| Dance of vibrati

been fascinated by
cles of glory, known in
India as mandala.

These include the ros*
windows of Gothic cathe-
drals, Byzantine mosaic up:
the inner surface of a dome,
the radiant and radiating
petals of certain flowers, the
design of snow crystals, pre-
cious stones set in coronas of
vari-colored gems, and m
dala proper as they are found
in Tibetan painting — circu-
lar paradise —~ gardens with
their jewelled plants and
trees surrounding an inner
circle of Buddhas and their
attendant Bodhisattvas.

It is in this form, too, that
Dante described his vision of
God, ringed by the saints
and angels, at the end of
Paradiso.

C.G. Jung suggested thar
this fascination might be
explained by some corre-
spondence between the man-

ala form and the basic for-
mative energy of the psyche.

For there is indeed an
almost universal tendency to
express the divine in terms of
radiating light.

I wish I had the time and

north shore news

ALTERNATIVES

ons

the brain

skill to project such an image
in motion and highly articu-
late form and colour upon
the dome of a planetarium.

Imagine a sun-burst of
electric blue-white light last-
ing only long enough to
avoid blinding the eyes, and
then softening to white gold.

With the light goes
sound, the high, exulting
blast of Gabriel's trumpet
that shatters the sleep of the
so-called dead.

The sunburst recedes (or
ascends) fo its own centre,
and as it does so gives out a
concentric aurcale of fluores-
cent red, and then, ring upon
ring, the whole visual spec-
trum — orange, yellow,

egreen, blue indigo, purple
— and beyond, a transpar-
ent, mirror-like blackness,
about which a ring of light-
ning sets off another rainbow

circle encompa:
As the colored rings
emerge, the sound descends

at various harmonic intervals

until, with the lacquer black,
it reach
shake the walls and become
tangible, thus generating a
spectrum of vibrations that
re felt only by the s
verting the soaic into the
solid, and all its textures.
in turn, vibrations affect
the mucous membrane of th

nose, evoking a procession of

scents which begin with
jinko, or burning aloes-
wood, and descending
through roses, carnations,
and the salt wind of the sea,
to freshly ground coffee, to
mint and thyme and warm

brandy, and then on to excel-

lent cheese, to ammonia,
excrement, and burning
blood.

The ordered rings and
sequences of vibration touch
every sense and emotion,
and, as the lacquer black’
generates lightning, ir
becomes clear that feeling is
acycle in which the highest
intensities of pleasure and
pain are the same extreme.

Thus far, the image has
been only of rings and

a the first.

a bass so deep as to

in, con-

Sunday, June 14, 1998 —

Crooked park

North Shore News — 29

NEWS pholo Brad Ledwidge

DISTRICT Coun, Janice Harris and Pemberton Heights Community Association
director Marjorie Ashdown recentiy cut the ribbon opening the new Zig Zag
| rk. Ashdown and her husband Frank did much of the hard work themselves.

sequence .
Within the rings we

distinguish rays, innumer-

able, but shooting straight as

spokes from the central light.

A momeni later, the rays
ripple, and with them the
descending tones of sound
begin to oscillate.

Likewise the vibrations of
scent, texture and taste start
to mix and combine accord-
ing to an arithmetic that

becomes increasingly com-
ples.

The ripples are now
sumething more than simple
undulations: they are curves
turning back upon thent-
selves, spirals winding and
unwinding, begetting pat-
terns that resenible sunlit
smoke, or foam in broken
Waves.

Soon this immense
arabesque of curling forms
develops sharp corners.

The rays bend instantly
and jump into angles,
squares, diamonds and frets.

Simultancously the other
spectra — of sound, texture,
taste and smell — are moving
in rhythms and patterns
equivalently varied.

As the dance of vibrations
is about to blast the brain,
there emerge the forms of
ferns and fronds, of water-
courses and trees, of ocean-
waves and mountains, of
flowers and shells, of insects,
fish and human faces — all
writhing and squirming with-
in the total configuration of
concentric rings.

Then, one is aware that
the whole scene has become
three-dimensional: the flat
circie is a globe, the sound is

from every direction, and
onc is simply engulfed in the
vibrations of texture and
smell.

The viewer is now inside
the spectacle, and his/her
sense of the total form

because of the
ng interest of the
detail — the articulation of
particular features, of flowers
and faces, gardens and cities,
rivers and roads.

As vision concentrates,
the vibrations of sound,
touch, smell and taste
become consistent with such
details as fascinate the eye.

And, before we know it,
the spectacle as a whole is
forgotten.

Quite suddenly, we dis-
cover ourselves and our sur-
roundings just as they are,
here and now.

— Robert Aiken is an
internationally known profes-
sional astrologian and thera-
peutic counselor/teacher/
writer with 40 years’ experi-
ence. He offers empowering
personal counselling sessions as
well as thorough, in-depth,
tape-recorded astrological
readings. Phone Carole : 926-
4961.

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