The Great Mandala (Wheel of Life)

Fractal representations of modern day mandalas. Inspiration came while listening to old albums and downloading old folk songs for my husband. I rediscovered this song in my vinyl collection and began to search for its meaning. Mandala had been misspelled as Mandela so it made the search a bit more intriguing. In general all mandalas have outer and inner meanings. On the outer level, they represent the world in its divine form; and on the inner level, they represent a map by which the ordinary human mind is transformed into an enlightened mind. The fractals were created using Apophysis, Oxidizer and Tierazon. The song has haunted me for the last week and propelled some unprecedented creative activity. One of my all time favourites from Peter, Paul and Mary.
Visit http://www.peterpaulandmary.com/ for more information on one of our most influential folk singing groups.

Category:

Education

Tags:

• mandala
• digital
• fractal
• computer
• generated
• art
• guelph
• ontario
• canada
• 2010
• patty
• o'hearn
• kickham
• memotions
• spiritual
• enlightened
• circle
• life
• force
• energy

[Antithropocentric]

@kick1950, you wrote: "Mandala had been misspelled as Mandela so it made the search a bit more intriguing."

It's spelled as Mandella (two L's) on the original album jacket, and their official site has it spelled both ways in the discography/lyrics section. Is there a way to know whether it's been a typo all these years or just something obscure or partly contrived?

A web search shows "Native American Mandella" as being a type of hoop/shield - assuming they have the spelling correct!

[kick1950]

@Antithropocentric I know what you mean. I had the 1700 Album years ago and I am sure it was spelled Mandala on the album. I had to check out their official site and was surprised to find it spelled 2 different ways as well. Mandala is the correct spelling for the images I depicted in this video and that "Wheel of Life" is what they referred to in their song. Cheers!

[Antithropocentric]

A fitting song for the official end of the wasteful Iraq war just the other day.

[kick1950]

@Antithropocentric Here! Here!

[jessica22242]

WOW AWESOME PATTY!

I really like the mandala art work its hard to explain its like its transforming art very cool.

[kick1950]

Thanks "Jess" :)

[Antithropocentric]

@kick1950, if you do an image search for that album's back cover, it shows "Mandella" in the CD version, at least. It's possible that the translation got mangled from vinyl to CD, but an LP disc sticker shows "Mandella" in one photo (image search: 51iDnQ3dZBL.jpg).

I now see a ton of sites listing "Native American Mandella" which lends credence to the idea that they weren't just sloppy spellers. Maybe the words are simply interchangeable. Enough said!

[zinniawv]

beautiful!

[ch47av8r]

Somewhat surprised there aren't many more views of this song and the added artwork. Very well done! I've been looking for this song for a long time and it was like meeting an old friend again from the 1960's.

Perhaps Generation Y will listen to this song and get the message for action to help move America along its path of Liberty by stopping the Middle East Wars of Greed and return sanity once more to our great nation.

[Kayswiss59]

I've always loved PPM but never heard this song until recently, when it was on an album of Very Best Of which I'm giving my grandson for Christmas. Must have listened to it 30 times these past weeks. Absolutely grand. Thanks for posting this, I knew about mandalas, but this is well done and the sound quality is superb.

[penguinmama88]

perfect :) xo

[gregbeal1]

I have looked for the root of this song for years. I especially like the reference at the beginning to Jung. Very interesting how all of the pics relate to tie-dye hippie posters and such of the 60s. Thanks so much for the posting. BTW, this was my inspiration for putting in for 1-O status back during vietnam. I got it and have tried to live the message.