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Silence and Belief |
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written
by minhan / 10.24.2005 |
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| Silence and Belief |
1 of 1 |
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Assignment |
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The pantheon and the cloister are both walled areas; however, one is huge and daily filled with loud tourists, while the other is quaint and sparsely filled with nuns who have taken a vow of silence.
When I first walked into the cloister, my eyes first traveled to the source of the light. The cloister had a gravel garden with a fountain centerpiece open to the natural light. From this, light pierced into every crevice of the garden and spread to the hallways lining the garden. The tall walls blocked all the external sounds, in turn creating a haven safe from the harsh world. The light shining on the white stones in the courtyard made the stones seem very sacred like every stone was there for a reason. For what seemed like a timeless period, I stood there under the archway just staring at these stones, my foot wavering in the air just above the stones, should I do it, should I invade this sacred area. I put my left foot in, then my right, took a few steps in and then quickly walked back out into the hallway, content with staring in. What a powerful effect this place had on me. Within only a few minutes, the area had brought back to my mind one of the few insecurities that I thought I had resolved. Standing there looking into this area, I saw myself at twelve years old, in the school cafeteria being told by my friend the wrongness of my belief.
Feeling like an outcast, I felt like I was trespassing and did not belong here in this religious place. I had not felt like this in years. Since college, I thought I was more certain of myself and my insecurities. However, being in an area that I could feel the strong presence of many devoted nuns praying for humanity, made me feel small and foreign. The aura of peace and kindness in the area from the devotion of the nuns created an area I felt was too sacred for me to deserve to be in. This had not happened to me in all the other religious sites, such as the many churches; it was this nice simple yet very meaningful cloister that affected me the most. The whole time looking in, a time of self-reflection, my mind could not stop struggling with the concept of that invisible barrier that my mind would not allow me to cross as I tried to physically cross the line to the courtyard.
Unlike the simple cloisters, the churches have high ceilings and apses all very heavenly decorated with gold trimmings, colorful mosaics, and beautifully detailed frescoes. The decorations offer my mind a distraction. They call for my full attention to observe the fine details, the glimmering of the golden stars, the many small tiles of the mosaics, the brushstrokes that were carefully laid down hundreds of years ago…. All the grandeur of the church provided a means for my mind to escape the original goal of the area.
Entering anything, there is always this invisible barrier, where it may be a split second or 10 minutes before my conscious mind lets me cross it physically. In the cloister, it took me around an hour to be able to walk across the courtyard but the effects still last after days, while in the pantheon only a slight pause was needed. The pantheon with its closed area and an open area letting natural light in from the top loses its religious atmosphere the minute the first tour group enters each day and the pause at the entrance comes from the awe of the grandeur of the architecture rather than the grandeur of the spiritual power of the church.
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