Sun Mandala- Finally Complete

As I prepared my supplies for teaching tomorrow's mandala workshop, I pulled out this mandala that I did at last years summer solstice retreat day.  It just didn't feel complete and I realized that it needed something more.  I found myself wonderfully lost for hours several evenings in a row, drawing in more rays to  make it more of a Sun Mandala.  Here is the completed ( at least for now) mandala.  

I definitely like it a lot more now and it really expresses the energy of expansion that the summer, and the sun makes me feel.   Mary Oliver has a wonderful poem about the sun.   Here it is.

The Sun

 

Have you ever seen 

anything 

in your life 

more wonderful 

than the way the sun, 

every evening, 

relaxed and easy, 

floats toward the horizon 

and into the clouds or the hills, 

or the rumpled sea, 

and is gone-- 

and how it slides again 

out of the blackness, 

every morning, 

on the other side of the world, 

like a red flower 

streaming upward on its heavenly oils, 

say, on a morning in early summer, 

at its perfect imperial distance-- 

and have you ever felt for anything 

such wild love-- 

do you think there is anywhere, in any language, 

a word billowing enough 

for the pleasure 

that fills you, 

as the sun 

reaches out, 

as it warms you 

as you stand there, 

empty-handed-- 

or have you too 

turned from this world-- 

or have you too 

gone crazy 

for power, 

for things?