Welcome to the Mandala Medicine Movement, a collaborative and inclusive way we paint large Mandalas on the street and parks in our communities. Our method ignites creativity, fosters community identity, and celebrates unity. Our journey began in the autumn of 1993 in the heart of the Ojai Valley in Southern California, where we started painting large mandalas in the main intersection of town, in the middle of the night, the night before our Ojai Day celebration.  ​ Looking ah

Susan Evergreen Hericks, Ph.D., and River Sauvageau invited Journey Week participants to take part in creating a community mandala at the Ladera campus on September 27, 2024. ​ Angela Borda: As a child, I learned about mandalas in the context of Tibetan monks spending months making elaborate designs with colored sand, as a form of prayer or memorial, and then at the end, undoing the mandala, as an acknowledgement of the impermanence of all things. So let’s start with the basi

By Carin Rich. 10/12/25 Morning unfurled her saffron shawl in Ojai, where paint met prayer and color became breath. At the Libbey fountain, the circle was born again, spirits of wind whispering through pigment, ancestors stirring in the blue between breaths. Brushstrokes became wings. Children ran past like bright intentions, their laughter folding into silence, the kind that speaks in symbols. By afternoon, the compass was complete, a wheel of gratitude turning in the sun. A

-Carin Rich The morning opened like stained glass, a circle of color poured onto asphalt, faces and fish swimming in the same sky. A green face blinked against the sun, its mouth half-smile, half-question, like it had just learned the secret of becoming. My dog sat in the mandala’s center, not guarding, not waiting only being, a white curl of breath in the geometry of light. Children laughed, their voices painted brighter than pigments, while strangers bent low, brushes dripp

River giving speech for opening of Ojai Day 2025. Note: Video is only half the speech, the rest is written below. We are here to celebrate our lives, lived together here in the Ojai Valley on this beautiful day. We recognize and acknowledge that we inhabit the stolen land of the Chumash people, the first peoples of this land. Because of genocide, violence, appropriation and bigotry we are sharing the privilege of living together in this sacred valley. We acknowledge the Chuma

The Face I Paint is Green A Mandala Meditation in Ventura By Caren Rich After the final bell fades Through the bones of the middle school walls, And the chalk ghosts of algebra Still float in the air, I drive to the mission To kneel at the feet of color. Here, on the street, We paint what cannot be spoken A mandala stitched into the ground With sun rays, prayers, And a green-faced dream No witness can erase. The face I paint is green. Not rebellion, not error But chloroph

The Eaton Fire burned almost 10,000 homes in Altadena, 9400 homes by count. There were numerous people I know In Ojai who were grieving...