Hilary, (on top), Beatrice, Andrew, and William Thompson at the construction site of the Lindisfarne Chapel in 1980.
The
Lindisfarne Chapel
"Be still, and
know that I am God." Psalm 46:10
La noche sosegada
En par de los levantes
del aurora,
La musica callada,
La soledad sonora,
La
cena que recrea y enamora.*
St. John of the Cross
The Lindisfarne Association is a
fellowship of artists, scientists, and religious contemplatives devoted to the
study and realization of a new planetary culture for our new global
civilization. The Christian-Buddhist dialogue and collaboration have been
major parts of Lindisfarne's work since its founding in 1972, and the Crestone
Mountain Zen Center was founded at a meeting of the Lindisfarne Board of
Directors at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine in New York City in 1988.
The
Lindisfarne Chapel, which is still under construction and not yet officially
open to the public, has been conceived and designed as an interfaith sanctuary
for silent meditation; it is intended to be a sacred space rather than a
religious place, and therefore is meant to be more an invocation of the future
than an evocation of the past. This chapel has been created in a time of
religious warfare all over the world, and so it is critical to the survival of
humanity that a space be brought into being in which differing religions can
come together. You will notice that there is no iconography that makes
one tradition feel at home but another feel out of place. In spirit, the
chapel follows the principles of "No decoration, only proportion; no
iconography, only geometry." The stone ring embodies the presence of
the elemental powers of Earth; the baked bricks of the floor embody the human
realm of the transformed nature that is culture; the geometrical lattice of the
dome embodies the interweaving of the Celestial Intelligences associated with
the angelic and boddhisativic realms, and the skylight embodies the center in
which the elemental, human, and angelic realms come together to create a vessel
for the pure light of Emptiness at the center.
Guided by the principles of the Perennial
Wisdom of the past, the designer, William Irwin Thompson, the architects Keith
Critchlow and John Barton, the structural engineer Tony Hunt, and the builders Ivan Hess, Michael Baron, and Robert Van
Iwaarden, have worked to create an expression of the sacred geometry that
underlies a seashell or a sunflower, a Christian cathedral or a Buddhist
temple. But just as an understanding of geometry underlies the perception
of specific concrete forms, so does the experience of contemplative silence
underlie the various traditions of ritual and prayer. The Lindisfarne
Chapel is not intended to be a temple for religious rituals or a theatre for
the performing arts, and if someone enters this space with this secondary
purpose in mind, we only ask that one honor the primary purpose of the space
with a few moments of silent meditation before turning to song or movement.
*"The tranquil night,/ At the time of the rising dawn,/ Silent music,/ Resounding solitude/The supper that delights/And deepens love."
[Note set at the entrance to the Chapel in 1992.]
The Altar is a three hundred year old millstone from San Luis, the oldest town in Colorado. It is meant to be symbolic of "Hamlet's Mill," and the precession of the equinox in the 25,920 years of the zodiacal cycle discussed by my former colleague at MIT, Hertha von Dechend at our lunches in the student cafeteria and at greater length in her book with Giorgio di Santillana, Hamlet's Mill.
2009 The interior with new skylight provided by the Crestone Mountain Zen Center.
