Temple of Karnak – Hypostyle Hall 1250 B.C.E.
...exploring the Architecture of Breathlessness…
Perhaps it is fair to say that an encounter with art or music possessing the quality of true Beauty could suddenly cause what might be called a ‘sacred interruption’ ……..a directionless dive into eternity in which all our feelings of separation fall away into a grand, but utterly humble, sense of unity.
To our complete surprise this experience is actually who we really are…….it has happened to every one of us at one time or another. It is not the exclusive possession of special priests or extraordinarily artists-it is simply a glimpse of our true nature which is always present, behind and within, the clatter of our thinking minds.
Beauty is its name…………
Certain artists, architects, musicians & other makers will sometimes align themselves in such a way as to suddenly deliver it……the ingredients of Beauty comes through them and arranges itself in a visible form.
Beauty then waits, outside of clock-time, to arrest us……….in Love.
As an architect and composer over the last 40 years, I have desired a deeper understanding of Beauty as the central and sacred missing quality of our culture’s embattled soul. Because our society has increasingly operated with a materialistic paradigm for the last 250 years it has all-too-often produced buildings and objects that are vacant and without the sensibility of Beauty.
‘…here were decent godless people. Their only monument the asphalt road. And a thousand lost golf balls.’ T.S. Eliot
Being an incurable idealist, I couldn’t bear to yield to this bleakness and so, a couple of years ago I set out to fashion a ‘guide’ to Beauty for my building clients which became a kind of Précis called ‘Why Beauty Matters’.
With a debt of gratitude to Rupert for appearing one afternoon in 2009 over the airwaves on my design-studio radio; I have very naturally gone on to absorb his deeply profound and brilliant vision of non-duality as a sort of ‘kindred enrichment’ to my lifelong intuitions of universal Beauty.
As you explore further below, you may receive this piece as an open invitation to consider ‘Beauty’ as not only a desirable quality but more importantly a sacred doorway into the limitless experience of our undivided and shared Truth.
