by Juan Felipe Herrera (Author)
In the reverberations of the COVID-19 pandemic and subsequent shut down, Juan Felipe Herrera began a daily practice to draw and write mandala poems. Through this new practice, Herrera created well over 500 mandalas, a series of circles that served as contemplations, concentrations, and transformations of his consciousness within the isolation. Herrera documents the loss, suffering, and challenges of the pandemic, the Black Lives Matter Movement, an election cycle, as well as the onset of new wars and conflicts in Ukraine and into the present. Through verse and visual art Herrera moves away from a journal of the day to day, and instead, through a commitment to continue to excavate the days, arrives at the center of the mandala wheel to discover kindness, compassion, and healing. The Cosmic Flow blends the dexterity of Herrera's poetic, artistic, and spiritual practices developed over the last 50 years and provides the reader with a path forward in spite amidst the heaviness of the world.