TED Talk Thursday – Thomas Heatherwick: Building the Seed Cathedral

According to ted.com: “A future more beautiful? Architect Thomas Heatherwick shows five recent projects featuring ingenious bio-inspired designs. Some are remakes of the ordinary: a bus, a bridge, a power station … And one is an extraordinary pavilion, the Seed Cathedral, a celebration of growth and light.”

“Thomas Heatherwick founded Heatherwick Studio in 1994 with his aim being “to bring architecture, design and sculpture together within a single practice.” On the team, architects, landscape architects, designers and engineers work from a combined studio and workshop, where concept development, detailing, prototyping and small-scale fabrication take place. The studio’s work spans commercial and residential building projects, masterplanning and infrastructure schemes as well as high profile works of public art.”

Beautiful designs. Enjoy.

For those of you not familiar with TED Talks here is a brief summery from www.ted.com: “TED is a small nonprofit devoted to Ideas Worth Spreading. It started out (in 1984) as a conference bringing together people from three worlds: Technology, Entertainment, Design. Since then its scope has become ever broader. Along with two annual conferences — the TED Conference in Long Beach and Palm Springs each spring, and the TEDGlobal conference in Oxford UK each summer — TED includes the award-winning TEDTalks video site, the Open Translation Project and Open TV Project, the inspiring TED Fellows and TEDx programs, and the annual TED Prize”

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I look forward to your thoughts and comments!

Mandala Monday – Ceremony for Balance by Amethyst Wyldfyre

Whenever I feel that I need to bring balance back into my life I turn to my medicine work – I like to go right to ceremony. In the Inka Tradition we have a word – Ayni – which means balance – not just balance in ourselves but balance within every area of our existence – with all of our relations.

Here is a simple ceremony that anyone can do to assist in bringing back balance into your life – a medicine mandala:

Go out onto the land where you live – collect a bunch of natural materials – stones, sticks, flowers, or other plant or natural material.

Open sacred space by saluting the four directions South West North and East (this is the order that we go in my medicine tradition – North American tradition starts in the East – where you start is not as important as the intent to call forth the forces of the four directions to assist you in your medicine work) and calling upon both Mother Earth and Father Sky or Sun to assist you in your balancing work.

Create a circle of any size. Place into the circle several stones – each representing an aspect of your life – proportionately sized to how much of your time and energy this aspect is consuming – some examples are intimate relationships, family, children, friends, career, community service, personal time, education, etc. Use your breath to blow that aspect into the stone. When you have all of the aspects of your life outpictured and are complete with this exercise see which aspects are the “BIG” rocks and which ones are the “teenie tiny” rocks (this is most often personal time!!).

Now sit with your “current reality” picture and allow it to inform you. When you feel as if the awareness that you need has been received by you pick one aspect that you’d like to change and replace that stone with a larger or smaller stone – notice how the picture and the energy shifts for you. Each day for 7 days you are invited to go to your medicine mandala and re-arrange your “reality” picture – replacing some of the larger stones with smaller ones and some of the smaller stones with larger ones until you have by the end of the week created a more balanced picture of “what do I want instead”.

Mother Earth and all of the forces of Nature will be assisting you in shifting at the energetic level whatever needs to be released in order for you to come into greater balance and you may, over the course of this exercise, surface hidden emotions, old subconscious beliefs, thoughtforms or patterns of conditioned behavior that you weren’t even aware of for transmutation and release from your energetic field. You may even desire to get some additional assistance in the form of energy work, body work or talk therapy to facilitate clearing whatever surfaces.

Your intention as you go about this work is very important – you are creating the intention for balance and asking all of the forces of Nature to assist you in this work at a deeply energetic level. At the end of your week – dismantle the mandala – scattering the materials that you used in a way that leaves the land cleared as if nothing had ever happened there. You may if you wish take anything burnable and have a little fire – a final cleanse and releasing that is really powerful. Be sure to “close” the four directions – thanking the forces of nature and Mother Earth and Father Sky for assisting you in this work. I’d also suggest that you journal your experience and continue to journal beyond the experience so that you will be able to have a written record of the shifts that you instigated through this process. With clear intent, sacred ceremony, connection with Nature and a desire for true balance this little practice packs a powerful punch – before you know it all that was keeping you trapped in an imbalanced state is unleashed and you will find yourself enjoying a greater sense of personal balance and control over your own life and destiny.

About the Author

Amethyst Wyldfyre

Amethyst Wyldfyre

In order to be successful in your business and empowered as a messenger you must feel safe speaking your authentic truth and able to powerfully & courageously present your point of view to the world. Please visit our website for a complimentary report – 3 Simple Secrets to Feel Safe Speaking When You Are Called to Be A Messenger: http://www.theempoweredmessenger.com Prepare to be Heard By Millions!

 

 

 

 

 

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I look forward to your thoughts and comments!

Mandala Monday – Flower of Life Mandalas Part 4

I hope you have enjoyed the new Flower of Life Mandalas that I have share with you in the last few weeks. If you missed them, I invite you to view them all, as well as the article on Flower of Life Symbolism but David Weitzman.

This week we have the fourth and final set. Enjoy!

 

Flower of Life Mandala 16

Flower of Life Mandala 16

 

Flower of Life Mandala 17

Flower of Life Mandala 17

 

Flower of Life Mandala 18

Flower of Life Mandala 18

 

Flower of Life Mandala 19

Flower of Life Mandala 19

 

Flower of Life Mandala 20

Flower of Life Mandala 20

 

Enjoy, and please feel free to share!

Purchase Prints, Canvases, and gift items made from these Flower of Life Mandalas at New World Creations’ Zazzle Store

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I look forward to your thoughts and comments!