Events › Tending to our Inner Gardens Guided Nature Walk & Mandala-Making Workshop

If you have a garden and a library, you have everything you need.

- Cicero

Join local arts educator and poet Sheniz Janmohamed for a sensory nature walk and mandala-making workshop to honour Asian Heritage Month. Participants will be guided to observe and document the arrival of spring, engage in creative journaling/sketching prompts, and gather materials to make their own nature mandalas. How can we tend to our inner gardens (hearts)? What seeds can we plant to blossom in the summer? The workshop will culminate in an opportunity inside the Unionville Library where we will make our own "inner garden" mandalas, using found materials collected during our walk.

What is a mandala?

A mandala translates as 'circle' from Sanskrit. The mandala is often used as a symbolic tool for ritualistic practices in Buddhist and Vedic traditions. Nature mandalas are created by sourcing found materials in nature and allowing patterns to develop through the act of making, rather than planning. Mandalas are taken apart after being created, as a reminder of the impermanence of all things.

What to bring:

- appropriate clothing for the weather (hats, walking shoes, etc)

- a water bottle/favourite beverage

- a pencil/pen and notebook (paper will be provided if needed)

- found or collected materials that you may like to include in your nature mandala (broken jewelry, stones, acorns, petals, etc). Please *do not pick* materials from trees or flowers, but only gather what has already fallen.

- an open mind!

About your Facilitator:

Sheniz Janmohamed was born and raised in Tkaronto with ancestral ties to Kenya and India. A poet, nature artist and arts educator, she regularly visits schools and community organizations to teach and perform. Her nature art has been featured across Turtle Island, including the National Arts Centre and the Art Gallery of Mississauga. She has performed her work in venues across the world and has three poetry collections Bleeding Light (2010), Firesmoke (2014) and Reminders on the Path (2021).

A recipient of the Lois Birkenshaw-Fleming Creative Teaching Scholarship, Sheniz holds an Artist Educator Mentor certificate from the Royal Conservatory. She’s facilitated poetry walks and outdoor workshops at the Doris McCarthy Gallery, the University of Toronto and the Art Gallery of Mississauga. In 2022, she served as the Writer-in-Residence at the University of Toronto Scarborough Campus and Artist-in-Residence at the Stone & Sky Festival (Pelee Island). She is currently working on her fourth book, a collection of essays about her late grandmother's garden in Kenya.