Lower Lake >> Ancha Mitya wants to heal Lake County- but her approach is just a little bit different. She’s looking for 1,000 individuals to create 1,000 mandalas and she’s leading classes to accomplish that goal. “A one person mandala is powerful, but when a lot of people do a mandala you can change things drastically,” Mitya said.
Mandala creation is all about intention, she explained, which can have real-world consequences. Something that occurs on one side of the world can ripple out to affect the other side. It’s an idea akin to the butterfly affect, the theory which is based around the thought that the fluttering of butterfly wings can cause a tsunami across the globe.
However, Mandalas aren’t only an particularly spiritual art form, but the most sacred symbol of life to those who create them. The center of the mandala is especially important. “That is where the portal to all possible dimensions we’re not aware of is,” Mitya explained. “It’s where everything comes from and everything goes back to.”
This is a philosophy that has been employed for thousands upon thousands of years by yogis all around the world, from aboriginal tribes to the Romans to Buddhists. “The whole world has in its history an ancient people who were in touch with these kind of things,” said Mitya. “It’s a very far out idea, but you can check it all out scientifically and it’s all there.”
Westernized nations, on the other hand, have focused more on science and provable hypotheses and in doing so “they totally missed the boat on what is creating everything,” Mitya added.
But the affects of the mandala are invisible in a way which science hasn’t been able to touch. That is, until recently, according to Mitya. “There is research back up the yogis, what they were doing 5,000 years ago,” she said. “Science has gotten subtle enough to be able to read energies.”
Mitya has some personal experience with the power of the mandala, from what she claims have been the spontaneous healing of fractured bones and similar occurrences. And as a Lake County resident, she felt it was time to turn her attention to healing her home. With enough people, she feels the mandalas are just what the county needs. “What I’m offering is literally a metaphysical social activism through creating a mandala, which has been used for thousands of years.”
Last year’s fires are certainly a factor, but Mitya more so wanted to do this for the children. As one of the poorest counties in the nation, she feels kids around here are suffering. “Somebody has to address this issue and I want to do it through the arts,” she said. “The children are at the heart of all of it.”
Mitya has a long background in both education and the arts. For 38 years she has been working with children internationally on empowerment through artistic creation. She’s spent time teaching over seas in places such as Italy, Germany, England and Sicily. She’s also taught stateside, moving up and down the east coast from Florida to New York and making the journey across the country to teach around the Bay Area.
She traces it all back to the young age of 8, when she came home from school one day and, in a fit of inspiration, glued much of her artwork to her bedroom wall. Mitya’s mother made her scrape the creation away with a spatula. Though she didn’t realize it at the time, this one incident affected her so profoundly that by 16 she was working as a counselor and creating curriculum intended to empower children through artwork.
At 18 Mitya began studying to become a Montessori teacher, which she described as an educational system based on children and the ways in which they learn, such as by way of color-coding and beading games. When she finished her studies and stepped into the role of teacher, she quickly realized that the Montessori program lacked art curriculum. So as a curriculum writer, Mitya created her own.
Her first summer of teaching, Mitya lead a class in creating an art show for the community. During the course of the class, a student lost a battle to leukemia and it hit many of the children hard. Art was integral in helping them through. “That woke me up to how extremely powerful artwork is,” Mitya said. “When you allow someone to heal through the artwork, they do an incredibly good job at healing themselves. They don’t need therapy.”
It wasn’t until Mitya began teaching meditation that she realized the mandala could be used for something beyond its spiritual purposes. Though the art had been utilized for thousands of years as a way in which individuals could get in touch with their subconscious, Mitya hadn’t seen it used for healing. It was time to change that.
She encourages “absolutely everybody” to sign up for her mandala creation classes. “Everybody needs to improve themselves, improve their life and improve the community and that’s the point. That’s the true revolution,” Mitya said. “The true revolution that’s needed today is the evolution of our consciousness.”
The classes begin on April 8 at the Main Street Gallery in Lakeport and run once a week through the month. Mitya will also offer classes at her Lower Lake home, also known as Spirit Lake Hermitage, beginning April 9 and continuing once a week through April. If those dates don’t work for anyone interested, Mitya will hold mandala creation classes upon request. They’re $160 for 16 hours of work, or $130 if enrolling with a friend. But for those who cannot afford to pay, scholarships of 50 percent off may be available through Spirit Lake Hermitage. In order to receive a scholarship, students must complete five hours of volunteer work at Spirit Lake Hermitage. Call Mitya at 354-2787 to sign up and for more information.
Jennifer Gruenke can be reached at 900-2019.
