The following is a letter I have literally been working on for the last month. It was sent to my core 1Mandala team, and then to the general team. It is the culmination of two months of long walks, meditation, fasting and well… a long journey.
Dear Friends,
The New Year is upon us!
As you know, I have been taking the last few months to reflect on the 1mandala project– of which you have been invaluable part. It is the moment now to share with you where my heart is pointing.
First, I am healing. My energy is stabilizing and rising.
I am have come to a place of gratefullness for my stroke. These last two months have been nothing short of the opportunity of a lifetime to be with my family, face generational patterns, reflect and shift and heal. I have had my head down blindly for too long. I have been able to stop, take a deep breath and raise my head. I can not fathom any more powerful way to have gain the insights, the wholeness, and clarity that I now hold.
My heart is clear.
The 1Mandala is just too important and beautiful to abandon.
Our planet needs peace, harmony and oneness more than it ever has. The 1Mandala is not only all about oneness, it is this. It is a way for people everywhere to harmoniously co-create something beautiful. That very process is Oneness and is Peace. We’ve seen in each peace portrait how the project resonates with people across borders and cultures. Each of those peace portraits represents a thousand more that long to be made.
We are at such a fantastically unique moment for humanity. Not only would it be a shame to retire now, it would a shame to miss the opportunity of a lifetime to do something planetary grand. We are at a moment where there is a great tide of conscious energy that can be taped into like never before in human history. With this energy ideas can be manifested with incredible rapidity. I cannot imagine anything more beautiful to manifest. This is our chance to not only be part of the 2012 shift, but to be part of the push. The planet needs this. We need this.
I look in awe at all the synchronicities that have brought me here, that have connected me to you, and that have given me this moment to collect my energy and renew my focus. The most important work has yet to be done.
Yet, as I have this clarity, I also know that I am not ready to fully resume. I have major issues to deal with here with my family, finances and health. It is taking much of my energy. And indeed it should– this is an essential part of my healing. And before I can do anything for anyone else, let alone the planet, that Oneness must integrated in me– into the artist and leader that can truly manifest the 1Mandala vision.
On January 26th, I will be returning to Paris. There I will be with my love Abby. With her at my side, I will continue my healing and steadily organize and relaunch the 1Mandala. For the last 5000 years, humanity has been creating things the male way. I am realizing that part of my healing and the planet’s healing comes by accepting the feminine principle back into its rightful creative place. I am beginning to sense that male and female co-creating in harmony, with Love, is truly powerful stuff.
A vision keeps coming back to me: to pull together a harmonious team of twelve men and woman. The team would be focused using Barbara Marx Hubbard’s “Wheel of creation” mandala chart. Each would focus on their area and together we would manifest a charted, sustainable and funded vision.
Working through the winter, I envision pulling together this plan, this team, and co-creating a lucid budget to securing the funding to see the project sustainably and harmoniously flourish.
All that said, it has been a profoundly great pleasure working and getting to each of you over the last year. I am so grateful. What a journey!
I’d like to leave you with a quote that I just got from Playing for Change—musicians who are having fabulous success right this moment doing the musical equivalent of our project.
“Behind the storms of daily conflict, crisis and struggle, it is the artist, and the poet, and the musician that continues the quiet work of the centuries, building the bridges of experience between peoples, and reminding us the universality of our feelings, our desires, and despairs, and reminding us that the forces that unite are deeper than those that divide.”
Now, imagine 10,000 peace portrait artists.
Because we are One.
Russell
