They Tore Down My world

Musings on a Girl From The North Country

Girl From The North Country - Duluth Minnesota

Tibetan Buddhist Monks from the Deprung Loseling Monastery create an intricate sand mandala at Emory University every spring (I think in the spring), and then they ceremoniously tear it down.

The key points of the ritual:

∙ Creation: Monks spend several days meticulously pouring colored sand grain by grain to form an elaborate, geometric mandala — often representing a deity’s palace or a sacred cosmological diagram.

∙ Purpose: The process itself is a form of meditation and devotion, meant to generate healing and positive energy.

∙ Destruction: Once complete, the mandala is intentionally swept away — a powerful symbol of impermanence (anicca), one of Buddhism’s core teachings. Nothing lasts forever, not even something beautiful that took days to create.

∙ The sand: The collected sand is typically poured into a nearby body of water to spread the mandala’s blessings outward into the world.

I just played the part of Mr. Burke in a musical, “Girl From The North Country’, the book by Conner McPherson, music by Bob Dylan, and the music arranged by Simon Hale. We performed at Actors Express In Atlanta, GA. It was one of the most beautiful theatrical experiences I have ever participated in, both on stage, and back stage in the green room. We had a group of seventeen actors / singers / dancers, four musicians, maybe ten folks handling stage management duties, lights, sound, striking and preparing props, and of course the director.

This experience was, for me, and I dare say for all of us, was not unlike the sand mandalas that the Tibetan Monks create at Emory University. Perhaps a lot of my love for this recent process is due to the mental and spiritual space I have found myself in, enduring, for the last two years. In a sense, the sand mandalas of my life have been wiped away in the last two or so years, and I am tasked to build another mandala of my life, not knowing where I will get the colorful sand from, or how I will rebuild. I am working to be reborn. It is not a mid-life crisis. It is in a sense a spiritual crisis. Where nothing makes sense anymore, and yet, it all makes sense, more so than it ever has before. A loss of meaning, yet meaning screams all around me, I AM HERE…JUMP IN….JUMP IN.

As I write that, I am not sure what I actually mean. I digress.

We closed last Sunday, a week ago today. I came downstairs from the dressing room, late in the show for my last scene of the last show, and I saw two or three folks walk in the hallway where all the costumes are stored. They had tools with them. They were coming to tear down our world after the show ended. They were there to tear down the set. To cast the sand into the water … impermanence.

We started rehearsing for Girl From The North Country on December 30, 2025. We closed last weekend, We created a most intricate work of art IMHO. When I reflect on all the ‘moving parts’, the process is enormous. Choreography. Stage Blocking. Music. Singing. Actor intention, interaction. Voices speaking. Bodies taking in the dialogue, not necessarily speaking any word. So many small pieces of gorgeous art that would be impossible for anyone or any group to entirely take in. Too much for any one of us embedded in the story to take in; we can only experience so much as an actor inside the story. And the audience, another player just off stage, playing an integral part of the story-telling, seemingly just as important as any lead or minor part.

Alan Watts used to say that talking about reality doesn’t require that we talk about stuff or matter. What is more important is pattern. Theater is all about pattern. Energy. Movement. Action. Patterns that are repeated every night, and patterns that change every night, sometimes ever so slightly, sometimes by a great deal. Sometimes mistakes are made, and they can hold great meaning in and of themselves. Mistakes throw in an unexpected variable, and it is often wonderful how the players take that in and run with it, ‘Pressing On’. Or an understudy takes over a role, and recipe is delightfully different.

It struck me every night that as I traversed back stage to make a certain entrance, I would always see Riley and Evan coming down the stairs, or Peter and Anny coming up the stairs, or Pamela coming around the corner. Or Robin sitting in a hallway chair waiting for the song “Tight Connection” to run its course for his entrance. At the top of the show the musicians and several of us actors and a stage manager would gather at entrance A for the top of the show. We would always show up, on time, in the same place, at the same time.

There is something comforting about that.

Rarely, someone would forget that they were supposed to be on stage. I did that early in the run. I was in the green room cussing out my friends who I thought did not show up after I had bought tickets for them. Turns out they were in the audience, just in different seats than I thought they would be in. Brandon took me by the shoulder - ‘hey, aren’t you supposed to be on stage now’. I was about 1/2 page late for the scene. But the mandala recovered, I think. We still built a beautiful structure.

We created a mandala every evening, and after 2 hours and 15 minutes, we tore the sand mandala down, simply by ending. Audience, Actor, Audience, Stage Crew simply disappeared into the night. Yet somehow, each evening, that mandala showed back up. We created it every evening, and we added to it every evening. We built one sand mandala that was torn down last Sunday, and we built a unique mandala every evening.

Catching my attention these days is ‘endings’. Life seems to be a series of ending, each and every day. This show ended. This meal I am enjoying right now as I write, will end soon, and I will be in my car, an experience which will end. Sometimes the endings are painful, and take so long …. do they take a long time to recover from the ending, or is the ending itself a seeming eternity when you are inside of that experience. I think it is both.

To all my cast members, behind the scenes people. I deeply thank you for creating this beautiful work of art called ‘Girl From The North Country’, and I deeply thank you for the time we had both on stage and off during this run. We had a special group of people. I am thankful for that, and for you.

Nothing lasts forever, not even something beautiful that took days (weeks) to create.

The collected sand is typically poured into a nearby body of water to spread the mandala’s blessings outward into the world.