If you have the patience and are willing to continue to read this, you will understand my point and reason for posting this on this particular thread. I sometimes have been accused of being long-winded; but I would prefer to use the term - through. I believe that actions have meaning and that these meanings are important to our human existence.
About a year ago, the Delhi Lama was speaking at the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis. My town also has a university campus named the University of Minnesota, Morris. At the same time that the Delhi Lama was attracting large crowds in the Metropolitan Minneapolis/St. Paul area, for his speeches he sent a group of his monks here to perform here at our campus.
The monks were wonderful. They sang Buddhist chants, lectured on Buddhism, and made a sand sculpture. They spent four days and nights working 24 hours a day to construct a very elaborate sand sculpture using many colors of various grades of sand. It was very large, very intricate, and very beautiful. The key term here is – was.
They started the sculpture when they first arrived and completed it just prior to their leaving. When they left Morris, they invited the community to watch as they poured the sand from the sculpture into the Pomme de Terre River. Before they arrived at the river, the monks carefully swept all of the sand grains from the completed sculpture into a very elaborately decorated clay pot that appeared to be very old. One of the monks explained that the purpose was to transfer the prayer that the sculpture represented into the universe to communicate it to humanity. It was prayer for peace and harmony in our community.
Now what in the world has that to do with toy soldier displays; well let me explain. For those of you that have seen the diorama that I built, its in the photo gallery section of Treefrog’ home page under the name Michael Haynes, well - say good bye to it. I have begun, with my six-year old grandson who just moved here to live with me, to take it apart. Yes Shannon, it’s as good as gone. I have about 25 to 30 boxes of various sizes full of the trees, walls, and other stuff in (not the soldiers or vehicles) and I need more.
I plan to put in a large shelving system with a depth of 30 to 36 inches to allow for smaller diorama displays. I will then be constructing a large diorama for my new passion, the Napoleonic Wars.
The reason why I say all that I have in this posting is that like the monks, I have sent the diorama into the universe. The only pictures of it are those that Pete and Shannon took. I did the same thing with my railroad layout. They only exist in my memory.
But, things change and so do I. I will be taking pictures as I build this thing and I plan to post them here. I will be using some of my own ideas but I will also be using some ideas that you all have shared with me on this forum.
Michael
