Mona Bessaa
Mona BESSAA - The process of creation of a work : with reference to the 7 principal chakras.
I explain through these lines how the work “The 7 principal chakras” was born in my spirit, how it took form over time and what its purpose is.
In 2012, after several years of blocks and stagnation in my artistic creation, where my inspiration was reduced to nothing, I decided to undergo a Hatha yoga retreat and meditation in Ariège in the Pyrenees. The purpose was to find myself again, to find my path again, to isolate myself and to listen to the silence in order to center myself again. For in effect, in the urban brouhaha and the turbulence of a chaotic life course, I had lost my way.
In two weeks of yoga and meditative practice, in the heart of the mountains, without internet, telephone, radio and bank card, for a (re-) discovery of self. Every day, or almost, wakened at 5 a.m., for eight or nine hours of intense and varied exercises, of which an hour and a half was Karma yoga (also called seva).
Asanas, pranayamas and meditation were not long in showing their effects. The energy, like a geyser, burst out and into circulation. The first locks were sprung one by one. The energy is at this point so powerful that it kept me awake some entire nights, with any fatigue in the early morning. The meditation sessions transcended me, literally. The meditation dissolved the cavalcade of thoughts while a state of well-being and of quietness installed itself, as simple as it was marvelous. Is that, then, happiness? To hear the surrounding noises, there, at that instant, to focalize one’s attention, to be conscious of one’s respiration, simply this tranquility, this marvelous present moment.
It was in the course of one of these long meditations, named Ajapa Japa, that the idea emerged and imposed itself of representing the seven principal chakras, I who had not painted any more for several years. I know then how to situate the chakras in the body and how to name them. I do not know everything about the functioning of these cycles of energy. I feel nonetheless their action and I would be literally invaded by a quasi-mythical inner experience, I would understand it later, at the awakening of the kundalini.
A year passes during which I pursue the practice of Hatha Yoga in Paris with Christian Möllenhoff who transmits his teaching following the traditional training that he received from Swami Janakananda Saraswati.
The fire of passion has returned. I have taken up my paint brushes again, I have taken up etching also and registered for training in enamel on copper. I work at night, in the den of its silence, in total concentration. One of my very first enamel pieces will be a mandala representing Muladhara chakra. There will follow in the course of the same year a piece for each of the principal chakras.
After a collaborative work with my teachers, with photographers and graphic artists, the work which had appeared to me during a powerful meditation, develops today under the form of a large cloth banner representing the 7 principal cycles of energy. May it take place in the yoga studios and with each person, to sustain their practice.