Thursday, August 19, 2010

Salem World Rhythm festival

Finally got around to these photos taken... this year they had an honorary faction from Bhutan.
There are many booths @ this venue, and a portion of the proceeds go to support various people & causes.  I noticed this colorful booth.

I came upon this Buddhist Monk, making a sand mandala. 



I've seen this art done by Monks a few times, tedious art form carefully tapping grains of colored sand to create an intricate & meditative Mandala. 




Usually, they use a metal "straw" with a narrow pen pointed end to tap the grains of sand precisely into the pattern, but this Monk was doing the design all by hand alone. A much more difficult task. 
After working for many hours & days on the Mandala, it is then scooped up, and often taken to a river & poured in, to affirm the impermanence of everything.


It was interesting to observe festival goers stop in  their tracks to stop & watch this ancient art form take place right before their eyes.  Enlightening!



Did  I mention they do Dragon Boat races there too?






3 comments:

nonnie9999 said...

i've only seen those sand paintings made on video, never in person. it's so cool, but i always get nervous watching, because i'm afraid someone is going to sneeze and ruin it all.

D.K. Raed said...

love the colors and intricacy and the idea of impermanence, but isn't it also kind of bittersweet that such beauty is only meant for the day?

Dada said...

Some of the finest examples of Bhutanese architecture, outside of that country, are right here in El Paso where the University of Texas, El Paso campus sports examples in their facilities for the past century. As a result, UTEP and Bhutan have developed a close cross cultural relationship. A more recent contribution to the campus is this hand carved wooden Bhutanese Buddhist Lhakhang (temple) which, after appearing on the mall in Washington was dismantled and reconstructed as a permanent fixture on the UTEP campus.

From the first buildings constructed on the campus nearly 100 years ago, UTEP has maintained the style. It's interesting to see it evolve into the 21st Century and note that other off-campus non-University buildings are adopting the architectural theme (a hotel and sports bar/restaurant) adjacent to the school.