Moroccan mehndi designs are mainly concerned with protection and fertility. The evil eye is feared by many Mediterranean people, even to this day. An image of the hand, or khamsa (pronounced haam-sa), is thought to counteract the effect of the evil eye. Eyes and hands are common motifs in Moroccan mehndi designs and other arts. The eye sometimes appears as a triangle, a diamond, or a dot. Various representations of the eye are thought to act as mirrors that repel the evil eye.

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The unripe mango (keri) is a symbol of virginity, often used in mehndi painted on new brides. It also symbolizes the coming of summer. Vines are symbols of devotion. You can draw vines around the wrists or on the legs, creeping around as vines do on the sides of homes. Roses, sunflowers, lilies, daisies, and irises are commonly used mehndi images.

Birds are the most commonly used animal motif in the henna art of India. The peacock is the national bird of India. When women are separated from their husbands, the peacock painted in henna symbolizes companionship. Fish symbolize the eyes of women. Scorpions are thought to be like Cupid’s arrow; they are romantic images in Hindu mythology.

The symbols of astrology can also be used in mehndi. What sign are you? This is one of the ways that mehndi opens doors to new worlds for the artists that create it. Ideas and images will occur to you intuitively, and then you might want to go back and study them. Artists of all mediums find that they do not always know what they are going to create beforehand. Often they draw, paint or write a poem and later realize that their work relates to concepts or ideas that were somehow stored in their unconscious. Jung believed that there is a storehouse of archetypes in the collective unconscious. An archetype is an important idea, concept or image that reoccurs in our minds (and our various cultures) and helps us to better understand ourselves. Jung also believed that archetypes are shared by people across cultures and through generations. The collective unconscious is a board term that describes the “place” where the archetypes that we share are stored. It is not really a place, of course, but if you think of it that way it might be easier to understand.

Water is another common symbol in mehndi. Some people believe that water symbolizes the unconscious itself. It also can represent women, the moon, and our emotions. You can paint waves on the skin (lahariya designs) or small clusters of dots called bundakis, which represent falling rain. They symbolize the love a woman expresses for her husband and in-laws. Lahariya designs represent deep emotion and ecstasy. These designs were often painted on windows who jumped on funeral pyres to die with their husbands. As you create your own designs, you can learn about these images and make them your own. This process of appropriation is used by artists to make new meaning from ancient symbols. Appropriating the lahariya symbol would mean using it symbolize something positive and something meaningful to you. Perhaps you are mourning a relationship but know you would never give up your life for a boyfriend or girlfriend. Painting waves on the skin, for you, would mean the opposite of jumping on the funeral pyre of your lost loved one. Instead, it would symbolize the new enriched life you will lead without him or he.

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The lotus is a flower that grows out of the mud or water in and around India. It is the most symbolic form of plant life for many Eastern religions, and it appears over and over again in religious art. It symbolizes the Self rising up through the unconscious, growing from darkness into light. The Hindus associate the lotus with the goddess Lakshmi. The Buddhists see the lotus as a symbol of purity because its petals and leaves do not show any evidence of the mud from which it grows. It symbolizes life itself. The flower signifies all that grows from the earth, and it has come to mean creativity as well as reproduction.

The lotus is often depicted as an eight-petaled flowers. The outer layers can increase in multiples of four. The petals of the lotus can be round or pointed. You can draw single petals if you choose to. As Loretta Roome says, there is no right or wrong way to paint a lotus. It can float horizontally or hang from a vine. Discover it for yourself as you paint it.

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A famous Swiss psychologist named Carl Jung, which is pronounced yoong. Explored the concept of the mandala in depth. A mandala is an image of form within form. Often it is shaped like a circle, but it can be any shape. Mandalas have concentric patterns that relate back to a center point. In ancient India, a form of mandala called the yantra was used by yogis as a tool for meditation. Jung used the mandala as a tool in psycho therapeutic practice. Many henna painters use mandalas in their work.

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There is a great deal to be learned from the ancient designs that have been passed down from generation to generation by the women of the East. One of the incredible things that you will discover as you look at the symbols of various cultures is that human beings seem to share a secret language of symbols, even if our oral and written language is very different. The unconscious meanings of symbols that you may encounter every day are often hidden in mehndi designs. Scientists have studied many of the symbols of ancient India and Egypt. They have found, for instance, that some of these symbols resemble fractal geometry and the shapes of cells of the body. There were no microscopes in ancient times, but perhaps the makers of mehndi intuitively knew what they were painting.

There are certain basic forms that you should know before you move into the more complex designs. According to the texts of ancient India, all reality grows from the bija (kernel or seed). Have you seen Indian women wearing bindis? They are small jewels or dots makeup worn in the center of the forehead to symbolize the opening of the third eye. (They have grown super trendy over the past few years in the United States. In a last chapter, we will look at bindis as an example of temporary body art.) The bindu is a point of Supreme Reality for Hindus. It is the place where everything begins and ends. You will always start your designs from the bija. That just means you are starting from the beginning. Some of the basic forms you will use are the line (rekha) and the angle (kona). The angle is simply the joining of two straight lines. Once you have mastered painting a straight line with the applicator (which is not as easy as expert henna painters make it look), you can begin making some geometric shapes rich in meaning. The first is the trikona, or triangle. A triangle with its point facing north is connected to the male principle, or Shiva. A downward pointing triangle indicates the female principle, or Shakti. The joining of these two symbols becomes the satkona, or the six-pointed star. This symbol resembles the Jewish Star of David. It symbolizes the merging of masculine and feminine energies. It is connected also to Lakshmi, the goddess of prosperity. The diamond (vajra) symbolizes fire, water, earth, air, and the heavens. Pentagrams are worn by some people as symbols of protection.

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Many contemporary mehndi artists are already visual artists when they discover henna painting. Even if you do not paint or draw, that should not stop you from experimenting with henna design. Let your creative spirit soar. This is a time to get in touch with your intuition. Perhaps you or the person you are painting will want a traditional design for luck or romance. If you become an expert at designing the symbols, you can grant the wishes of people who want traditional mehndi or small tattoo designs on their skin. If the person you are painting does not have a particular request, look at him or her and ask questions. Find out why this person wants to be painted. What do you think he or she needs? Play with shapes and lines. Remember when you were in nursery school and the teacher let you finger paint? It felt pretty free, did not it? Try to feel that freedom again as you paint with henna. That does not mean that you should smear the paste haphazardly, of course. You should be careful and meticulous. But don’t let yourself be held back by convention. You are part of the new generation of henna artist, and the designs you create will be part of the lexicon of designs that painters of the next generation will look at and learn from.

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