Kellogg’s Great Round (Of Mandala) reflects the dynamic relationship between the ego, the centre of consciousness, and Self, the centre of the whole psyche residing in the unconscious”
“The twelve stages of the Great Round are a schema for describing a continuous, cyclical pattern of personal growth…as the spiraling stages are experienced again and again you can better integrate an awareness of the Self, the centre point guiding your process.”
Susanne F Fincher: The Mandala Workbook
Circles are everywhere we look in nature, from the micro of grains of sand, polished stones, flowers and fruits, to the macro from from our planet Earth’s shape to the moon, sun, planets and their orbits. In the Mandala Workbook, Susanne F Fincher points out that we see through circular vision and young children draw circles before they draw other shapes.
Circles are found as sacred symbols across culture, across time and across continents. In Sanskrit the word Mandala means sacred container and a cycle through time (Fincher). My Celtic ancestors created stone circles and labyrinths 1,000s of years ago as sacred symbols and as ways to indicate the cycle of time with the positions of the sun and moon. How did your ancient ancestors use circles as sacred symbols? or as cycles of time?
Each person’s life is like a mandala – a vast, limitless circle. We stand in the center of our own circle, and everything we see, hear and think forms the mandala of our life.”
Pema Chodron
As humans we are meaning-making creatures and an image or symbol says 1,000 words. When we engage with sacred symbols we bypass our left analytical logical brain and we process the symbol in our right brain where we can see the big picture, understand the interrelationships between all living beings and feel most present, spiritual and connected to all beings (McGilchrist).
In each of these images (archetypal mandalas) there is a little piece of human psychology and human fate, a remnant of the joys and sorrows that have been repeated countless times in our ancestral history…”
— Carl Jung
Archetypes are a description of universal patterns of human behaviour, thoughts, emotions and they support us to make symbolic meaning within our lives. Jung found many archetypal mandalas in people’s dreams and he collected 1,000s of mandalas drawn by himself and clients. Joan Kellogg then studied those mandalas to create 12 archetypal stages of change that humans traverse in a lifetime (Fincher).
These 12 archetypal stages of change can be mapped to the cycles of the moon, seasons, daylight and night hours, stages of human growth and development over a lifetime or the lifetime of a seed growing to a tree, to fruit, to seed again.
I often find there are cycles within cycles, cycles of micro change within cycles of macro change. Each archetypal stage can also be mapped to changes within our past, present or future.
mandalas can simultaneously express our earliest sense of identity, help us integrate present-day experiences and open up future directions for growth.”
Susanne F Fincher The Mandala Workbook
The archetypal stages are also linked to mythology, fairy tales, spiritual traditions and rites of passage across cultures; including the journey to the underworld, world of Soul / Imaginal realm and the return journey to the middle world, world of ego, parts, mind. Sharon Blackie’s Eco-Heroine journey, and Bill Plotkin’s the Journey of Soul Initiation link well to the 12 stages of the Great Round of Mandala.
The Great Round of Mandala is a map not the territory and just as Spring arrives uniquely to each living being we will all have unique experiences within each archetypal stage, even as we also experience archetypal change that is universal within that stage.
In general the Great Round has been applied to personal growth yet it maps really well to the adaptive cycle of change applied in Ecology. Jeremy Lent is one speaker who is applying the adaptive cycle of change and these stages of growth to the external change we are witnessing in this time of global and climate crisis.
Our modern Industrial Growth society has given us the illusion of linear progress rather than cultivating within us the cyclical wisdom that our ancestors understood intimately. My hope is that our Great Round of Mandala Cyclical Wisdom circle can apply the archetypal stages of change to understand the personal / internal changes within us and the external / collective changes we are witnessing around us.
Cyclical wisdom is cultivating an ability to welcome change, all the phases of change, to be flexible and adapt, to allow our body and the body of earth to be living cyclical beings, to honour the cycle of release and renewal, death and rebirth we see mirrored in nature, to understand that cyclical change is within us and within our society in multiple layers, cycles within cycles.
Cyclical wisdom supports us to learn how to embrace the complexity of life, the both / and that grief and celebration, fear and hope co-exist side by side. In this way the language of parts from Internal Family Systems (IFS) can be useful – a part of me feels sad and a part of me feels glad.
I have found the map of the Great Round of Mandala deeply, deeply holding, through many life transitions for almost 10 years, including changing careers, injury, empty nest, moving interstate and menopause. I’m really grateful to Julie Gibbons of Mandala Magic School for all she has taught me about mandalas.
I’m really excited to share the Great Round of Mandala with you and how it relates to our seasons here in Australia and the changes we are witnessing internally and externally in this time of global and climate crisis.
Resources:
- The Mandala Workbook: A Creative Guide for Self-Exploration, Balance, and Well-Being by Susanne F Fincher
- Mandala Magic School with Julie Gibbons
- Systems Way-finding with Centre of Climate Psychology
- Active Hope: How to face the mess we’re in with unexpected resilience and creative power by Joanna Macy and Chris Johnstone
- Iain McGilchrist with Sarah Wilson on Wild Podcast, Right brain vs Left Brain
- Jeremy Lent with Sarah Wilson on Wild Podcast, can humans build a (beautiful) new society?
- Steffi Bednarek and Richard Schwartz on Your Anxiety is Normal: A New Psychology for a World in Crisis: https://open.spotify.com/episode/0b4eTQtjZeyQgtUQWqIyYF?si=c197ff7bf1464507
- Griefs we’re denied: Nature, Climate, Land Loss with Steffi Bednarek https://open.spotify.com/episode/4Wn5GYqvy21KE2CkOuDubS?si=b9d9c6230d9e41dc
- When Women Rise Rotted by Sharon Blackie
- The Journey of Soul Initiation by Bill Plotkin
