"The glacier knocks in the cupboard, The desert sighs in the bed, And the crack in the teacup opens A lane to the land of the dead."

-W.H. Auden

Sunday, April 9, 2017

Temenos Tropicalia, Or The Color Of Sacred Space

Last week, my son and I went to lunch at a restaurant with an unusual color scheme. Despite the statues of Buddha and the mandala wall hangings, it had a distinctly Jamaican flair.
It had been my son's idea to eat there, he had been wanting to come for a while.
After we'd ordered and sat down at the table, he told me why.
He said, I don't understand it,  but for some reason this feels so much like home. As if I came from somewhere that looked just like this. But I can't think of where. Just 'home.'
While there were a few places in Victoria that had bright color schemes, they were few and far between. While it's possible this is what he was remembering, what he wouldn't have known (unless he'd read that post linked above) is that I've had dreams of similarly colored places my entire life. And if anything feels like home to me, I suppose that would be it.

It occurs to me that perhaps sacred space doesn't always need to be a space at all. Maybe it only needs to be a color.

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