As I planned the art activities and my lectures, I became especially fascinated with Tibetan mandalas. I found a movie that I planned to show to supplement my lecture on Tibetan art, and when I previewed it, I was pleased to see that it contained a small segment that showed Tibetan monks creating a circular mandala out of sand. Very cool!
On the Saturday night before we were to start back on Monday, I had a good idea of how each day would be structured, but I was still hoping to include “something extra.” I hadn’t signed up to do any fieldtrips during the mini-mester, but there was a small art museum about 15 miles from our school. I couldn’t think of anything in their regular collection that would possibly relate to the theme of “Sacred Circles,” but since it’s always valuable to expose students to “real” art, I decided to check the museum’s website.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Imagine my surprise when I learned that a special art exhibit had just opened at the museum that was called “The Mystical Arts of Tibet”! \u00a9 SKB 2000, 2023<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" In October of 2000, I started trying to figure out what sort of major course to offer for a two-week “mini-mester” that was part of my school’s academic schedule. During the mini-mester, students would take a “major” class that met … Continue reading
I knew that I’d\u00a0have<\/em>\u00a0to figure out a way to take my students there because this would be the perfect “something extra” for the course!
As I excitedly read through the description of “The Mystical Arts of Tibet” exhibit, I was then stunned when I read that Tibetan monks would be creating a mandala at the museum<\/em> during the first week of our course! WOW!
Through this marvelous and perfectly-timed episode of synchronicity, my students were able to see, first hand, the creation of a Tibetan mandala–one of the world’s most beautiful and spiritually significant “sacred circles.” ![](\"https:\/\/art-rageous.net\/Mandala-A.jpg\")
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