2009-01-28
empty yet brimming
Salisbury Cathedral
There is something very corporeal about this church. The inside is a cavity, an organ. The ceiling lines bow into archways, these beams are bent and curved; the space is overflowing with eternal souls and prayers that press up against the sides as they float and rise. The ceiling is lined with rows upon rows of arches, like a set of inflated ribs, like lungs fully inhaling. The ceiling inspires, rising up and breathing deep. The beams are bones, a grimy, stained once-white, sturdy and stretched out, reaching upward and meeting in the middle. There is the symmetry of a body, endless repetition, hearty muscular contraction, there are tendons pulling and releasing as they flex and relax. Ligaments line the glowing windows.
The church is an empty yet brimming chamber. A skeleton, a muscle, a heart, a lung. It is my body, it is the weighty things like faith and love reaching high and pressing deep: the church is a concave hollow, bent by and filled with the air of our prayers.
leesah-likes at 1:21 a.m.