The Holiest of Places: A Spiritual Memoir

‘Let the earth itself be your shrine’

Spirit resides not only in people, trees, animals, rocks and heavenly bodies, but also in places. Everyone who is receptive to the subtlest influences, to the numinous, to the imprint left by ancestors, knows and feels this. Of course the concept of spirit is hard, perhaps impossible, to define and means different things to different people. There may, indeed, be no need to define it. Essentially it is beyond language; it is felt rather than described or analysed with any accuracy.

Spirit lies beyond the parameters of logic and science; it defies categorisation and consists not of atoms but of essence. But one thing I know for sure: it exerts a powerful, at times overwhelming influence for good. And it conveys itself most persuasively, most movingly, in sacred places and cherished locations. It manifests in ritual, in dance, in art, in shared experience, in chants and prayers and ecstatic moments, but most poignantly, I feel, in the purity of silence. Silence itself is a catharsis.

I would like to recount some of the holiest places I have had the good fortune to visit and which have captivated and changed me. If you were to ask me about them, I would seek to inspire you to visit them too. Such places elevate the soul and transport one into a higher realm, a rareified of exquisite sensation and joyful awareness.

Holy places that so many of us feel drawn to serve a dual purpose: they satisfy the yearning for deep connection and they remind us of our ancestors who, despite the often vast distances in time, come to meet us in a common experience of sanctity and celebration.

The stone, brick, timber of holy places, the stained glass windows and golden domes, the simple fire-pits and decorated trees, the symbolic artefacts, the consecrated ground on which we always tread softly, contain imprints of those who came before; whose corporeal death was only a prefiguring of rebirth and regeneration.

What follows is a recollection of a few of the holy places whose embrace I sometimes serendipitously experienced and derived so much joy from. And then an evocation of the holiest, most transformative of all. It matters little, by the way, if one does not subscribe to Christianity, any other religion or none at all. I cultivate a Zen Buddhist outlook and yet find myself able and willing to connect with the divine in all its quiet, unassuming, sensuous glory wherever it may be found: holiness is indivisible. Everything, like healing water, arises from a single source and returns to the wellspring; and so the cycle of life repeats itself with love and without loss.

Travelling the United States back in student days, I found myself quite by chance visiting the town of Taos, New Mexico. Native American reservations still exist in the area and are evidently flourishing despite the pressures of modern life. I wandered the town square on a cool evening following a hot, dusty day. I caught sight of an elderly Hopi man sitting silently on a low wall. He had wrapped himself in a colourful blanket and appeared to be mesmerised by the distant hills. He looked like some living icon, but he was deeply, unarguably human. Oddly, perhaps, I thought of Buddha sitting in silent reflection at the base of the Bodhi tree, seeking enlightenment. I was intrigued. I approached the ancient Hopi – I use the word ‘ancient’ advisedly, for time is elastic – and asked him about his people and about the reservation near Taos. He was very receptive and serene. He offered me a knowing, almost beatific smile; he had a beautiful face with his personal history etched deeply into it. He spoke of his tribal roots, his connection with the land, and then mentioned a sacred spot near his pueblo. He was happy to direct me to it; I was glad he trusted me.

In the gathering dark of dusk I walked out of Taos through sweet-smelling sagebrush, along a meandering stream, then bisected a deep ravine to a particular rock that the Hopi elder had described. He forewarned me that I should tread silently and slowly so as not to disturb the spirits. I found etchings on the flat surface of this rock. It was in a little clearing beyond the ravine, which was evidently used for ceremonial purposes. There were sprigs of sagebrush, fragments of prayer beads and eagle feathers scattered around.

I stood before this tall, flat boulder and allowed myself to be absorbed in the etchings. What I felt was something incommunicable, something which seemed to quicken my heart and shift my soul sideways. I felt a numinous, oceanic love for all things and found myself almost dissolving into tears. At the time I was perplexed, I couldn’t quite understand it. I walked back along the stream into the town square of Taos. The Hopi elder had gone. After that strange day I never saw him again, not in the flesh, and yet he lives within me as one who understands; who arises from a common heritage; whose long deep gaze communes with a tribal past. His and mine and no doubt yours, too.

In more recent times I have stayed on retreat in a place called St. Mary’s Abbey, West Malling in Kent. It supports a community of Benedictine nuns who adhere to vows of poverty, obedience ans charity. The last of these compels them to offer food and accommodation without charge, which strikes me as enormously generous and is greatly appreciated. When I visit I stay in the magnificent medieval gatehouse, in what is called the ‘Thomas Becket Room’, which possesses an especial resonance of its own. The room looks down into the Pilgrims’ Chapel through tiny double doors cut into one wall, like a privileged peephole. A votive candle burns all night, the chapel’s inner light and life. Even in sleep one feels accompanied by a wonderful sense of the blessed.

The room itself is a wonder; the perfect hideaway for an anchorite. It is redolent of all the retreatants who have stayed before and no doubt revered its unique atmosphere. Spending much of my time alone in this room, or downstairs in the chapel, I have often felt transported in time and space. My Buddhist convictions have hardly mattered even in a Christian setting. A sense of the divine crosses boundaries of faith and brings us all together into one cosmic communion.

When I hear the plangent singing of the nuns in the chapel during one of their seven daily offices, I am invariably moved close to tears and utterly grateful not only for their devotions but for the unseen presences that their ethereal voices evoke. In many ways, some very obvious, I am so different to these Benedictine sisters – and yet in a vital sense we are all the same, we occupy the same space, the same eternal yearning, the same sense of mystery and wonder, the same passionate spirituality.

On another occasion I was transported in a minibus up a mountain on the Greek island of Skiathos, through ancient olive groves and wandering herds of goats. In this place too there existed a sense of timelessness, accentuated by a pristine blue Mediterranean sky. I felt refreshed and keen with anticipation. I had heard of the Mount Evaggelistria Monastery and felt a subdued thrill, as I slowly approached the complex of buildings perched on a high mountain. The place exceeded all expectations. Ancient buildings absorbed sunlight as they had done for so many centuries. The Orthodox priest escorted our little party into the church, which stood symbolically in the exact centre of the monastery. In semi-darkness, accentuated by the glare of the sun outside, he pointed out dozens of icons which hung on the walls, each representing a named saint. A heady fragrance of incense permeated the church.

I recall being overawed by this place; by the layers of history ; by the tenacity off devotion; by the realisation that monks had lived here through many centuries, prayed and slept and ate between these walls; by the quiet devotion of their present-day brethren who continue a wise tradition in the face of the pressures and distractions of secular modernity. Their single-minded celebration of faith in God – their god, which may or may not be ours too – impressed me and leaves a vivid impression to this day.

I asked one of the monks about the array of little wooden saints which were for sale. I bought an icon of St. Peter, thinking that appropriate, considering the fishes and the still waters and the solidity of rock. I keep the icon in full view to this day; it sits on my writing desk and reminds me of the Mount Evaggelistria Monastery. It invariably transports me back to that sun-drenched mountainside of Skiathos with its olive trees and goats, its heavily-bearded priest and a sense of transcendent timelessness.

But there is one place which, despite the claims of captivating holy sites, draws me above all others: The Chalice Well. Or, more precisely, the Wellhead itself at the top of the garden. I know that I am far from alone in revering this unique place with its shading circle of trees, its flower-decked well-dressings, its embracing stone surround with those welcoming steps, its inevitable accompaniment of poignant birdsong, its positive energy and the magic – it is the only word that seems appropriate – which permeates through everyone who sits and smiles and meditates there. In common with many others I am eternally grateful to Wellesley Tudor Pole, Alice Buckton, George Trevelyan, the tradition of founders and keepers of this place, which perpetually exudes love and light.

Many is the time I have sat alone or in the sensitive company of others and contemplated the interlocking circles of the well cover, the deep and inspiring waters beneath, the tangible connection with others far away in time and space and yet here in a particular moment, like a fusion of all the souls who ever came here, settled and absorbed the glory and power of this blessed shrine.

If deep truth exists anywhere – with the indigenous Hopis in New Mexico, with the monks on Skiathos, with the Benedictine sisters at St. Mary’s Abbey – it exists for me most poignantly in a place of dappled shade at the apex of an astounding garden. Although I have many times sought to characterise this place in speech and in writing, as here, really it exists beyond the power of words in the realm of pure feeling and silent awareness.

Peter Quince

“…thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.”

A common thread that runs through various religious traditions is the idea of ‘heaven-above’ and ‘earth-below’. In more recent times of scientific literalism this can be misunderstood to be suggesting that there is an actual empirically definable realm called ‘Heaven’ up there in the sky. Such a perception inevitably runs counter to our awareness of certain material facts as understood through modern cosmology. Even though it is impossible to physically experience, it is not difficult to accept the material actuality by which we reside on a spherical planet that is orbiting the Sun.

But if we are to fully engage with an imaginal symbolic notion such as ‘heaven-above’ and ‘earthbelow’ there is a need to loosen our straitjacket of scientific materialism and enter into the ‘spiritual imagination’. This ‘place’ could be described as a mediatory realm in which the human soul can contemplate its Divine Origin – which is itself ultimately unknowable.

In the medieval Christian universities such a contemplation was engaged in through a study of the Seven Liberal Arts which were understood to symbolise the seven planetary spheres. The study of these seven subjects accordingly symbolised the educative ascent of the student’s soul through the seven heavens up to the eighth heaven of the fixed stars which symbolised the study of Philosophy and was the abode of Lady Wisdom. Beyond that lay the fiery divine realm called the Empyrean which symbolised the divine science of Theology.

In relation to the seven arts, the first three subjects – The Trivium – were Grammar, Rhetoric and Logic – a modern day Barrister’s training. The other four – The Quadrivium – concerned the study of ‘number. These four subjects were Arithmetic, Geometry, Music and Cosmology. It was specifically the numerical aspects of these subjects that were the central focus so, for instance, in the study of music it was the mathematical ratios that govern musical pitch which were studied rather than musical composition as such.

Two of the Quadrivial subjects that go hand-in-hand are cosmology and geometry. However, whereas cosmology concerns the numerical cycles of the heavens - which are in motion - geometry focuses upon the fixing of embodied numerical forms down here on the earth. The word ‘geometry’ (geo-metria) literally means ‘earth-measure’. The triangle, the square and the pentagon can all be described as embodiments of the eternal and unchanging truths of number. But the ‘fourness’ of a square can also show itself temporally through the various temporal cycles that we experience here on the earth such as the annual cycle with its ‘four corners’ (i.e. two solstices and two equinoxes) or the daily cycle with its own four corners (sunrise, midday, sunset and midnight). Even the lunar cycle has its four week-long quarters and so henceforth the number four prevails in our earthly experience of time cycles. But the four fixed earthly directions of north, south, east and west also present a spatial fourness which lies at the root of the Biblical description of the ‘four corners of the earth’.

The reason why ancient philosophers such as Plato have so often focused upon the Quadrivial arts is because they reflect the eternal and unchanging truths of number. Whatever culture we are from or whichever religious path we follow we can all agree on mathematical truths. The eternal and unchanging truthfulness of number accordingly becomes a contemplative focus for the soul attempting to orientate its vision towards the eternal and unchanging reality of God.

The Platonist emphasis upon number tends to feature in any Christian era in which Platonism formed a significant influence. St Augustine for instance would often show his Platonist influence in the way he contemplated Biblical numbers. But the 12th century saw a particularly strong focus in western Europe upon the Quadrivial arts along with its accompanying Christian-Platonist philosophy.

The 12th century was the era in which the Gothic style of architecture developed and the designs of these cathedrals appear to be Quadrivial in scope. For the past 12 years I have been slowly studying the ‘Quadrivial’ design of Wells Cathedral. I am a specialist in the use of geometry in sacred art and architecture for which I studied at the Prince’s School of Traditional Arts in London under the Master Geometer Professor Keith Critchlow.

I started looking at the design of Wells Cathedral back in 2010 with a simple geometric analysis. But the study gradually started moving towards cosmology and eventually also arithmetic and musical ratios. Then, after seven years or so, a Christian form of cosmic mythos started to become apparent within the cathedral’s design. This particularly concerned the ancient association of the movements of the Planet Venus with a descent into the underworld, as the Evening Star, and an ascent into heaven as the Morning Star.

At the very end of the Book of Revelation Christ proclaims His Davidic family lineage and then describes Himself as ‘the Bright Morning Star’. It goes without saying that He is not claiming to literally be the planet Venus but rather He is using the movements of the planet as a contemplative symbol of His Resurrection and the illumination of the world as a result of it.

Similarly, in Peter’s second epistle the Morning Star is invoked as a symbol of the inward illumination and awakening of a Christian soul…

“We also have the prophetic word strongly confirmed, and you will do well to pay attention to it, as to a lamp shining in a dark place, until the day dawns and the morning star rises in your hearts.”

Peter is clearly not suggesting that the planet Venus is about to rise up in our chest cavity but rather he is using an experienceable cosmological phenomenon as an imaginal symbol of an inner state of soul. Many who have stayed up all night outdoors will have experienced the rise of anticipation and inward wakefulness that comes with the rising of the Morning star immediately prior to the rising of the Sun itself which is another cosmological symbol and Image of the Risen Christ.

In modern day Christianity such a use of contemplative cosmological symbolism might seem puzzling or even inappropriate although if we are to understand the mindsets of these inspired, and mostly anonymous, medieval artists who designed the great Gothic cathedrals there is a need to enter into the spiritual imagination so as to view the world as they did. Having attempted to do this this for the past 12 years I can say that it is an immensely rich realm that can help to inspire a Christian faith in the modern world. It is useful and fruitful for answering those who misperceive science and religion as being in antagonistic opposition. It can also reconcile those who see an intellectual engagement as being at odds with the direct experience or contemplation of an unknowable Absolute – (more commonly known in Christianity as ‘God’.) But perhaps most importantly it presents Beauty as a divine attribute by which the human soul can be reminded of God every time it beholds the Beautiful. The soul’s aspiration to remember its True Self – the Image in which it was created – is thus suggested by the Platonist philosopher Plotinus, “Never did eye see the sun unless it had first become sunlike, and never can the soul have vision of the First Beauty unless itself be beautiful.”

My book is called “The Cosmos in Stone – sacred geometry of a master mason”. It contains a variety of studies centred upon medieval Theology, Philosophy, Sacred Geometry and Cosmological symbolism which all contribute towards a detailed architectural analysis of the Wells Cathedral ground plan. The book is now available from the Chalice Well shop. The retail price is £24.95. The book is in full colour with many beautiful images and informative diagrams and is reviewed in the Chalice by Paul Fletcher (see below). It contains a little over 350 pages and its size is 8.5 inches x 11 inches.