By Steve Sears
Lee Grabarczyk helps people, and you can tell he loves doing it.
There’s an excitement in his voice. “It’s all the intuitive work, and then there’s the products themselves,” Grabarczyk says, referring to the personal readings he performs and the personal Soulful Mandalas he creates. “There are the individual pieces of work that have been done. There’s over 100 of them, and some of them I’ve done in a series. For example, I did a whole series on chakras, and did a whole series on the four elements: air, earth, fire, and water. And then there’s all of the implementations of the artwork from printing, scarves, to metal work, to other kinds of fabrication and design, even jewelry. It’s a lot, so I try to keep it steady as it goes.”
With all the challenges in people’s personal lives and the world itself, people are turning to their faith and seeking help. Many have approached Grabarczyk. “The work that I do – although it’s far from what I would call a saving planet – it’s just another one of the little beneficial offerings because it raises vibration,” Grabarczyk says.
Grabarczyk’s work can be done one-to-one. “I don’t do any kind of advance work. I meet with a person and just like to get a handle on what’s going on, and I give them feedback to make sure that I’m on point. I’ll say to them, ‘Maybe you recently had a separation and it was very difficult, or you’ve lost a loved one – maybe a child, maybe a parent? Or maybe you’re looking at a career move or something going on.’ For them, there may be just this long, lingering thing that happened in childhood that they want to address. I just look at all of that, and then I ask, ‘Well, what’s the big one? What’s the one if we were to look at the common denominator here or we would look at the thing that really is creating the biggest issue?’ That’s what we focus on, and then the design has an affirmation that is created in the language that is relevant to a person.”
He also works with groups, and a good example is his first gallery reading a few years back. “I had never done one before” Grabarczyk says, “and people who do these often were shocked that somebody who had no experience in this would be thrown headfirst into having 20 people in the room who I’d never met before, and then telling details about their lives, and then threading them together in such a way that collectively made some kind of message that was relevant to the room, and also specifically to them. That is unheard of; most people don’t do that overnight, or at least not in the short run of me doing it.”
Grabarczyk, who is originally from Morristown and currently lives in Long Valley, has a degree in music from Fairleigh Dickinson University in Madison, but he also attended the famed art school, Pratt Institute in Manhattan (he received a degree in Art Direction). Therefore, it’s not surprising that, when he was encouraged a few years back to look into doing Soulful Mandalas, he grasped onto it, and he now does them for clients. “There’s a little mini reading, and them when I’m done, I present them with a black and white line drawing, a black and white halftone, and a color version. And I do this full, large, 2’ x 2’ piece that’s printed in a special way so that its ink is really very vibrant, especially from the paper that I use, and then I supply them with three 11 x 17 prints.”
“Throughout my life, starting as a kid, I’ve always been fascinated by things intuitive,” Grabarczyk says. “I would do little mini things as a high schooler, I would do it in my 20’s – I’d play the role of a kind of counselor with people – I did that in my 30’s and 40’s and 50’s, and now in my 60’s, I decided that maybe this is something that I can turn into a living. What I basically do is I’m living my profession.”
For more in-depth information about Lee Grabarczyk and what he offers, visit his website at www.soulfulmandalas.com.