The following is of your intrest;best to download and read at leisure.
best Pyrate

Sacred Architecture

Fri and it's the fourth of July
My day off from the C-ment plant and I am just settling into my old porch
glider sipping an iced peach tea admiring the handiwork of the  mowed lawn.

I put my feet up and let the cool of the shade soothe me of my aching
endeavors.

The  new cut grass smells earthy and warm ; and as the stone  fountain
 shares gurgles and giggles with little Mary .I watch her chase  her cousin
Sadie
barefoot  around the tumbling pools and garden in squeals of delight.
They are both chasing after  butterfly and great blue dragon flys
who dart and dash the rocky wet edges of lawn and garden with  summertime
ritual
The craggy stone pavers are hot on little feet  and  the 3 yr olds keep up a
lively  kabuki of hop scotch from rock to lawn in a dizzying  pattern of dance
that would impress the great Astair and retire the rest of us to lounge
chairs for the rest of the day.

 Its cool here in the shade;  Old Glory ( the 1930 version ) hangs placidly
patriotically from the rafters  of our Creole cottage.
From around the back of the  house I can hear ma-ma half listening to a local
radio call in station where you can get the best butter beans and watermelon
(pronounced Wa -der-mellon) interspede with old Suza recordings  and a
smattering of hot air speeches by  local politicians who are kissing babies and
anything else that wiggles  in this off year E-lection (election) time.

A year or so ago I installed an old ceiling fan above this glider;
 its lazy whirr moves the noontime air around just enough to keep the mud
daubers busy from alighting above the columns and ceiling and making their muddy
nests; and my eyes open just enough   to follow the merry doings of little
girls.

I keep a stack of books nearby; summer reading if you may  of odd subjects
and a few 50's magazines of questionable nature that I call "Art Books",....and
mama calls smut
I argue that all architecture and art comes from such line drawings good bad
or otherwise.
(See erotic cave art Dordogne)
Ma-ma dosen't care for the Magazines or my arguments as such ; if it were up
to her she would "
Throw out all the trash" she said eyeing me with efficiency and purpose
..And well as the  kids are around ; and as she is making the lunch today
I puruse  from the pile of summer literature a series of narratives  from
Vitruvius the great Hellenistic sage and writer of sacred architecture.

It seems my porch and the great Greek gods have a lot in common; in origin
anyway
the sacred texts go on and say :
The order and ornament of "da poach"..or porch (portico)
 seems almost too  grand to consider. Its original s function was to equipped
or prepare the hunter soldier or priest  initiate with the tools and symbols
of the past  victory into sacrifice for
good omens for the future campaign.
Ornament was function and not beauty as we interpret it . .

The portico of the temple;   was a place of entry into a space to honor the
God.and make gifts of sacrifice

I resonate with this as my pay check is the first thing that gets sacrificed
on  the altar of this temple. .(see love and  marriage)

Imagine my surprise and excitement to think that my painted  wood boxed
columns were really Dorian slaves and Persian captives taken in the Pelopesian
wars of the 5th cetury b.c. hidden secretly inside to serve me the hunter
gatherer gain providence for  for favor and
fortunate  consequence.

Vitruvious my grand you have helped me see past the mud dobber nests and fuzz
bound captives of spiders into the very greatness  my "poach" errr..Portico.
Yes my portico as I interpret it from these hidden texts are a series of
sacred initiations and entrances into  the last great refuge of a god priest now
humbly masquerading before all
 as  a dottering gardener and lazy poolboy   husband
A warrior king whose tools of the afterlife will be a weedeater and a
spritzer of roundup if I am not diligent in my earth bound duties as an agent of your
holiness and pay tribute with my honor of the old gods..
As I plunge into the sacred texts I see now  it is  my mistress who  serves
me lunch,
  I eye the Palladian scene around me from the  elevated comfort of my 40's
metal divan.
Everything including the crab grass pleases the eye
The portico  porch wraps around the elegant landscape of my temple
 .The table  grapes are excellent and the advocato with sprouts aren't bad
either
even the heat is a trivial distraction.
Hidden with in my porch I see  the sacred  sisters of Ion , Dorian
Corinthian,
and dancing slave girls of the   Carytid women, with upraised hands ,holding
as columns
 the peeling paint of the  heart pine  soffits that have by nature the sacred
ornaments of victory with the symbols of   eggs  darts ,dentils and cymrecta
of line and order hidden
to compliment my good fortune
I weep as my glass is full under blue sky and puffy white clouds ; It becomes
clear
now that secretly the gods are serving me .
My children are singing, my dog scratches his fleas less
all this is a blessing ; a link between man and gods to please and make ready
through structure a temple , a paradise for the hunter priest to enter ...
and be served by the order and beauty due him..


Under a rusting roof of tin I ponder my position and my responsibilities to
the gods;
if called I will serve nobly, weighing the outcome of my decisions with the
bravery of my ancestors based on stars and the interpretation of the entrails
of the financial pages.
I will serve and sacrifice all to my gods as I am duty bound . .
Its time
From deep within the sacred cave I am called for  by the oracle.
I rise and wash my hands symbolically in a bowl provided for me
 ; I have been called; for a second time
I make haste
Its my turn to do the dishes.

Happy forth of July Michael

stonemasons journal /allrts

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