Moon Day 5
Starts May 1, 2025 09:06 AM
Ends May 2, 2025 10:15 AM
Wandered down to Cumberland, fifteen miles on the GAP from Frostburg. Cumberland is 1350 feet lower in elevation than Frostburg and the flora season is anywhere from ten days to two weeks ahead. Although I have seen immature dames rocket along the GAP everywhere in the Frostburg area I had not seen any in flower. Once in the Wills Creek Valley, however, it was in flower everywhere.
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| Immature dames rocket in the Frostburg area (04.15.25) |
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| Immature dames rocket in the Frostburg area (04.29.25) |
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| Dames rocket in flower in the Cumberland area (05.01.25) |
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| Dames rocket in flower in the Cumberland area (05.01.25) |
Arriving in Cumberland I saw a group of saffron-robed Buddhist monks walking up Baltimore Street. This is not a common site in the Queen City. The first monk looked like a Mongolian. I asked him where he was from and he said “Tibet.” Talking to several of the other monks and a woman who was with them I learned that they were from Drepung Loseling Monastery in India. Several of the monks were born in Tibet but now live in India. Drepung Loseling Monastery in India is modeled on Drepung Monastery in Lhasa, Tibet, which I have visited. See: The Life of Zanabazar: First Bogd Gegeen of Mongolia.
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| My photo of Drepung Monastery in Tibet |
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| Part of Drepung Monastery destroyed during the Cultural Revolution |
It turns out that they were making a Sand Mandala in the Masonic Temple next to the Episcopalian Church in Cumberland.
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| Masonic Temple in Cumberland |
After getting a much-needed caffeine fix at Cafe Mark on Baltimore Street (named after Mark the Evangelist. Their internet password is proverbs327 (Proverbs 3:27: “Do not withhold good from those to whom it is due when it is in your power to act.”).
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| GAPer hangout |
I head up to the Masonic Temple. There the monks are creating a sand mandala dedicated to Akshobhya, one of the Five Tathagata Buddhas.
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The five Tathagata Buddhas are white Vairocana, blue Akshobhya, yellow Ratnasambhava, red Amitabha and green Amoghasiddhi. |
I asked one of the monks why Akshobhya was chosen. He said local people who had organized the exhibition had chosen it. According to the Organizers’ Website:
After several months of community voting, the mandala selected to be created is Akshobhya: The Unshakable Victor for Conflict Resolution & Peace, which “represents an immovable force of goodness and enlightenment, even in the most challenging of times. This relatively new mandala was designed and constructed in 2002 at the recommendation of His Holiness the Dalai Lama in response to September 11, 2001.”
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| Statue of Akshobhya made by Zanabazar, First Bogd Gegeen of Mongolia, now in the Zanabazar Fine Arts Museum in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia |
The closing ceremony, when the sand from the mandala will be gathered up and ceremoniously deposited in Wills Creek, will take place on May 3. I hope to get there, but it is calling for rain most of the day Saturday, so we’ll see.
When I got back to Frostburg I was startled to see an announcement about the sand mandala on the marquee of the Palace Theater on Main Street. Somehow I had missed this before.
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| Tibetan is spelled wrong but let’s not quibble. |
