Wounds of Love

This afternoon, as part of Mandala a Month, I created my March mandala. This month the meditation focussed on the words of Teresa of Avila from her "Interior Castle". As I started working on my mandala I began at the outside and worked inwards. It was not until I had finished the circle that I decided to make the wounds of love. St Teresa says that wounds of love in our life pierce our spiritual life and take us deeper within our interior castle. This has certainly been my experience. It is the difficult things that happen in life that help us to grow and be transformed.

As I created my wounds of love and stuck them proudly on my mandala, I realized how perfectly I had made them. They were actually quite beautiful. I titled my mandala, "Perfect wounds of love". I sat and reflected on my mandala for a while and decided that I am very quick to make everything perfect in life. Even the hard stuff I manage to analyze, compartmentalize and store away as some significant learning experience. As I reflected on my perfect wounds of love, I decided they need to be less perfect.

Yes, it is important to integrate and learn from our experiences. It is, however, also important to experience the pain and suffering and not push it aside too quickly. This mandala has shown me a side to myself that would have taken years to discover on my own.