Wendy’s journey of healing has taken many twists and turns. After discovering Mandalas, she painted many, many of them. Her mandalas tapped into her deepest fears, insecurities, hopes, and dreams. When sharing them with friends, she started to hear the statement, “you should write a book about your mandalas”, over and over again. At first it seemed like a crazy idea to her – what did she know about writing a book? But the message kept coming louder and louder until she finally decided to just take a leap of faith and start writing. What flowed out of that process is her personal story of how expressing herself through art and mandalas has been an important aid on her healing journey. Her book “Inner Landscapes: A Personal Journey of Healing Through Art” is the result of her leap into the unknown world of writing and publishing. She calls the book her “heart and soul on paper”.
“Inner Landscapes: A Personal Journey of Healing Through Art” is a book about the healing power of art using the ancient Mandala art form. It teaches people step-by-step how to create their own healing mandalas. The author, Wendy Hawkins, uses her personal healing journey to illustrate how this art form has helped in her experiences with chronic illness. Over 30 of Wendy’s mandala paintings are displayed in full color throughout this book. Each mandala is shown with the date created, the original question or intention used in meditation before creating the mandala, and the meaning / interpretation of the symbols found in the mandala.
After being diagnosed with Juvenile Rheumatoid Arthritis at only 18 months old, Wendy has lived with chronic illness all her life. Her love of creating art goes back to her childhood. At that young age she found art to be a helpful outlet for expression and escape. As an adult she learned of the Mandala art form and was drawn to the spiritual and emotional healing she felt when painting them. For over 15 years, she has been both a mandala student and teacher. She has personally experienced much emotional healing through the creation of mandalas and has seen the positive, healing effects they have had on students in her classes.
This book is Wendy’s way of sharing her personal story along with sharing this wonderful way to create beauty and healing in the world. She writes about the frustrations, sadness, fears, insecurities, challenges, hopes and victories of day-to-day life with chronic illness. She shares her challenges with career/work, relationships, body image, surgeries, and long-term disability in a very open way throughout the book. Readers of all ages will be inspired to create their own personal healing mandalas.
Wendy has self-published her book through Lulu.com, which offers an excellent book preview so you can read the first several pages, the front and back covers, as well as, see some of her mandala paintings in full color. Her book is available in three different formats: a softcover printed edition; a PDF-formatted eBook edition; and an ePub iBook edition.
The ePub iBook edition can only be purchased through the iTunes iBookstore and is compatible with both the iPhone and iPad.
If interested in learning about the softcover printed edition or the PDF-formatted eBook edition, please click here.
Moonlight Mandalas 