There are many meanings for the word mandala, both profane and profound. The simplest and most complete description, given by the Tibetan Buddhist Master Lonchen-Pa, is that a mandala, “is an integrated structure organized around a unifying center.”

Mandalas are most commonly circular, though this is by no means a rule. Everywhere you look, you will see mandalas. The petals of a flower, the growth rings of a tree, snowflakes and spider webs, hurricanes and cauliflower, atoms and galaxies. Even your belly-button is a mandala. The mandala is nature’s signature, the embodiment of the eternal in all things.

Mandalas have been used throughout history as religious and philosophical symbols, visual meditation tools, calenders and story-telling devices. They’ve been used as themes in architecture and the arts. To us, the mandala represents the circle of life, the completeness and balance that we strive for on our farm. It is a symbol of the unending cycle of energy in its ever changing forms. It is the wholeness in which we are only a part.