Coming Together, Coming Apart

Do you think you could create something, spend hours and even days dedicated to a beautiful piece of art and then take it apart again a few days after you had completed it.

If you're a writer take one of your stories as an example.  Could you write your entire manuscript; go through the process of meticulously editing and revising your work; and - after a short while, just a few readers later - take it apart word by word, sentence by sentence, page by page?

Such were my thoughts as I stood and watched a Tibetan monk as he worked on the mandala sand painting in the Cathedral of Saint John the Divine.  He was one of several monks working on the painting while they were staying in the area.  I was there on a Thursday and they'd been working on their mandala since the previous Saturday.  By the following Tuesday it was to be finished and taken apart from the outside in, the sand to be collected and poured into the nearby Hudson River where it would move with the water and spread across the world.

I find the thought beautiful and inspiring, yet I'm not at all certain I could bring myself to take something as beautiful as the mandala apart.  I'd want to put a case over it, to restrict air flow, control the heat around it,  and keep hands and insects away.  I'd want to do anything I could to preserve each grain of sand just as it was when the monks were complete.

I guess it's a good lesson and reminder, especially to me.  Things change.  What is there one day may not be the next.  Even the thoughts we think will differ from one day to the next.  The mandala sends me the message of embracing the present.  Enjoying those around us, who we are, and what we do and see in the moment because something will be different soon.  Give a hug to someone you love.  Smell the flowers while they're still in bloom.  Write down the stories while they're burning inside of you.  Savor every moment.