Philip E. Harding

Mythologizing

 I have often wanted to live in some ancient time, rather than my own. This is a fine time in terms of human knowledge, technology, abundance of food and personal liberty, but there is a certain level of mystery and magic missing. I am too conscious of my position in time and history. I feel too superior and am not able to enter the worlds of spirit and myths open to our ancestors. There was once a time when a shaman put on a mask he found himself within a myth surrounded by real spirits, heroes and gods. Some cultures still act out their myths but mostly as a display for tourists. The masks are now warehoused in museums. We trust anthropological studies of shamans more than we do the shamans themselves.

 I am intrigued by an idea Mircea Eliade outlined in Cosmos and History. The idea is that for traditional people, life is only real to the extent that it conforms to the myths. That is, myths are what is true and real, rather than our ordinary lives. The young Babylonian Warrior lived the Gilgamesh epic. The Egyptian Pharaoh was truly the son of the sun. The Christian, be he 12th or 21st century, is living in the "end times" before the day of judgment. This living in the myth gives life a kind of epic, heroic quality.

 One way of living within the myth is to physically build it. For example, every Hindu temple is a cosmological diagram. Every temple architect participates in the act of creating the universe every time he lays out the foundation of a temple. Ancient Architects the world over build homes, temples and cities according to a cosmic plan that allows people not simply to live out life on earth below heaven, but allows them to live within the myth, within the cosmic plan, within the heavens.

 Especially when designing temples, everything -- from orientation, proportions of plan, placement of altar, when to perform which rituals -- is determined by canons that link the temporal with the eternal order. "The intention of the temple," writes W.R. Lethaby in his work, Architecture Mysticism and Myth (1891), "was to set up a local reduplication of the temple not made with hands, the World Temple itself - a sort of model to scale, its form governed by the science of time; it was a heaven, an observatory and an almanac. Its foundation was a sacred ceremony, the time carefully chosen by augury, and its relation to the heavens defined by observation. Its place was exactly below the celestial prototype; like that it was sacred, like that strong, its foundations could not be moved...." In ancient times, astronomy, religion and architecture were one system. Temples and, at times, entire cities, are built as miniature reproductions of the universe. "As above, so below."

 In many cultures there is a mythic image of a cosmic mountain -- the center of the world, where heaven is connected to the earth. This image is then translated into architectural form. For example the Mythological Mount Olympus of the Greeks, the dwelling place of the gods, became archetype or model of the hilltop Acropolis over looking many Greek cities. The temples on the Acropolis are not places to house people for worship, but are actual dwelling places of the gods. Similarly, within the temple on Jerusalem's temple mount, was the "holy of holies," -- the dwelling place of God.

 A unique image of a cosmic mountain is found in the Buddhist stupa structure in Barobudur Java. The lower level, comprising five levels based on a square plan, is filled with sculpture galleries depicting all the pleasures and pains of earthly life. Rising above these earthy plains to the level of spirit, one finds three circular levels where little bell-shaped stupas enclose statues of Buddha in meditation.

 In both Mesopotamia and Central America, there are great stepped pyramids surmounted by temples. These man-made mountains provided the bridge where the gods could come down to earth and where people could ascend to meet them. In his book on sacred geometry, Nigel Pennich, quoting an earlier work by James Fergusson (1892), gives a fascinating description of the cosmological symbolism of the Mesopotamian ziggurat at Korsabad. "This temple, as we know from the decipherment of the cylinders that were found on its angles, was dedicated to the seven planets or heavenly spheres, and we find it consequently adorned with the colors of each. The lower, which was also richly paneled, was black, the color of Saturn; the next, orange, the color of Jupiter; the third red, emblematic of Mars; the fourth yellow, belonging to the sun; the fifth and sixth green and blue respectively, as dedicated to Venus and Mercury; and the upper probably white, that being the color belonging to the Moon, whose place in the Chaldean system would be uppermost."

 In some parts of the world, temples are not built so much as a cosmic mountain but as an observatory where people could set their lives in relation to eternal cosmic myths. Throughout Europe are Neolithic cromlechs, stone circles set up with astronomical relationships the most famous being Stonehenge. Stonehenge and other stone circles are variously constructed with viewing lines for equinox and solstice sunrises as well as maximum and minimum rising and setting positions of the moon. Some researchers have shown that these circles also reveal a sophisticated grasp of geometry and meteorology. In Central America, temples and whole cities are constructed with astronomical relationships. In his book The Night Sky, Richard Grossinger writes:

 "The intertwining of number systems, stellar observation, and sacred architecture is a hallmark of ancient astronomy. The Meso-American temples are so complicated that dozens of stars and planets, as well as the Sun and the Moon, are built into their architecture. The vast plaza of Teotihuacan is as much the night sky as the Earth. This is a cosmological necessity. If men were not free to construct and visit representations of stellar relationships, then they could not study their own destiny. They would be cosmologically illiterate. Teotihuacan was apparently constructed so that the Pleiades passed visibly from its Eastern to its Western cross; this is the same star cluster that rises with the Sun on its first annual passage across the zenith in that locale. The Zapotec site of Monte Alban appears to have its baseline set according to the path of Cappella for exactly the same reason."

 "The Caracol is a prehistoric tower in Yucatan later used by the Mayans and named in historical times for its resemblance to a snail shell. Inexplicably asymmetric, it speaks architectural nonsense but stellar wisdom. Many of its windows and structural angles mark positions of Venus, including the extreme northern and southern points reached every eighth year. Another window allows a direct line of site to the equinox sunset; while another series of windows and staircase openings lines up with the star Arcernar. What is misshapen on the ground is caused by a building "in" of the sky. The Carocol contains other viewing lines for Castor, Pollux, Canopus rising, and Formalhaut setting, events that could seem almost compelled by the zigzags of the structure, as if the stars had no choice but to obey the ancestor-architects generations after their death. It is not man compelling the stars; it is man in harmony with them, tying his own span, as a single ripple to the wave of eternity."

 "To the North are American Indian mounds, many of them, if not all, set in the ground in the exact pattern that stars form in the sky. Some of the large conical mounds represent individual stars of great importance. Other effigy mounds trace out the constellations by the paths of their protrusions. These are both better and worse than telescopes; they do not reveal the actual bodies of the stars, but they bring the experienced and imagined essence of those stars down to Earth where man can experience them."

 In South America the Incas also linked their lives with the sky. At the heart of every Inca city is a stone cut with a complex series of angles and rising from the middle. It is a sort of obelisk called the "tethering post" of the sun. This obelisk provides the assurance as the days got shorter and the sun appeared lower each noon in the winter sky, that the sun would again return. By observing the shadows cast by the obelisk along the various angles on the base the people would know exactly when the days were once again getting longer. Unfortunately the invading Spanish found that one of the ways to demoralize the Inca they conquered was to break the obelisk from its base.

 Even today, in parts of Peru, shamans create replicas of the Universe in order to control forces within it. After the conquest of the Spanish, magic was one of the only methods natives found that they could use to fight back. What developed was a tradition of sorcerers who cast spells and other who removed them. In the book, Wizard of the Four Winds: A Shaman's Story, author Douglas Sharon describes the healing ceremonies conducted by a shaman called Eduardo. Eduardo would arrange some 80 different power objects on a "Mesa" representing the forces, Benevolent and Malevolent, in the universe according to the four directions and the three "fields" (good, evil and middle). During a curing ceremony, Eduardo and the patient would drink an infusion of cactus that would create a condition of clairvoyance among the participants. Under the influence of the cactus, Eduardo could see reflected within the Mesa what kind of forces or spell the offending sorcerer had cast on his patient and through manipulation of the objects contained on the Mesa was able to counteract the spell.

 An interesting tangent I might include here concerns Dixie, a clairvoyant college friend of mine who attended a "fire ceremony" with Eduardo on the Nazca Plains in Peru. The Nazca plains are home to giant animal drawings and crisscrossed lines that are only recognizable from an airplane. It was when they were out on the plains, Dixie reported, that she could look up and see the lines and animal figures in the sky. After the group drank the infusion of cactus, she did not note any particular change in herself, but now everyone else could see the lines and drawing in the sky as well.

 A form of Shamanistic magic or healing, similar to that of Eduardo's that does not involve hallucinogens, is practiced in the American Southwest where the Navaho have curing ceremonies using sand paintings. During rituals that can last from one to nine days, a chanter sings sacred songs and directs the painting of one of the hundreds of different sand painting. The paintings are great Mandalas, Cosmic diagrams with symbols relating to the four directions, sacred plants, holy beings and guardians. After the constructing the painting, the patient, who may himself be painted, sits in the middle of the picture. After the ceremony the healer sweeps the painting away -- the design being too powerful for permanent representation. There is an important distinction between healing and curing in Navaho rituals. The objective is to restore the patient to harmony -- to beauty. The patient may still die of the disease, but does so at peace, restored to the harmony of the myth.

 The image of a mandala, a centralized geometric design representing the cosmos can, as we have seen, be found in art and architecture throughout the world. In India the design of all temples and some cities is based on the mandala. The temple mandala is usually a simple square grid. Each square within the grid corresponds to a deity. An interesting mandala frequently used in India is the Vastu purusha mandala divided into nine squares on a side. Purusha, the primordial disordered being, is shown confined by Brahma into the orderly confines of the mandala. In ancient Hindu cosmology, the creation of the world begins with the "squaring of the circle." That is giving order or structure to chaos. Interestingly, if one takes a circle and a square so that the circumference of the former is equal the perimeter of the latter, the circle will intersect the square one ninth in from the square's corner. Another common mandala uses an eight by eight grid. It combines the geometry of the circle and the square to generate the outer form of the temple.

 Planning a temple in all parts of India was a complex undertaking. An elaborate formula takes into consideration the size, the grid type, the direction it faces, the caste of the builder, what planet under which it is to be to constructed, and even what day of the week construction will begin. If all the calculations can not be made to work out just right, the project must be postponed or even abandoned.

 The overall design of the Hindu temple contains some elements we have seen before as well as some we have not. The sanctuary itself was always cubical and called "garbha-griha" (literally, womb). Over this towered the image of Mount Meru, the cosmic mountain around which the world turns and which is the dwelling place of the gods. Within the cella or "garbha-griha" of temples dedicated to Shiva would be the image of Shivas "lingam" (literally, phallus) thus giving the temple a design representing a comic sexual union.

 While the sexual metaphor of the Hindu temple may be unique, the cubic design of the cella is very common. The holy of holies in both the tabernacle of Moses and the temple of Solomon was in the form of a cube. Similarly, the Kabba in Meca is a building in the form of a cube. It is toward this cube that all mosques orient and toward which all Moslems pray. It is the manifestation of paradise on earth. If one were to enter the structure it would be like standing in paradise and surveying the world in every direction.

 There are whole cities in the ancient world, both mythical and real, which incorporate the square as the form the ideal city. Ezekiel's city described in the book of Enoch, the New Jerusalem, described in the book of Revelation, and the city of Peking (Taidu) as described by Marco Polo, all follow the pattern of a "city four square" with twelve gates, three on each side. This type of cosmic city plan is found throughout India and Southeast Asia. A good example are the temple cities in Cambodia such as that at Angkor Vat. This later example creates a great hierarchy of sacred space through a series of square and geometrically related rectangular enclosures. It is as if they were marking out degrees of increasingly holy space.

 The circle and square together represent a perfect archetypal duality. While the square demarcates sacred space and serves as a symbol for the created world the circle represents the entire cosmos, the cycles of time and the realms of spirit. The square is fixed and absolute, the circle ever changing. The "squaring of the circle" is the primordial act of creation, the ordering of the original undifferentiated whole. Taken together, as they are in many mandalas, they represent the integration of spirit and matter, heaven and earth, the human and the divine. As an architectural image it is seen throughout Christendom and Islam as the "dome" resting on a square base.

 When circles and squares combine, one can generate a series of harmonic rectangles -- the most common of which is the proportion of 1 to the square root of 2. This proportion is found in the naves of cathedrals throughout Christendom.

 The circle, the square and other harmonic geometry, are also applied to the human figure. The belief that man is created in the image of God leads some people to conclude that the human figure is an expression of these perfect forms. The most frequently reproduced image to come down to us from this line of thought is the Vitruvian figure drawn by Leonardo Da Vinci, but he is certainly not the only person to have explored this image. Other artists and architects have related other geometry to the human figure such as the pentagon and variously proportioned triangles. The hermetic philosopher Fludd, related the figure directly to the image of the cosmos.

 In the Chinese healing systems of acupressure and acupuncture, the body is also cosmological. Like our calendar of months and days, the system identifies twelve major organs and corresponding "meridians" or currents of energy. Along these meridians there are three hundred and sixty-five major acupuncture points. The five elements and the expansion-contraction duality of Yin and Yang keep the balance between these points, meridians, and their organs.

 Hinduism has given us another cosmic view of the body. Like the levels of heaven, Hinduism identifies seven "chakras" rising up along the spinal axis from the base of the spine to the crown of the head. Each of these centers has a different quality or vibration and is depicted as a lotus blossom with varying numbers of petals. Through meditation, chanting and various yogi practices, one opens these chakras and experiences a greater level of their power. For example, through the heart chakra one could develop greater compassion. Through the third eye one could gain divine vision or clairvoyance. Through the crown, one could gain divine illumination or enlightenment.

 In modern times we seem to have lost or rationalized away the cosmic and mythical view of our selves, or art and our architecture. Despite the fact that acupuncture cures disease, not many are willing to accept the theory of yin and yang and the five elements. We "know" there are over 100 elements, some which we have made our selves. Of course, our view of the universe has changed drastically from ancient times. If the earth is not the center of the cosmos, how then could a man-made cosmic mountain or temple be? "Modern science has concluded," writes Richard Grossluger in his book The Night Sky, "that we are the most minutest fleck of scum within an expanding atom, and the 'vastness' of the night sky is simply the innards of that atom strewn through hollow and warped time-space and composed in centers of gravity. We are dust motes upon eternity, specks of chemical texture in a puddle, held to a large molten stone which itself is a dot in the pool of debris."

 Fortunately, although our view of cosmic mechanics has changed, a sense of awe, wholeness and expansiveness still fills even the modern star gazer (as if the terms ancient and modern have any real meaning in relation to the stars). We feel just as the ancients did our origin in the heavens and still look to the sky for clues. In the traditions of South American and Mississippi Indians, the royal families are divine descendants of the sun. According to the myths of the Dogans of West Africa, the first Dogans were also descendants from the sun. Today some modern astronomers theorize that the earth and other planets may have all once been part of the sun, liberated in some ancient storm. The line, "We are stardust," from a popular sixties song, expresses a truth both mythical and scientific. We evolved from the same material as stars and galaxies. The fossil records affirm the native belief in our kinship with all life. Physics reveals time and space as relative, but the speed of light is constant. Light, synonymous with the divine thorough out human history, is constant.

 Standing out under the starry vault, the light of countless stars spreads across infinite space and, reaching forward from the dawn of creation, converges right where I am. Perhaps the mythic and magical view of life is not so ancient and inaccessible as I often imagine.

 * Index

 * Time Capsule essay on culture with an introduction to the art of Philip E. Harding ( 1997 ).

 * Resume ( 1997 ).

 * Nuclear Reliquary project proposal ( 1996 )

 * Philosophical Statement ( 1995 )

 * Arto-biography ( 1994 )

 * Common Currency (1996)

 * Virtual Art Gallery ( under construction )