Mandalas...
The word "Mandala" is loosely translated to mean "circle". A mandala is far more than a simple shape. Mandalas represent wholeness, and can be seen as a model for the organizational structure of life itself - a cosmic diagram that reminds us of our relation to the infinite, the world that extends both beyond and within our bodies and minds.
Mandalas appear in all aspects of life: the celestial circles we call earth, the sun, and moon, as well as conceptual circles of friends, family and community.
"The integrated view of the world represented by the Mandala, while long embraced by some Eastern religions, has now begun to emerge in Western religious and secular cultures. Awareness of the Mandala may have the potential of changing how we see ourselves, our planet, and perhaps even life."
Rhizomes...
In philosphy, the term Rhizome has been used as both a metaphor and a concept, and refers to the botanical Rhizome. The botanical Rhizome is the roots of plants that grow underlground in long strands.
Carl Jung used the word "rhizome", also calling i a "myzel", to emphasize the invisible and underground nature of life:
"Life has always seemed to me like a plant that lives on its rhizome. Its true life is invisible, hidden in the rhizome. The part that appears above the ground lasts only a single summer. Then it withers away - an ephemeral apparation. When we think of the unending growth and decay of life and civilisations, we cannot escape the impressions of absolute nullity. Yet I have never lost the sense of something that lives and endures beneath the eternal flux. What we see is blossom, which passes. The rhizome remains."
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