Good morning LA
It’s 8:38 a.m. here, the sky is already bright and later this morning – closer to 11 when the museum opens – I’m planning to stop by LACMA, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. Today they’re running the docent tour of Realms of the Dharma: Buddhist Art Across Asia. It’s a show with more than 180 pieces, from temples and monasteries across Asia: Buddhas, bodhisattvas, mandalas, paintings on silk, even objects that were once part of real meditation practices.
Walking through those rooms is like stepping into a different time zone. You get these statues with their hands in mudra, tiny details that speak about compassion or protection. The paintings pull you into the idea of cycles – birth, death, karma – and you can almost feel the room asking you to slow down.
LA is leaning more and more into this spiritual side lately. The city can be loud, chaotic, full of screens and billboards – but there’s a growing current of people looking for stillness and balance. Friends from New York or Miami often laugh about it, like it’s some West Coast luxury. But it’s just a different way of living: out here, taking a pause feels like part of the rhythm of life.
And LACMA isn’t just quiet contemplation. Once a year it flips and becomes a fashion circus: designers, actors, stylists showing up in wild outfits that blow up on Instagram. It’s part of the magic – but today I’m after something slower, something more grounding.
After the tour, I’ll probably head over to Levitated Mass, Michael Heizer’s giant rock suspended over a walkway. There’s something humbling about walking under it, like time is pressing on you but also lifting off your shoulders. And before leaving, I always stop at Urban Light – those vintage lampposts that turn into a glowing temple when the sun goes down.
This is LA right now: it dares you to look past the surface and find a quieter beat underneath all the noise.
Sara…
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Sara Dal Monte
Digital Journalist | Photographer | Art Director
Los Angeles • Sure-com America
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SARA DAL MONTE 