakra design set against the busy background, I colored in the areas around the triangle and petals with a black Sharpie marker. A red paint pen brightens up all of the black areas with lines and dots. As I worked, I centered myself by reciting positive affirmations.

I am safe.
My family is safe & secure.
I am financially secure.
I feel a strong connection to Mother Earth.
I am abundant.
I am grounded, centered, rooted, connected, and peaceful.

A page from Flow Magazine featuring a photo in green tones by Lupen Grainine provides a gorgeous back drop for the heart chakra. I cut out the words, “kindness” and “awaken your heart” to set the tone for this journal page. After tracing the chakra stencil, I added some flowing lines to the petals and I relaxed with each mindful breath. I added words as little reminders of what helps me to awaken my heart:

breathe
pause
listen
tend
gentleness
soften
forgive
surrender
gratitude

It’s your turn! What will you find on your scavenger hunt to use as a backdrop for your chakra art?

Cultivating Compassion Mandala Art Weekend

Creating art as a spiritual practice provides us with the gift of stepping out of ordinary time and into sacred space where we create for insight, self expression, and healing. Creating in community furthers this experience; each participant inspires and is inspired by the other participants in a mutually supportive atmosphere.
 

The mandala art projects in this program are centered around the intention of cultivating loving-kindness and compassion. Each activity includes a guided meditation that invites your attention to the present moment, opens a sacred conversation with your inner wise self, and gently awakens creative flow.

In our creative practice, we’ll work with the four elements, bringing a sweet vigilance to

• air: observing our thoughts
• water: feeling our emotions
• earth: listening to our bodies
• fire: awakening our creative spirit

The projects include creating heart chakra mandala art that opens the energy center of love, compassion, and acceptance; the Torus Yantra, a sacred symbol that reflects the expansive energy of the heart center; and a mandala with four gates to illustrate the four elements and four aspects of the self.

This program is for you if you want to give yourself a gift of creative expression that nurtures your body, mind, emotions, and spirit. You’ll go home with new skills, two-three pieces of unique mandala art, a greater awareness of self, and ideas for an on-going creative practice.

Kathryn Costa is an artist, educator, and shamanic practitioner who has opened the door to creative joy for thousands of people in 175 countries through her YouTube videos, online courses, workshops, her book The Mandala Guidebook: How to Draw, Paint, and Color Expressive Mandala Art, and her line of chakra stencils from StencilGirl Products. 

Kathryn’s passion can be summed up in three little words: “create and connect.” Kathryn’s workshops help people to find clarity, let go of fear, embrace their dreams, and explore their creativity. Kathryn’s unique teaching style integrates tools and practices from her training as a Kaizen-Muse Creativity Coach, Soul Coach, Virtue’s Project Facilitator, and Jaguar Path Shamanic Practitioner.