Here at the Daily Dot, we swap GIF images with each other every morning. Now we’re looping you in. In the Morning GIF, we feature a popular—or just plain cool—GIF we found on Reddit, Canvas, or elsewhere on the Internet.
Once in a blue moon, it comes along: the blue moon. It came along last week, in fact. And, as with all archetypally fine, fleeting summer pleasures, once it’s gone, only a dreamy, perfect memory remains.
That and the hope that it won’t try to friend us on Facebook.
That summer pleasure, the evocative blue moon, inspired today’s featured artist. Mexico City artist Elias of the Chaotec Chichiliki Tumblr has gone deeper than most into the ephemeral, listing his interests as, “art, illustration, astral projection, lucid dreaming, mandalas, psychedelics and everything that has to do with the universe.” His blog is itself a flashback to the late Sixties, long before he was born, featuring trippy mandalas varying from the ethereal to the richly sensual, some static, some GIFs.
Mandalas, creative renderings of the divine symmetry of nature, are perhaps the definitive art form: that which is created to be contemplated. Implicit in the mandala are the principles of proportion, space, elegance, oneness, and aesthetics. Ultimately, the study of the mandala is the study of the universe.
Elias is not the only mandala artist to have rendered them in GIF form, but his mandalas are significantly more nuanced than most. Today’s featured GIF is unusual for him in that the mandala is placed within a framework, a landscape, clearly indicating that it represents a powerful moon in the sky, the blue moon, which wields three times the mystical power of an ordinary full moon, according to noted pagan Lady Abigail.
Whether or not you believe that, the contemplation of this subtle, beautiful GIF will put you in touch with at least your own higher power.
