Hear That Whining Noise? Those Are My Nerves

Two more days.  For the past three or four days I've felt my nerves wind up.  I am so nervous, excited, and anxious to go that I'm starting to get jittery.

In an attempt to distract myself, the Wife and I went to the Omaha Healing Arts Center, Omaha's home of Yoga, Tai Chi, And other eastern arts.  The center was hosting Tibetan monks from the Gaden Shartse monastery of southern India.

While in Omaha the monks were providing blessings to homes and businesses.  We were there to see the making of a sand mandala.  The pattern is intricate and very labor intensive.  The skill and patience is impressive to say the least.  Pictures of the monks making the mandala can be found here.

Careful placement of colored sand.

We walked around taking pictures.  They had different things related to their rituals - hats, horns (like the one we bought in Bhutan), and cloth mandalas - on display as the monks worked to recordings of chanting.  We ended up purchasing a CD and a bracelet from the monks.

Working on the mandala.

While observing the making of the Mandala and taking pictures distracted me for at least an hour, I have to say my nerves are right back to where they were and even getting worse.

A while back I remember writing saying that I wasn't as nervous as I'd been my first Camino.  I may have mentioned it a couple times.  This week ... I think I'm cramming six month's worth of worrying into six days and no number of mandalas will calm me down.  You know what it will take?  A flight to Europe and 600+ miles of walking.  That should do it.