Creating Mandalas: For Insight, Healing, and Self-Expression

Description

The circular designs known as mandalas are symbols of deep inner truth, and when creating your own mandalas, you can discover things about yourself that can surprise you. Susanne Fincher introduces here the history and ritual use of mandalas in cultures all over the world. She then shows you how to make your own, offering guidance on choosing art materials and techniques. She discusses the symbolism of colors, numbers, shapes, and motifs (such as birds and flowers) that appear in mandalas, and she also presents several illustrated case histories of people who have successfully used her techniques.This revised edition includes a new preface. It also includes a new chapter on making mandalas with a group, a practice that can yield even greater insight-and more fun.

Susanne F. Fincher, MA, is a Jungian-oriented psychotherapist, a Licensed Professional Counselor, a Board Certified Art Therapist, and an internationally known expert using mandala-making for self-exploration. Through her workshops on creativity, people are able to engage their inner resources for insight, healing, and self-expression. Visit her web site at www.creatingmandalas.com.

"Every once in a while a book appears which, right away, becomes a 'classic' in its field. Until it gets into print, we don't realize how much it has been needed, because there has been nothing available to remind us that there is a gap in the existing literature. Such a book is Susanne F. Fincher's Creating Mandalas."-Journal of the American Art Therapy Association "Susanne Fincher's practical guide gathers European, African, Eastern, Native American, and other mythological perspectives and blends them with Jungian theory and her personal experience. This anatomy of the mandala will be useful to artists, therapists, and others who enter the magic circle."-Shaun McNiff, author of Art as Medicine "The essential tool for anyone with an ounce of creativity. The stories about the meaning of numbers, forms, and colors in mandalas are fascinating."-Mandala magazine "Fincher's book is warm, direct, and easily comprehended in its healing mission. This book is a mandala in its own right, and it is healing simply to read it."-from the Foreword by Robert A. Johnson "Creating Mandalas reads with grace and surety, making something exotic and remote now appear immediate and available. There is a wonderful fusion of ancient and contemporary observations and wisdom."-Peter London, author of No More Secondhand Art