Childhood Memories of Mandalas

Today I am filled with some childhood memories of mandalas.  Perhaps it is because the 14th was my mother’s birthday, or in part it is Breast Cancer Awareness Month.   But a lot of what is coming up is that year that my mother was diagnosed with breast cancer.   I was eight, my brother Tim was just born.   The details are fuzzy.  But I remember getting a Spirograph that year for Christmas from my grandparents.  My birthday the day prior I turned nine.

I am curious now that connection with them is so strong.   I sense there were seeds planted in my youth to help me find my way to the truth.  When I was ready to handle it.   Because at eight or nine years old, it was too much for my fragile soul.

Mandalas Defined

A mandala is a geometric configuration of symbols. In various spiritual traditions, mandalas may be employed for focusing attention of practitioners and adepts, as a spiritual guidance tool, for establishing a sacred space and as an aid to meditation and trance induction. In the Eastern religions of Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism and Shintoism it is used as a map representing deities, or especially in the case of Shintoism, paradises, kami or actual shrines.

A mandala generally represents the spiritual journey, starting from outside to the inner core, through layers.  In spiritual or religious process, a mandala is a period of approximately 40 days in which time the human system completes one physiological cycle.

Childhood Mandalas

So back to my childhood memories of the Spirograph.   I was obsessed with it.   At the time my world was complete chaos, it was 1974 and I was struggling with the weight of the world on my shoulders.   My mother was sick, soon after that my grandfather was ill and stress was my constant companion.   I didn’t know it at the time but that simple toy helped calm me.    A toy that came out the year I was born.

So this week I have been stressed.   I just put on an event with a friend and the let down from it was hard.   I learned a lot, and I have been beating myself up for not knowing better.   Work was busy and then there is the drama at the church we go to.   I found this mandala to color and I colored it.   The process calmed me.  It reminded me of a time of chaos and how I found solace in a few colored pens and a toy.

Breast Cancer Awareness

What I am understanding, is that it is two years since my BRCA journey began.   I have struggled with how I look and I remember clearly hearing my mother crying in the bathroom on many occasions.   Not understanding what was wrong.  We were only told that she was sick and to behave ourselves.   I think I was in my late teens when I found out she was a Breast Cancer Survivor.  Only now some 47 years later, I understand.

How fortunate I was to have reconstruction, back in 1974 that wasn’t an option.   Breast Cancer was not discussed, a taboo subject.  Betty Ford underwent treatment for Breast Cancer just months prior to my mother.  When Betty Ford was diagnosed with breast cancer in 1974, a mastectomy—often a radical mastectomy involving removal of the breast, muscle and lymph nodes—was the standard of care.

This morning my nightgown was unbuttoned when I caught myself in the mirror.   I was tickled pink that finally I saw my image and didn’t want to cry.   The road is not over for me, I still have another revision surgery that will happen in December, but for now, I am grateful.   I had the ability to fight cancer on my own terms and win.   It has been a hard road, and faced with the same decision I would do it all over again.