An experienced mental health professional, Susanne has produced several books and articles based on her work.

For more than 25 years however, Susanne has pursued a passionate interest in mandalas. Her journey has led her to explore Jungian psychology, Native American shield making, Tibetan buddhism, dances of universal peace, and pilgrimages to Stonehenge, Iona, and other sacred sites in Europe and the US.

Susanne is known internationally as an engaging lecturer and workshop presenter. Through her presentations she has introduced thousands of people to the spiritual, psychological, and health enhancing dimensions of creating mandalas.

In this interview, Susanne shows how young people can express their spirituality through the symmetry of mandala- work and how to contemplate the divinity at their own center.

STUDENTS AND CAMPUSES BULLETIN? What are mandalas?

SUSANNE FINCHER: Mandalas are circular designs with spiritual and psychological significance. The word mandala is Sanskrit for "magic circle."

A mandala is a sacred space defined by a circle. It is also a complete cycle: something fulfilling itself through time, like a religious year made up of daily prayers and special festivals that repeat again every year.

As I see it, mandalas are circular designs, structures, and activities that express Consciousness (or the Divine) creating our sense of personal identity in harmony with the cycles of nature. Circular forms created without the conscious intention to form mandalas may also serve the purposes of establishing identity and place in the universe. Therefore, I consider these designs are also mandalas.

SF: Mandalas are found during many times in widely scattered places in the history of human kind. The oldest mandalas known are carved and painted circles on rocks dating back as early as the Stone Age. They are scattered from South Africa to Scandinavia, from the Southwestern U.S. to Australia. A mandala shrine built an estimated 12,000 years ago has been found in India. Its circular platform of beige sandstone supports fragments of a stone triangle in shades of red. One of the oldest known ink drawings of a mandala was discovered in a cave in northwest China. Dating from more than a thousand years ago it is a diagram of a ceremonial altar honoring the Buddha.

SCB: Why does C. G. Jung consider them representations of the self when they are mostly artwork?

SF: Jung realized through his own experience that there was a connection between his inner state of mind and the mandalas he drew.

"I sketched every morning in a notebook a small circular drawing, a mandala, which seemed to correspond to my inner situation at the time. Only gradually did I discover what the mandala really is: The Self, the wholeness of the personality, which if all goes well is harmonious." (Jung, Memories, Dreams, Reflections, pp. 195-196.)

SF: Set aside about an hour for your mandala ritual. Go to a quiet, private place with paper and drawing materials. If possible, place fresh flowers and a lighted candle nearby to create a lovely sacred space within which to do your work.

With a pencil, draw a circle on paper. (You may trace around a plate to make your circle if you like.) Now sit quietly and take several deep breaths. Relax. Set aside all thoughts of how your mandala "should" look. Silence any critical or self-doubting inner voices by gently removing your attention from them.

Now focus on the drawing materials set before you and select a color that attracts your attention. Thinking as little as possible, fill in your circle with color and form. There is no right or wrong way to do this. Just let it happen with as little thought and planning as possible. Once you have completed your mandala, turn it and look at it from all angles. Decide where you like it best, and hang it up a few feet away from you. Spend time appreciating your mandala as a true reflection of who you are at this moment in time. (You need not dissect your mandala for any deeper meanings.)

When it is time to end your mandala ritual, place your mandala in a special place. You may choose to hang it up somewhere to study it more. You may wish to create a special folder for it and other artwork you create. Complete your ritual by breathing deeply and whispering "Thank you." Then clean up and put away your art materials.

SF: Drawing paper of any size and color, and drawing materials such as marker pens, pencils, chalks, or pastels.

SF: Let your choice of colors for your mandala be instinctive. As you look at your box of chalks, your paints or pencils, pick the color that attracts your attention first. Try not to think much as you begin to fill in your mandala with color.

As you place color on your mandala, a dialogue commences between your eye, your hand, and your unconscious. One color on the mandala invites another, like a guest who asks to bring his friend to your party. Sometimes a color will seem to appear uninvited and introduce a surprising element. You may protest, "But this color does not go with what is here!" but the color must and will become part of the mandala — if you allow it to. Even if you do not, the feeling or idea symbolized by that color will find its way into the mandala some other way, so you may as well let the unexpected color come into your mandala. Once you have completed your mandala, you may want to learn more about the meanings of your colors by using the suggestions in "Interpreting Your Mandalas."

Another approach to coloring your mandala can be to choose with care and thought the colors you want to work with. For example, you might choose all the colors you dislike, or colors associated with the season that is just beginning, or colors used in a religious or philosophical system which has meaning for you. Your mandala might be filled with red, yellow, and blue, the three colors representing aspects of the Christian Trinity, or yellow, red, black, and white, the four colors representing cardinal directions in the Native American medicine wheel, or the seven colors of the rainbow associated with chakras (nodal points of energy transformation in Eastern thought). You may use these colors intentionally in your mandala as a way to interact with and deepen your understanding of the concepts they represent.

There may be times when you do not want to add any color to your mandala. Simply drawing it in black and white will be satisfying. Or, if you are working with mandalas already drawn, as in a coloring book, simply meditating on the black and white form of a mandala can bring a sense of peace. If you choose to imagine it in different colors, this, too, is a way of coloring your mandala.

If you want to interpret your mandala, do this: Turn your mandala and look at it from all angles. Decide where the top is by noticing when you have a feeling of balance, a gentle "Ah hah." Mark the top with a small "t." Date your mandala as you will probably want to refer back to it and know when it was made.

Once the top is established, set your mandala where you can get a good look at it. Let a title come to mind as you are looking at your mandala. Don’t worry if it is silly, grotesque, or overly grand. Just write it down on your note paper.

List by name each of the colors you used in your mandala, remembering to include the color of the paper if you left any uncolored spaces inside your circle. After each color, write down your associations to that color. These will be whatever comes to you as you ponder that color in your mandala. Set aside your critical judging, and just write down your associations as they come to mind.

List each of the shapes you have included in your mandala. Name them so you know what you are writing about: "squiggle," "doughnut," "bird," whatever describes the form in your own words. Write your associations for each of these forms in the same way you did for your colors.

Read through all you have written: your title, your color associations, and your associations to the shapes you have used in your mandala. Do you notice any themes? Is there an emotional atmosphere that emerges from your associations? Is there a story or interaction among different parts of your mandala? Write all this down in a few sentences. This is your interpretation of your mandala.

If you want to do more with your mandala, try one of these suggestions:

• Read about colors and shapes in books or symbol dictionaries and apply this information to your mandala (Creating Mandalas has sections on colors, numbers, and forms; Barbara Walker’s dictionaries are useful).

• Spend some time gazing at your mandala, just drinking in its forms and colors, while in a meditative state of mind.

• Let the forms in your mandala suggest body movements, and dance your mandala.

• Share your mandala with a friend, a therapist, or a spiritual director.

• Create a ritual around your mandala by placing it where it "wants" to be. One woman hung her mandala on the wall in the room where she was getting radiation treatments for cancer. A man put his mandala in the garden to be weathered by the elements. Perhaps your mandala will let you know it is to be burned, buried, or cut up and put together to create a new mandala. Scraps of my old mandalas are buried and becoming rich soil in my special memory garden.

SF: The meanings of symbols in mandalas are unique to each artist. You can learn more about your own symbol language by journaling: write the name of a symbol that appears in your mandala (such as circle, arrow, dog, fish, number 3, and so on).

Next, write down everything that you know, feel, and think of in connection to that symbol. Do this for each symbol and color in your mandala. Then read through all that you have written and find the common thread running through it all. This is the meaning for you. If you want to talk about another person’s mandala with them, remember to be respectful of them by saying, "If this were my mandala, this ____ would be telling me that____."

SF: Drawing mandalas can be an enjoyable activity to do alone or with friends. Mandalas help you relax and focus.

Teachers tell me that students perform better on tests after they have drawn a mandala. When you take the time to find the meanings of your symbols, your mandalas can help you to know yourself better. Mandalas can be a safe place to express powerful or confusing feelings. By the time you are finished with your mandala, you can more calmly reflect on your situation.

The mandalas you create over time are a visual record of your day to day life and emotional experiences. It can be a reminder of how much you have learned about life in just a few months when you look back at your mandalas of an earlier time.

Drawing mandalas helps you keep your feet on the ground while encouraging you to appreciate your imagination and creativity.