Equinox: Form and Presence in the Newport Tower
After Labor Day, when beaches covered for months in a quilt of brightly colored umbrellas become a muted canvas of unmarked sand and surf, and anchored ships and naked masts are left to dream of sailing, I arrive in Newport Rhode Island with new eyes and room to see. On cool quiet days culminating in the Autumnal Equinox, my walk to Sachuest Point is once again a meditation in solitude, broken only by the mysterious whisperings of the Newport Tower in the distance. With the tides of summer society receding, I freely follow the fields of golden rod down to the sea and back up cobbled streets to the Tower’s side, where it waits to open the sealed libraries of the self and carry me in perfect cosmic alignment beyond time.
There are many theories about the centuries old Tower’s origin and a sea of academic study, curious musings, and debate continues to circle round it. Who built it, and when, however is not nearly as significant as whether one is sensitive enough to appreciate the way it once carved the space of a wild new world in harmony with Nature, and still does today. What was built with raw stone and masterful hands may easily be overlooked as outdated ornamental architecture, but something in it speaks to me still of an eternal desire to liberate the self as a more unlimited expression of Cosmic Energy and Intelligence and ties the path of our evolution to the stars. Some say it represents an ancient technology of timekeeping; an architectural form designed in specific relation to the cycles of the Sun and the moon; a cosmic clock or horologion. But when I stand at its feet, it feels more unexplainably timeless than time bound; the instrument of a Master Architect and more unlimited awareness, designed and constructed not just as a memorial honoring a country or those who would claim it as their home, but to point the way to a more sublime mystery of human totality. I feel as if its purpose was not just to calendar the year but to concentrate cosmic energies and project them, like sound on the wind, through the subtle ports of our own being, orchestrating a unison which transcends the boundaries of flesh and the elements of Earth.
Today most ideas live but for a moment in purity before losing their spark of truth and wisdom in material construction. It is rare to find that which is made to resonate for centuries as a transformational space of noble and universally elevating experience. But in the humble perfection of the Newport Tower, worn down to its base material structure, remains a teaching of how to mold our own darkness into Light, and to open the arches and portals which align us with a greater Force and Presence. Seeing how every careful stone, angle and line is set to reflect the mists of dawn and the radiance of cosmic light, we are reminded of our divine opportunity to continuously refine the living substance of the self and the privilege of being human. Its once gold dome is long gone, but what remains is to discover the dome of our own human architecture and the swirling ceaseless movements of how we may grind our stones and earthen elements and qualities as an instrument of universal Consciousness into the glowing temple of our true nature.
Equinox Newport translates my experience of the Newport Tower as that which projects an energy and understanding of the innately harmonized, wholly synchronized, and universally networked existence of which we are a part. It portrays a form that stands inconspicuously in our midst as a symbol and instrument of the fellowship of worlds and the inseparable connectedness and wholeness of all dimensions of being; seen and unseen, material and immaterial. Although seemingly primitive in its construction, evolution has brought us to a place in time where we may finally begin to fulfill its builders’ vision. As we look toward colonizing other planets, our ideas and conceptions of forms and structures now begin to sprout and take shape from the same seed of awareness expressed in the Tower; that human existence is not bound to the physical Earth alone, and that its context has always been an interplanetary and multidimensional one.
An Homage to Architects and Builders
Equinox Newport pays homage to the early temple builders of every culture on Earth as well as the Architects of the future whose ideas are yet pure and unformed. May they build with a refined and responsible awareness of Nature, understanding how to envelop and define space that harmonizes with and keeps open a flow of cosmic Energy and Intelligence. May every line and plan they lay out be inspired by the infinite Consciousness networked within the self. May every design serve the advancement of all humanity as its ultimate purpose, and project an understanding of the fundamental unity of each individual form with all existence. May they be spaces which serve to free us from our perceived limitations and focus energies which mold our destinies with cosmically synchronized harmony and infinite potentiality.
May these images also open the eyes of everyone who experiences them to more clearly recognize that we are all builders, craftsmen and artisans creating an experience of the self and reality every day with each thought, feeling, action and breath. May the mystery of the Newport Tower resonate in these impressions and inspire us to question our conditioned physical sensory perception and familiar forms. May they challenge us to seek never before seen things, not because they did not exist, but because we have perpetuated our blindness. For a humanity that has been limited and bound, may these impressions and all Light Mind Images help open wide the gates of the Tower of the self where the Light of our essential nature shines forth from within us in rays of new hope, reconciled wholeness and unfathomed possibility.
Dedicated to my brother and his partner in Rhode Island, whose joyful love is a force of transformation and a mirror in which one sees their own heart more clearly.
© Copyright 2019 Deborah A Goudreault. All Rights Reserved.