Recycled bottle cap mandala

Mandalas are used to emphasize the potential for enlightenment and the pictures within show the obstacles that one has to overcome in order to help cultivate wisdom and compassion. In following with this, I felt that one of the biggest obstacles that our world faces relates to consumerism which is built off the destruction of our earth.

I used old bottle caps from friends and family that I collected over two years to build this piece below. It's a reflection of this idea that we as a people must stop consuming so much and polluting our world and even a small item like the bottle cap can have a large negative impact when multiplied by the number of people who inhabit this planet.

For the pattern, I took inspiration from Metatron's cube which supposedly contains every shape that exists in the universe. I thought this was fitting because it's said that this can lead one to an understanding of how the creator has structured the physical world around us and I think that understanding could help lead us to work in harmony with our planet.