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What do a musician mom, Madonna, and Tibetan monks have in common?
Self-destruction.
Not the wasting away life through drinking/drugs/food/sex kind of destruction, more of a reinvention, killing off the old to make way for the new. Something Buddhists call self-realization. As a musician (and I use that term loosely) and mother of small children, I take comfort in this idea of change being inevitable. And I am definitely familiar with material things being destroyed by the hands of little ones. But, what about non-material things, like dreams, ideals, or phases of life? Should these too be destroyed? Thrown out to the Goodwill like key-shaped earrings and shoulder pads? I cannot always be a young, responsibility-free woman, chasing dreams and guitar riffs, any more than Madonna can get away with grinding bedposts on stage as a senior citizen. Seriously, at 50, maybe we can still root for her, but does anyone want to see her humping a pillow in her 70s?
The phases of Madonna’s career go something like, material girl, bubble gum pop, religious ambiguity, sexcapades, and dancing queen. Each phase is complete with wardrobe, hair, and make-up changes, and a variety of accents. She is not afraid of change. She is not afraid of destroying what once was in order to grow as an artist or as a person. Which is more than I can say for a lot of people. Know anyone who’s had the same haircut for decades? Probably not a Madonna fan. Maybe Crystal Gayle. I love the reinventions of Madonna. Like a lot of artists, she expresses her life phases through her music, and like a lot of women, she expresses her mood through her style. Sort of like that goth bitch phase I went through as a teenager, when my biggest fashion dilemma was worrying if my black shirts would fade in the laundry and no longer match my black skirts and combat boots.
I don’t think Madonna has gone through a Free Tibet phase yet, but maybe she should. I would pay to see some monks open for Madonna. It could be called, “The Enlightenment Tour,” complete with neon Buddhas and Kama Sutra reenactments. This lineup might actually work because Tibetan monk artists have a thing or two in common with Madonna, though, not in terms of wardrobe or hairstyles. And, as far as I know, the monks have yet to put out a sex book. But they have established the tradition of sand mandalas, which is all about realization of the true self, and that is very Madonna.
The artistic tradition of sand mandala painting involves a team of monks who assemble incredibly intricate designs made of multi-colored sand. The process takes weeks to complete, as each space is filled with tubes of dyed sand funneled into a pre-set design. The mandalas are circular and contain geometric shapes, animals, and deities. Once completed, the sand painting is ritualistically dismantled, and the sand is either distributed to onlookers as a blessing or cast into moving water to bless the environment. Why would monks destroy a work of art that took hundreds of painstaking hours to complete? To remind us that life and all of its highs, lows, challenges, and chores, is impermanent. Even the most beautiful of creations, like the mandalas, should be released. Appreciated for sure, but ultimately, destroyed. That’s a far cry from the practice of framing and mounting art to be admired, studied, and protected from fingerprints. 
I embrace the idea of impermanence in my personal life and my creative life. If I write a song, I try to stay in the moment, curled over my guitar and notebook, like those monks hunched over their mandalas. I usually get interrupted by a child or two asking for chocolate milk or yelling for toilet paper, but I don’t get upset. I just pick up where I left off. Sometimes I write something really, really good, that I’m proud of and maybe want to share with friends, but I’m not attached to that either. I’m not attached to any sort of outcome when it comes to songwriting. And, that’s the biggest difference between 22 year old me and 33 year old me.
There are no big dreams attached to my music. The joy of it is truly in the moment,
