Songkran - Chiang Mai 2551 Part 2

The water throwing party I posted Saturday stems from the traditional washing of the Buddha for the New Year. This small Buddha and fragrant water has been at the front door of our building for the last three days.

This [Day Three of Songkran] is the first official day of the New Year and on this day people cleanse the Buddha images in their homes as well as in the temples with scented water. from Chiang Mai.com

Yesterday we walked over Wat Padaeng, the small temple a five minute walk from our building. We met Phra(monk) Kamphong (not sure I'm getting this quite right) whom we met when we first came. He showed us around the temple grounds and explained what was going to happen today. The sand pagoda he's standing next to will be filled with flags that people plant.

On the second day of the New Year festival, Thai people traditionaly carry sand into temples compounds in order to build a small pagoda ("PHRA CHEDI SAI" - พระเจดีย์ทราย). These sand piles represent personal pagodas built as part of the merit-making ritual. People leaving a temple during the previous year have taken with them temple dust. Taking sand into the temple during Songkran festival atones for what they have taken out. from Thaiworldview

Here's a sneak preview of today. The same sand pagoda, already filled with flags when we arrived at 7am.

We walked up to the upper pavillion. You can see a sort of fence an wall along the top of the ridge. I asked him what was up there. It's an open zoo. Hmmm, so maybe this is why there are gaur so close into town. The area above would be contiguous with the area behind Wat Umong where we saw the gaur. Pieces of the puzzle show up when least expected.

Here's one of the two almost life sized wooden elephants in the pavilion. The Buddha you can see, he told us, was one who was able to explain Buddhist philosophy in short, concise stories.

These trees were planted here in January. They are sala trees, the tree under which Buddha was born.

Having carried the Boddhisattva in her womb for precisely ten lunar months, Maya gave a birth to him. On the full moon in May, passing by the Lumbini grove on her way to her home town, she was captivated by the beauty of the flowering sala trees and stepped down from her palanquin to walk amongst the trees in the grove. As she reached for a branch of a sala tree, which bent itself down to meet her hand, the pangs of birth came upon her. Thus, while other women are depicted as giving birth sitting or lying down, the Bodhisattva's mother is shown delivering her child while standing and holding on to the branch of a sala tree in the garden of Lumbini. From ORIAS.

Here's a view of Chiang Mai from the Wat Padaeng.

In the evening we had dinner with J. She's the girlfriend of a relative of Joan's by marriage and a film editor. She's here for two months editing a documentary film made by a musician of hill tribe music and ceremonies. The filmmaker wanted to preserve some of this while it is still here. I understand the sentiment well. She'll be back in Chicago soon for a fund raiser so she can continue working on this film.

After two and a half years of filming in the jungles and mountains of Laos, Myanmar, Thailand and China, "The Music of the Golden Triangle and the Cycles of Life" has moved into post production. The documentary film and CD will be released in 2008.

The Golden Triangle, a Chicago gallery of rare furnishings from Southeast Asia, China and Central Europe, will be hosting a reception to support the ongoing work of "The Music of the Golden Triangle and the Cycles of Life". 22 May 2008

The Golden Triangle
330 N. Clark Street
Chicago, Illinois, 60610.

info@goldentriangle.biz Tel: 1 (312) 755 1266
from Music and the Cycles of Life