Mandala in Green and Pink

PINK
Pink stands for:

ART – the free expression of inner thoughts, feelings, ideas, stories. Creation and inspiration, coming from deep inside. Creation with devotion and love. Walking in Beauty. Without any pressure or obligation. Dancing joyfully in the rain. Moving with the flow of the rhythms. Jamming with jungle drums. Painting colours, weaving words, shaping images of the world.

ACTIVISM - “Your inactions are as much a part of shaping the world as the actions of others.” /Julia Butterfly Hill/
Shaping political or economic systems cannot be done by consumer choices, nor by making smart statements by the dinner table. It can only be done by cooperation and collective action. We should reconsider community, build up new supporting (local and global) circles and reclaim our power concerning public spaces, food issues, economic and political systems.

ART-IVISM – Who said that Art cannot be political? Who ever said that Art can only be discussed in aesthetic and historical context? Aesthetizing Art runs parallel with calling women “ladies” – both are processes of disempowerment. Putting Art into museums, contemplating sophisticatedly in front of “Important Pieces of Art” is a passive form of reception of a passive object (except many remarkable contemporary artworks which are nevertheless not accessible for most people). Art has the role of asking questions, of showing different viewpoints of reality, expressing alternatives of what we consider “real”. Art should reclaim the streets and be part of everyday life independently from any schools or artistic education. Art stands for Joy. Art can shape Communities. Art has the potential to heal broken hearts and places. Art does not know boarders.

FEMINISM - "The personal is political."
Through different forms of patriarchal oppression through centuries women have been also transformed into passive (not in the case of household chores) aesthetic objects. To be viewed and to be sexually desired. This is very obvious in the contemporary media. Magazines, movies, different forms of representation are showing miserable mono-normativity in the Western, capitalist world. There is one standard of femininity as well as masculinity which provides a pre-made set of identities for individuals. Sometimes it seems an endless fight to reclaim our power to shape our identities and to reconsider gender, to redefine the masculine and to restore the oppressed feminine – within us all.

GREEN
Green stands for:

DEEP ECOLOGY – We cannot consider Nature as something separate from us. Most discourses on environment protection still see the Earth as a resource for humanity and the only thing to worry about is that the future generations won’t have the opportunity to exploit it as much as we do in the present. As long as we feel alienated from Nature, from the soil, from the ecosystem, as long as we keep thinking in a rigid, anthropocentric way and count the price of a species or a forest in euros or dollars, there is no chance to “save the Planet” by the greenwashing of some companies and the sale of electric cars for the wealthy. A radical shift of consciousness is needed. We need to reconnect not only to other forms of beings, to the land where our food comes from, to the natural cycle of seasons, but also to each other (as human beings), to our bodies and to our emotions. We need to reconnect to the darkest corners of our souls: to shout out our anger, to cry out our sorrow, to speak up our fears and to question the emptiness inside. We need to let these “bad things” flow through us – to be able to renew and see the world with new eyes.

ECO-FEMINISM – The dualities of Western (white, male) culture and philosophy has been challenged in many ways but let’s consider them once more. On one side we find the Male, together with Culture and superiority, rationality, the objective, the abstract, the competitive, the scientific. This side has been highly valued in our culture. This nurtures individualism, growth-based and competitive ways of thinking. One has to win, the Other has to lose. The stronger survives. On the other side we find the Female, together with Nature and inferiority, the emotional, the subjective, the cooperative, the instinctive. This side has been oppressed in our Western world (mesmerized by the notion of Science). There is no word about men being genetically (as many fashionable neo-Darwinist theories claim) more rational and dominant or women more emotional and subjective. It is about a social system which values one set of qualities and clearly downplays others. It is about the oppressed Femininity within us all. In order to create a more just, life-sustaining society we need to restore the Feminine. We need to shift ways of thinking from competition and concurrence towards cooperation, community and win-win situations. We need to open up to different narratives, other than the history of dominant society thought in our schools. We need to hear the voice of oppressed groups, listen to the stories of the Other – who can be an ethnic community, indigenous people, women from the global South, a tree, a forest, a local ecosystem.

MANDALA
“And it is said to be possible then to see that the whole vast intricate enterprise of the Universe is not a meaningless matter but a great sacred whole, a Mandala, of which we are a part, in which all beings are ultimately destined, no matter their struggles to the contrary, to become Enlightened.”
The Mandala: the symbol of the Universe. Wholeness and integrity. Each part has a meaning, each detail, each piece of color has a role, symbolizes something timeless. But also each detail forms part of the Whole. The Whole which is more than just sum of the parts. Unity.