Love says "I am everything".
Wisdom says "I am nothing".
Between the two, my life flows. ~ Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj
Founder and Facilitator
Julia “Mandala” Weaver, LMFT is the founder of Art and Soul, a resource center for sacred and healing arts. Her 30 years of embodied expressive arts, movement and spiritual practice include Buddhism, Advaita Vedanta, Navajo, Shamanic and Sufi traditions, along with Body practices; Qigong, Continuum, 5 Rhythms, Soul Motion & Sensory Awareness. Her background includes an MA in Integral Psychology, a BA in Fine Arts, certification in massage, and extensive training in sound/movement expression. Julia is also a licensed psychotherapist in private practice. MFT License #30156
While swimming off the Kona coast in 1996, Julia had a mystical experience where she she was blessed to swim with a small pod of wild spinner dolphins with only her family and two other women for several hours. She spontaneously received mandala images, which took her into deeper dimensions of healing and spiritual practice.
“For several years, I had been praying for a vehicle to express my aspirations to create art as a spiritual practice for healing and transformation that wasn’t about me personally, but encompassed the whole. The Mandala process turned out to be the ideal form.”
Two weeks after her initial experience with the dolphins, she began studying with Dr. Judith Cornell, author of Mandala: Luminous Symbols for Healing and t. She gratefully apprenticed and assisted her mentors in workshops through 2001.
Since 1996, Julia has offered mandala workshops and presentations for adults and children across the US, Hawaii and London, at locations such as Spirit Rock Meditation Center, California Institute of Integral Studies, Nine Gates Mystery School, Women Of Wisdom and the International Imagery Conference. She also offers webinar workshops accessible globally and finds great joy in guiding groups on dolphin swim retreats in Hawaii. She has continued to experience deep physical healing and spiritual awakening through her contact with these highly evolved beings. Many of her mandalas have been birthed in her annual pilgrimages to Hawaii.
A passionate environmental arts educator, Julia designs and facilitates rites-of-passage ceremonies and combines the Mandala Process with tree planting, gardening, and collages to promote community revitalization and ecological healing. She also uses the mandala process as a creative consultant with non-profit organizations and is available for consultations or embodied psychotherapy sessions in person and by phone. In response to the events of September 11th, 2001, she creates large-scale community interactive Peace Mandalas called “One World One Heart”. It is her deepest joy to invite others to experience their own embodied luminous divinity through private counseling, retreats, webinars and sharing her visionary art, in service to environmental and social justice healing. She loves to collaborate!
Publications
Her adult workshops were featured in New Age Journals (Body and Soul) (spring 2001), and she co-facilitated a workshop for children with Julia Butterfly Hill and Jane Goodall at the Kinship with All Life conference held in San Francisco. Her chapter on "Goddesses of the Ocean, Healers of the Sea" is featured in the forthcoming book Feminist Mystical Artists. Her work was featured in the New Age Journal (The Picture of Health), Mandalas Journey to the Center, Feminine Mystical Art , Dr. Judith Cornell's The Mandala Healing Kit, in 2007 and other publications.
Her visionary gallery and more can be viewed @ www.MandalaWeaver.com
Many of her students mandalas can be viewed on Facebook in her albums: Student Gallery
While swimming off the Kona coast in 1996, Julia had a mystical experience where she she was blessed to swim with a small pod of wild spinner dolphins with only her family and two other women for several hours. She spontaneously received mandala images, which took her into deeper dimensions of healing and spiritual practice.
“For several years, I had been praying for a vehicle to express my aspirations to create art as a spiritual practice for healing and transformation that wasn’t about me personally, but encompassed the whole. The Mandala process turned out to be the ideal form.”
Two weeks after her initial experience with the dolphins, she began studying with Dr. Judith Cornell, author of Mandala: Luminous Symbols for Healing and t. She gratefully apprenticed and assisted her mentors in workshops through 2001.
Since 1996, Julia has offered mandala workshops and presentations for adults and children across the US, Hawaii and London, at locations such as Spirit Rock Meditation Center, California Institute of Integral Studies, Nine Gates Mystery School, Women Of Wisdom and the International Imagery Conference. She also offers webinar workshops accessible globally and finds great joy in guiding groups on dolphin swim retreats in Hawaii. She has continued to experience deep physical healing and spiritual awakening through her contact with these highly evolved beings. Many of her mandalas have been birthed in her annual pilgrimages to Hawaii.
A passionate environmental arts educator, Julia designs and facilitates rites-of-passage ceremonies and combines the Mandala Process with tree planting, gardening, and collages to promote community revitalization and ecological healing. She also uses the mandala process as a creative consultant with non-profit organizations and is available for consultations or embodied psychotherapy sessions in person and by phone. In response to the events of September 11th, 2001, she creates large-scale community interactive Peace Mandalas called “One World One Heart”. It is her deepest joy to invite others to experience their own embodied luminous divinity through private counseling, retreats, webinars and sharing her visionary art, in service to environmental and social justice healing. She loves to collaborate!
Publications
Her adult workshops were featured in New Age Journals (Body and Soul) (spring 2001), and she co-facilitated a workshop for children with Julia Butterfly Hill and Jane Goodall at the Kinship with All Life conference held in San Francisco. Her chapter on "Goddesses of the Ocean, Healers of the Sea" is featured in the forthcoming book Feminist Mystical Artists. Her work was featured in the New Age Journal (The Picture of Health), Mandalas Journey to the Center, Feminine Mystical Art , Dr. Judith Cornell's The Mandala Healing Kit, in 2007 and other publications.
Her visionary gallery and more can be viewed @ www.MandalaWeaver.com
Many of her students mandalas can be viewed on Facebook in her albums: Student Gallery