Botany Inspired Mandalas and a Visit to the Herbarium
Monday, February 23, 2015
I went to Day 1 of our Botany Inspired Mandalas class and it proved to be quite an experience. Our teacher gave the introductory slide show which demonstrated how mandalas are everywhere in our world. For those unfamiliar with mandalas, the word comes from Indian Sanskrit meaning circle, and while there are several variations of definitions, the simplest one as stated in the mandalaproject.org is...an integrated structure organized around a unifying center.
Mandalas appear in many cultures for the purpose of spiritual enlightenment, healing, transformation, and more. Once introduced to mandalas, one starts to notice them everywhere because they occur in nature, in architecture, the galaxy, the waters, plate motifs....well, the list is endless. This is proving to be an interesting connection to my past, because when I was a young teacher in my twenties I used to have students create their own mandalas and then compose a written piece related to it. Granted that this is not exactly the way in which various cultures intended them to be used, but I obviously have an attraction to them, because here I am at age 61 taking an art class to design my own. Stay tuned...I will post my progress as class continues.
The next part of class time was spent visiting the Morton Arboretum herbarium. You know, I consider myself fairly intelligent...I think deeply about things--as a matter of fact, I think about too many things at the same time, but once again that is for another time. So, if I think about our museums, botanical gardens, arboretums, art museums, I know there are curators, scientists, researchers, artists, and even volunteers who invest so much time to make my visits to these places valuable. However, when I finally have a chance to go behind the scenes and listen to the passion of the people who not only are working to make the peripheral visit enjoyable but are also working to document important data, and specimens, and have access to hundreds and thousands of years of specimens, information, and more, it is a mind boggling experience.
Today's trivia...
- The Morton's Arboretum's herbarium is the third largest in North America--who knew?
- It houses 200,000 dried plants and 19,000 lichens
- It houses the collection of flora from what is known as the Chicago region, but which includes 11
counties in Illinois, five in Wisconsin, 7 in Indiana, and 1 in Michigan.
- It houses several other important collections
- There is a Royal Horticultural Society in London that is responsible for many important gardens
in England, much research, and interestingly the Colour Chart used by all botanists, systematist,
collectors to evaluate a specimen's color.
Here is a sample of the kind of work being done at the herbarium.
We also learned about a diagram of what is called the "tree of life." Pretty difficult to explain, but as you look at the diagram on the left you will notice these black lines around the circle. Those are actually specimens that are all connected to the tree of life. My favorite quote of the day is that "we are all equally related to all plants;" therefore, on the right diagram, notice Homo sapiens on the list. I know I am not doing this justice, but it touched me deeply and has me thinking about whether I can convey this in my mandala. Well, we will have to see.
If you have a chance I highly recommend a visit to the Morton Arboretum Herbarium.
I went to Day 1 of our Botany Inspired Mandalas class and it proved to be quite an experience. Our teacher gave the introductory slide show which demonstrated how mandalas are everywhere in our world. For those unfamiliar with mandalas, the word comes from Indian Sanskrit meaning circle, and while there are several variations of definitions, the simplest one as stated in the mandalaproject.org is...an integrated structure organized around a unifying center.
Mandalas appear in many cultures for the purpose of spiritual enlightenment, healing, transformation, and more. Once introduced to mandalas, one starts to notice them everywhere because they occur in nature, in architecture, the galaxy, the waters, plate motifs....well, the list is endless. This is proving to be an interesting connection to my past, because when I was a young teacher in my twenties I used to have students create their own mandalas and then compose a written piece related to it. Granted that this is not exactly the way in which various cultures intended them to be used, but I obviously have an attraction to them, because here I am at age 61 taking an art class to design my own. Stay tuned...I will post my progress as class continues.
The next part of class time was spent visiting the Morton Arboretum herbarium. You know, I consider myself fairly intelligent...I think deeply about things--as a matter of fact, I think about too many things at the same time, but once again that is for another time. So, if I think about our museums, botanical gardens, arboretums, art museums, I know there are curators, scientists, researchers, artists, and even volunteers who invest so much time to make my visits to these places valuable. However, when I finally have a chance to go behind the scenes and listen to the passion of the people who not only are working to make the peripheral visit enjoyable but are also working to document important data, and specimens, and have access to hundreds and thousands of years of specimens, information, and more, it is a mind boggling experience.
Today's trivia...
- The Morton's Arboretum's herbarium is the third largest in North America--who knew?
- It houses 200,000 dried plants and 19,000 lichens
- It houses the collection of flora from what is known as the Chicago region, but which includes 11
counties in Illinois, five in Wisconsin, 7 in Indiana, and 1 in Michigan.
- It houses several other important collections
- There is a Royal Horticultural Society in London that is responsible for many important gardens
in England, much research, and interestingly the Colour Chart used by all botanists, systematist,
collectors to evaluate a specimen's color.
Here is a sample of the kind of work being done at the herbarium.
We also learned about a diagram of what is called the "tree of life." Pretty difficult to explain, but as you look at the diagram on the left you will notice these black lines around the circle. Those are actually specimens that are all connected to the tree of life. My favorite quote of the day is that "we are all equally related to all plants;" therefore, on the right diagram, notice Homo sapiens on the list. I know I am not doing this justice, but it touched me deeply and has me thinking about whether I can convey this in my mandala. Well, we will have to see.
If you have a chance I highly recommend a visit to the Morton Arboretum Herbarium.
What interesting information!! And glorious pictures right there in nature.
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