| Home Intro
Tour
Makers
Sponsors
Epilogue
Guestbook
|
|
THE SPIRE
Man penetrating the sky to reach God
|
On top of the belfry rises
the spire, a light elegant wooden construction,
an empty shell apart from the bell, the wind
howling through its rafters. The sort of ruin you
see on a skyline after the edifice has been
destroyed by fire. It must have been splendid at
one time. Penetrating the sky to reach heaven,
this desire of man to go higher and higher, has
taken him to the moon, and might take him to Mars. |
Man extending the
boundaries of being by ascending into imaginary
worlds.
The inside of the spire is
intact. The richly inlaid floor has kept its
glory. Nature survives.
|
|
|
The tower becomes the Tree
of Life with its three zones: heaven, earth and
the underworld. The branches (spire) penetrate
the celestial world, and the roots descend into
the abyss. And in between you have the world of
imagination, which unites heaven and earth.
Imagination, like a tree, is a source of endless
regeneration. Imagination, man's central faculty,
that of the soul, acts as a vital bridge between
senses and intellect, mind and body, spirit and
matter. |
| The wood outside is
blackened by fire. The inside is like a pool of
gold. It is a Phoenix of belief rising from the
ashes of beliefs that went before. We have a
memory of past rites and beliefs, thus we have
managed to protect old traditions and values. We
cannot go into the next millennium with a clean
sheet, we must carry our history with us, and
learn that we are human and fallible. |
|
|
On
top of the spire is the pietà, in the shape of a
cross. A female figure carrying a dead man. She
is the mother, the wife, the daughter, the
sister, the friend. Pietà is Italian for pity,
compassion.
The illustration of her
suffering awakes in us a deep compassion, a deep
sympathy for universal suffering, both physical
and moral.
The pietà sums up the
whole world of the clock - the sadness of the one
left behind, and the courage it takes to carry on.
|
Click
here to return to the main TOUR page
Please use the links
to the left to navigate this site
|
|
|
