Monday, March 21, 2011

More On The Outdoor Shrine

I went through my photos and made a collage of the "temple" Mark found last weekend. It's hard to believe that we were there only last week.


I'm still trying to articulate what I like about the place.  Maybe it's the repeating geometric elements, like these pillars.  Or perhaps it's the faux-oldness of the place.  This structure can't be much older than sixty years. 


Or maybe it's the play between the natural and the cultivated; between geometric shapes like circles and pillars and fractal ones like the trees; between stone and water.


But mostly, I think it has something to do with it being an outdoor shrine.  While making photographic discoveries, I had a sense of the elemental and of enclave.  I don't want give the impression that I was frolicking with Flower Fairies, or waiting for Ents; but there was a current there -- something vast and mysterious:  like where a river meets the ocean, or where two tree trunks make a portal, or when the moon rises over a desert mesa.

2 comments:

Pomona Writer said...

NOTHING wrong with waiting for Ents!

John said...

As someone who has had experiences with trees, I should have chosen a different example. It was a mistake to include the Flower Fairies and the Ents in the same phrase.

And, to be clear, the phrase "frolicking with the Flower Fairies" is meant to invoke an image of a Disney-style-Barbie-with-dealyboppers subject of Victorian doggerel (or faux Celtic music) -- whose sole purpose of existence is to grant wishes or dispense hidden wisdom to privileged seekers.