The Dalai Lama and a Blog Meetup!

What a fun day I have had so far!

First, I knew I was going to be chaperoning FabPreteen’s art class field trip today…and I knew it was going to be to an art museum, but I didn’t remember which one and had no clue what we were going to be seeing!

I just love to go on my daughter’s field trips…while she still lets me!!!!!

So when she told me last night it was going to be at the art museum on the FIU campus I thought this would be a perfect opportunity to meet Meredith from Pursuing Balance and hoped I could catch her at this last minute! 

I sent her my phone number, crossed my fingers, and was really excited when she called me this morning!  We chatted for a little but, and then set up a time to meet when she got to the campus.

So off I went to FIU, following the big yellow bus! We were headed to the one year old Frost Museum of Art…the building was really beautiful inside!   When we got there we had a personal tour guide who was an art teacher…she told us about the exhibit that was there, a traveling exhibit from about 40 different artists and their perception of the Dalai Lama.

But before she took us around the exhibit, she explained to the kids about the Dalai Lama, his beliefs, and about Tibet, and also about Buddha and some of his history and beliefs.

       This was a beautiful concept that will travel all over the world with the exhibit….the golden thread stood for peace, and if you wanted to align yourself with this concept you pulled an arms length of thread off the end and added it to the pile.  The pile will travel with the exhibit….and the thread is continuous…you don’t break it off, just pull it down and add it!

  This beautiful sand sculpture, a mandela was painstakingly constructed over four days by Tibetan monks in a ritual! 

These pictures, especially with my little point  and shoot, don’t do it any justice at all…the colors are brilliant!   In some of the places the borders are even raised!  This is stunning!!! We saw it just in time too!!!  This beautiful intricate sand painting is made to be destroyed, to represent life’s impermanence.  

The dismantling ceremony, another intricate ritual, will be held tonight and the painting is going to be destroyed.  The sand will be collected in a vase and carried to a waterway and poured into the water so the mandala’s energy message of health will be carried throughout our city!

I don’t know why, but this incredible work of art really held a fascination  for me!

Next it was on to lunch!

And at the food court is where Meredith and I met up! 

We have never met in person before!  She is beautiful!!!!   Tiny, a bundle of pep and energy, and a smile almost as big as she is!  Her healthy lifestyle really shows.

We didn’t have a lot of time….half an hour?   Or maybe we had longer than I thought and it just passed quickly!!!   

She had an appointment and I had to get back to the bus with the kids! 

I gabbed so much I never even ate my lunch! 

I had bought some Tofurky and was trying it for the first time in a sandwich.

So I ate it in the car on the way back to school.  No pictures because the camera ended up with the art teacher on the bus!

Now we are back home, I have collected all the kids, and the kids actually want to go see that dismantling ceremony so we are headed back to the  museum shortly.