Where we go to pray.
Because we do go to pray.
We don't stay to pray. Which suggests that there is something sacred separate from where we are, or suggests that we believe that space is separate, and so must remind ourselves through the support of space and beauty and ritual (habit).
The power of leaving the ordinary.
If the pilgrimage is long, the fear and willingness to step out of security. Of family. Of income. To abandon in search of....
Do we need to move to be still? How does the ritual, the movement to the shrine, prepare us to meet what is there, and what has been ripening (or hiding) within us which asks for such service?
Does a shrine exist for it's divinity, it's relic? Or is it for us? Do we feed gods, pray to Christ, and fan holy books because they request it, or because it is valuable to have such remembrance- to open us? Or, as the critic would say- are so many of these forms not just distraction, habitual ways an institution fits us in a mold. What is unmolded remembrance? Raw homecoming?
Now, some orbs.
Background artwork by Dzigar Kongtrul Rinpoche.