Coloring is not just child's play. Detailed coloring work activates both sides of the brain, requiring both focus and creativity, detail and imagination. It helps create a meditative state that can reduce stress and break cycles of worry and negative self-talk. This book of 120 images offers an added benefit by pairing beautiful star-motif mandalas with the names of spiritual virtues. Meditating on the virtue while getting lost in the art of coloring can create a kind of simple prayer that draws us closer to our Divine potential. In his book, The Secret of Emotions, Justice Saint Rain explains that virtues are not just abstract ideas-nor are they only a type of action. They are also intimately connected to our emotions. We feel kindness. We feel generous. We feel courageous. As you color these mandalas and think about the virtues on the facing pages, also take a few moments to get in touch with what it feels like to experience these virtues. The virtues in this book are all associated with positive sensations. Thinking, feeling and coloring while focusing on a virtue connects your mind, heart and body in a process whose goal is a deeper connection with the Divine. Meditating on the sensation associated with a virtue helps us learn how to identify it when we feel it. Associating positive sensations with these virtues makes us want to practice them more often. Practicing virtues helps us to better identify them when we see them expressed by others. And recognizing virtues in others helps us love them as children of God. And here you thought you were just coloring pretty designs!
About the Author: Justice Saint Rain is a graphic artist, author and publisher who has been producing materials that encourage spiritual growth for over 30 years. He is the author of The Secret of Emotions, Four Tools of Emotional Healing, and other books that explore the intersection of psychology and spirituality. He created the virtues pages for this book and wrote the introduction. He lives on a farm in southern Indiana with his wife and family. Joe Paczkowski would like to live in a world where the oneness of humankind is recognized and implemented on all levels of society, where justice is the guiding principle in all affairs, where the elimination of the extremes of wealth and poverty are a reality and prejudice is a thing of the past. He likes nature, art, music, good food and comfortable shoes. He is from Somerville Massachusetts. He has lived in Finland for the last 36 years. He has worked over twenty years designing and producing exhibition material. He is married and has a wonderful family. Howard Jacobs is a self taught artist. His favorite media are pencil and color pencil. He also dabbles in oils, acrylics and watercolor. His mandalas are loosely based on a series of 60 chip carved wooden plaques he cut in 2000-2002. Howard resides in the Chicagoland area. He has been a member of the Bahá'í Faith since 1976 and has spent most of his life within ten miles of the Bahá'í House of Worship in Wilmette, IL.