An Aboriginal Mandala
Leah Goldberg / Stan Goldberg
Oils and Acrylics on Canvas
49”x49” (unframed)

Composition
Compositionally, Dreamtime is designed as a mandala. Its central axis is located at one of the white circles on the nose of the superimposed face in the central circle. From here it expands to a larger circle within a circle, surrounded yet again by a square within a square within a square. The mandala effect is further heightened by the introduction of a third dimension via the superimposition of the boy’s face over the central circle. The effect achieved is to seemingly magnify this circular plane which seems to bend space as well as time in an effort to help shift the viewer’s consciousness so as to facilitate meditation.

Background
Australian aborigines—whose culture dates back some 50,000 years making it one of the most ancient on the planet—are inherently peaceful people who thing of the Earth as their mother and live in total harmony with nature. Their Dreamtime is a state of consciousness rooted in the past which is populated with ancestors who demonstrate supernatural posers. Besides becoming animal and plant species and modifying the land to suit their needs, these ancestors established ceremonies for their descendants to follow. These ceremonies ensure that the bonds that tie the people to their ancestry and the land continue. Unfortunately, the Australia of 2003 has rendered adherence to these practices ever more difficult thereby limiting access to Dreamtime.

One tribe of aborigines resides on Mornington Island in northern Australia’s Gulf of Carpentaria. To this day, this relatively isolated group continues to believe that their well-being is likened directly to dolphins, with whom they stay in constant touch. Aptly enough, they call themselves the ‘Dolphin People’.

Young boys of the Dolphin People are encouraged to develop their sensitivity and intuition through a series of tests and initiations designed to cultivate these attributes. The most sensitive among them (pictured here in Dreamtime in the central circle) eventually becomes a shaman. He possesses the ability to speak directly to the spirits of animals and plants, trees and even stones. Most importantly, he communicates directly with the dolphins using a complex combination of whistles and telepathy.

Like other Australian aborigines who live in relatively isolated areas, the Dolphin People spend a good deal of their time in Dreamtime. From birth to their ascension as elders, their lives are punctuated by rites of passage that connect them to their long line of ancestors. The ceremony depicted in this painting is called “baby smoking”. Mother and grandmothers draw a spiral adjacent to a small fire comprised of collected fresh branches of the kookerberry bush. After the mother drops some milk into the fire the grandmother holds the baby over the rich smoke. With this ceremony every aboriginal child enters life with the blessing of the earth mother as well as the mothers of the tribe. Each child is advised to “always speak good” and to “not see evil things”.

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