I recently had the most agreeable experience. The facade of a small church on Waller St. at the foot of Delmar has a round window just below the ridge of the roof. Look there at night when the light beyond shines through. Relax your eyes and breath evenly and deeply, but make sure you are out of the street so cars won't hit you. You may experience optical intrigue such as I and my friend, Jon did.
The window was pointed out to me by my friend, Molly. The first obstacle that I had to overcome (and perhaps a common one for others) was my mind's presupposition that I was, indeed, looking at a window. But it seemed as though with my first exhalation the thought was, like my breath, on the wind and gone. With my next inhalation I began to notice a deep richness of luminous color that took me by enticing surprise. And with the next breath I began to notice a general vibration of all the colors and of the forms that made up the mandala itself. As this process continued certain forms began to take on more and more defined three-dimmensional formal qualities. The effect was somewhat sculptural at first - and here is where my mind attempted to obstruct again by reminding me that the window was, essentially, a plane made up of pieces of differently- colored glass. But my mind was jarred loose as the simple, sculptural effect (similar to bas-relief) vibrated into a vibrant, teeming sea of unlimited dimension.
At the center of the mandala was a golden sun whose surface vibrated into shifting mottled patches of apricot and crimson as it heated and cooled. The field behind the sun was warped around as if the sun were a kiwi and the field a down pillow. The pattern of the field attained great depths of purple with a subtle, but vibrant interplay of blue and green beyond that. The field beyond the purple patern upon the blue-green field was predominantly blue with yellow and red contributing to unite the sun and all the fields.
I was delighted. You may be too, if you can avoid the obstacles; untie the knots. I am looking forward to looking through the portal again. Perhaps I'll see you there.
And read on: