Fenland 'Fragma' Issue #2

A Mandala of Right Livelihood

“Each person’s life is like a mandala – a vast, limitless circle. We stand in the center of our own circle, and everything we see, hear and think forms the mandala of our life.”

Pema Chödrön.

You can listen to this edition podcast style above.

---

My Mandala of Right Livelihood

I have returned from Suffolk.

Four nights camping, two with my son, and two alone.

There was fire, bugs, double-decker smores, and time to reflect.

I have been trying to get my head around what ‘right livelihood’ means to me.

Having chewed on this long before I quit my finance job two months ago, I have realised it’s not an easy question to answer. Saturn’s grip is strong.

And there is a part of me too afraid to answer it.

Too afraid to even imagine that it might not include working as an accountant.

Too afraid maybe to acknowledge that every choice comes with consequences.

Or too afraid that ‘this’ is all too temporary.

But as my pace these last days slowed, so too did my fearful mind. I started to notice some ease creeping in, and I began to wonder, can I make a home for that ease in my life? Maybe by choosing to invite it in, I won't jinx things, or risk losing this narrow window of opportunity that I have opened up for myself, but instead, it may spark something I haven’t yet dared to dream.

On Monday I started scribbling an image in my book to help me answer this livelihood question. It was a similar pictorial effort to something I used to do in the corporate world, to map out my year as a wheel.

Not more than a couple of pen-scratching hours after finishing this, my good friend Giles, at whose place I spent those last two nights, suggested I attempt to represent my thinking through a mandala, unaware of my less-than-poetic creation above. Talk about synchronicity.

Walk the land he said, find things that speak to me, and place them where they feel energetically to be most at home.

And move things around to get the right constellation.

Now I have done many creative things during Courage & Renewal retreats, but this process has had a profound effect on me.

The image above is the final creation.

I say “final” but in many ways, I am still sitting with it, and the image now rests above my desk.

I recorded my thoughts about this mandala in the video below, both to capture the energy of the moment and to serve as a record I can reflect on.

I share it as a small act of personal, soulful, accountability.

In closing this second short burst ‘Fenland Fragma’ I offer the question, if you were to create a mandala to represent an aspect of your life, work, or creative path, how might it look? What would it include? How would you constellate it?

And if you give it a go, I’d love to know.

Meadows of love,

Will

PS - Fenland Musings will be all about Chaos this month, in Part 4 of the Mythology of Dance. I can’t wait to share what I’ve uncovered. So I hope you tune in on Thursday, May 30th.