Hey, Lia, what did you this weekend?
Well, cyber-self, I'm so glad you asked.
My pleasure.
This weekend, I made a yantra.
A yantra? What's that?!
Another excellent question.
Thank you.
No, no, thank you.
No, you.
No, thank yoooooooooooooou. Okay, a yantra is a...um. It's a. Um. It's a very pretty painted, uh, yoga picture.
Hmm. That doesn't seem right.
No, no it's not.
(and...scene.)
Okay, so I DID actually make a yantra this weekend (pictured above), and no, it's not a pretty painted yoga picture. Well, it sort of is, I guess, but in order to give you a more accurate description, let's take it to the experts, or expert, really...Mrs. Sarah (gorgeous goddess) Tomlinson. She defines a yantra on her yantra website like this:
Yantras are sacred geometric designs containing the energy of a particular deity or planet. Each design enhances a specific quality within such as love, forgiveness and strength. The Yantras are ancient forms handed down to use for healing by the Tantrics of Ancient India to uplift the energy both in your internal and external environment.Helpful? Yes? Yes.
I know Sarah from New York and Laughing Lotus. I hadn't met her prior to my teacher training, but I'd heard her name quite a lot, and if you ever pick up an issue of Yoga Journal or LA Yoga, you can often find a yantra in the back made by Sarah, as she's a renowned one in the field of yantras and yantra-making. But beyond that she is also AWESOME. Like super crazy awesome. She was, by far, one of my favorite guest teachers to come in and work with us during my teacher training (she taught the Ayurveda portion of the training) and I forced her to become my friend by demanding personalized mantras from her. Mwah ha ha.
(there wasn't actually any force involved, that part's not true, but she did give me my mantra(s), that part is true.)
Anyhoooo, this weekend she was in Los Angeles teaching a yantra painting workshop and I jumped at the chance to get to spend some quality time with her AND to get to make something awesome to boot.
Let me just say, I think I might be in love with yantra-ing. The process of making one involves all kinds of tools...compass and ruler and pencil and eraser and square paper and paints and PHEW! It takes a couple of hours just to get the intial yantra pattern drawn in pencil, and then several more hours to get the thing painted. All the detail work just makes me gooey with bliss, as something about measuring out perfectly plotted circles and dividing lines creates a cool hush in the mind, and I immediately understood why the making of the yantra is a meditation in and of itself.
But one of the best parts of the whole process is the CHOOSING of the yantra to begin with. Sarah laid laminated images of several yantras on the floor for each of us to look at, and we were to pick the one(s) we were most drawn to, and that was to be our yantra that we would paint. This kind of "let your intuition choose" game can be a little hard for me, as I immediately start guessing and second-guessing myself.
Which one am I drawn to? I think I might be drawn to that one? Or, wait...is that my brain or my intuitiion talking? Okay, wait let me just take another look...okay, that one. Or, hold on...shouldn't I go with my very FIRST instinct? In that case it would have to be that other one. Wait, okay, let me just quiet my mind. Alright, no, this one. Definitely, okay, this one. I'm sure. I'm pretty sure. Yes, okay, I'm doing it.
And so on.
Until, after much hemming and hawing and deciding and then re-deciding, I finally ended up with a yantra that seemed very, um, appropriate:
Cinnamasta Yantra, the yantra of INTUITION.
Well, yes. It seems I could use some help in that arena.... And it doesn't hurt that I find this yantra so stupidly beautiful.
I finally finished it on Monday morning...the completed yantra is pictured above. Ain't it lovely?
If you want to make your own you should definitely check out Sarah's website on the subject where you can peruse beautiful yantras and even order her awesome yantra-making book!
