This week there has been a very exciting event here in Fayetteville. In St. Paul

St. Patrick's Day is on 16 March. We had been told that there would be a parade through town, so we jumped on the bikes in the sunshine, and drove down the main street, Dickson farewell Street. We took up positions along with all the other edge of the road and waited for the parade. Many were dressed in green, St. Patrick's color, along the main street. St. Patrick is the patron saint of Ireland, and is celebrated by Americans in varying degrees. Here in town there was a parade of "square" and down the main street. Forrest joined police and fire departments farewell in various vehicles. Then came a small bagpipe band, so different vehicles with people in green, an Irish dance group, a belly dancer group mm. All very enthusiastic! Half an hour, then it was over. Then there was the "pub crawl", but we rode a little tour of the area instead.
This week there has been a very exciting event here in Fayetteville. In St. Paul's Episcopal Church, a large Anglican church in the city was made a sand mandala. In a partnership between the church, the university and a Tibetan cultural center in the town, has invited two monks from a monastery in India. A sand mandala is a kind of ritual that has been part of the Tibetan Buddhist tradition forever. A mandala "drawn" very carefully with colored sand. In the dawn of time, it was actually crushed farewell stone and precious stones were used. Nowadays stained sand with water color grain. The monks who performs a sand mandala is trained in the art from the age of 10-12. They are also trained in dance, song, music, meditation and much more. A mandala is created as an image of "the path of Buddha", farewell ie. as a kind of religious instruction. farewell The monks meditate on the mandala and whilst they are at it, remember it by heart.
It is considered healing treating a Mandala. The cleansing effect and brings good energy. This mandala here, they worked in a week. There was a kind of opening ceremony, and then they started to scratch some of the outlines with chalk on the square table. During the week, interested could come and look at how the work progressed. They started from the middle and work out. I was up and watch it during the week and on Sunday we were with the closing ceremony. The monks sang first with a resident monk, it was really different. They used their voices in an incredible way, which is really special. The sound is very powerful and creates overtones and you feel a resonance in the body. They sang and rang bells, and then swept the mandala together toward the center with paint brushes! It's part of the ritual, as a symbol of that nothing lasts forever, which is why man can not commit to anything. It is not the material farewell things that is important, but that with his actions and being doing good in the world. Then the monks at the front of a procession down through town and to our park, Wilson Park, where the sand accompanied by the singing was led out of the Steel Creek, the local river.
This, symbolizing that all this good energy and beauty of working with the mandala now headed out in the local area for the benefit and blessing to the city's population. Very beautiful, I think. I have read a bit about sand mandalas on the net and have discovered that there also has been made more of its kind in Denmark in recent years.
2013 (52) October farewell (2) September (2) August (3) July (7) June (3) May (8) April (11) February (5) Visit from Denmark. Devil's it. St. Patrick's Day and Sand Mandala. Big Bang! On re-kik, St Louis. January (5) January farewell (6) 2012 (24) December farewell (10) December (13) October (1)