What would your temple look like?

[Ashmire]

That's certainly an interesting question to contemplate for me.

At the moment, a local gay bar that hosts nightly karaoke is the closest thing I have to a temple for my Mercurial faith, and it works out okay. Pictures: 1 2 3

Arguably the Queen Studio Experience in Montreux functions as a more official temple to Freddie Mercury.

The ideal temple would still contain such things--a space for everyone to perform, hang out, and drink, as well as a museum dedicated to Mercury and the rest of the band. These would be two of the six wings fanning out in a six-petaled flower/star shape from a central garden with quiet groves, running water, and various statues to make offerings at. The other four wings would be a theater for events, a well-supplied and comfortable love hotel for whatever kind of hookups visitors enjoy, a living space for temple staff that also has room to be a sanctuary for refugees and others who need it, and a cat cafe/shelter.

Oh, well, if you're in on this...! 

I'm thinking a Temple of Bruce Lee would not look so much like a temple as a nice, large, full-service gym with plenty of punching bags and training dummies as well as protective equipment for sparring available as well as more generalized exercise equipment.  Of course there would also be a nice but fairly simple meditation room and shrine area.  Tea and healthy snacks or protein bars should be available somewhere, and I think he'd also appreciate a library ( he was known to keep what is usually considered an impressive number of books around, though admittedly it doesn't look much more than I have if you're including my Kindle)---I'm nearly sure I've seen a picture somewhere of him simultaneously reading and weightlifting but can't put a finger on it right now.

[Altair]

I just wanna say I'm now doing ridiculous construction in Minecraft creative mode and I blame you.

You and me both--though for me, it's in Photoshop.

But first, some photographic inspiration. If you're thinking about your temple space, consider these real-life examples that I find truly spectacular:

From Bhutan, the Paro Taktsang "Tiger's Nest" Buddhist monastery



And from Barcelona, the late architect Antoni Gaudi's as yet unfinished masterpiece, the Sagrada Familia ("Holy Family") Catholic cathedral. I hate it from the outside--it looks like it's made by some kid dripping sand to make sandcastle towers--but the interiors are breathtaking and somehow organic, like something out of Rivendell.





As for the temple I envision:

Mine would be a large circular hard-floored space open to the sky, with the symbol at the bottom of my posts as its floor plan. Gates--torii-like twin posts with a top crossing beam--would stand at the points of the triangle for entering/leaving the space; the remaining 9 stations around the circle's perimeter would be marked with posts--free-standing columns or monoliths--so that the whole effect would be rather like Stonehenge.

So here, via the miracle of Photoshop, is a rough approximation of that temple, which I've dubbed "Metahenge".

(Apologies to Star Trek for shamelessly altering Spock's familial place of koon-ut-kal-if-fee)



I decided that the monoliths should have an overhang attached across all the tops (kind of suggested below), to shield worshippers at the shrines from the elements (sun on a hot day, rain on bad weather days) while still leaving most of the temple open to the sky. There'd also be a ring of stone benches (not shown) near the outer edge of the circle, so that one can sit in front of a shrine and face outward towards it, or sit on the other side of the bench, facing inward towards the center and the triple-head, for group circles. The brazier would be removable (and the center dais probably just a flat stone circle) to accommodate a space for celebrants, musicians, or performers of other kinds.



Oh, and the faces of the triple head would be acoustically engineered so that their shape acts as a natural amplifier, the sounds of celebrants/musicians bouncing off the faces to reach the entire temple with perfect clarity. Because everybody knows that's totally doable.

Not that I've thought about this. At all.
 

[Altair]

I'm thinking a Temple of Bruce Lee would not look so much like a temple as a nice, large, full-service gym with plenty of punching bags and training dummies as well as protective equipment for sparring available as well as more generalized exercise equipment. 

I've frequently had the thought while at my weight-training gym that I was worshipping in the temple of hypermasculinity.

[ehbowen]

As long as it's on topic, how about this blast from the past? (Continue reading the discussion following!)

The Paganism Mall

[arete]

If you had unlimited resources to build the temple of your dreams for your gods (or any one god)/your religion, what would it look like?

I'd reconstruct an ancient greek temple in it's previous glory. And I'd create many mini temples everywhere. 

[Altair]

If you had unlimited resources to build the temple of your dreams for your gods (or any one god)/your religion, what would it look like?

I'm resurrecting this thread because I just returned from a trip up NY's Hudson Valley, where I discovered a place called Opus 40...and all the receptors in my brain related to pagan temples started firing simultaneously as soon as I saw it:











Anyway, this comes remarkably close to my idea of an ideal pagan temple (open air, stone plaza with central focal point, etc.). And you can rent out the space! (For a fortune, I'm sure.) I would dearly love to have a summer solstice ceremony here with a bunch of like-minded pagans. It. Would. Be. Awesome!

[PerditaPickle]

I would dearly love to have a summer solstice ceremony here with a bunch of like-minded pagans. It. Would. Be. Awesome!

It would be awesome!

[Aisling]

Anyway, this comes remarkably close to my idea of an ideal pagan temple (open air, stone plaza with central focal point, etc.). And you can rent out the space! (For a fortune, I'm sure.) I would dearly love to have a summer solstice ceremony here with a bunch of like-minded pagans. It. Would. Be. Awesome!

Please make this happen. I want to journey up to Ulster County to do some genealogical research and Opus 40 is on my must-visit list.  It would just be icing on the cake to hang out with other pagans up there. Now, one of us needs to win the lottery so we can afford to rent the venue.

[Rodney_Dawn]

I may have asked this a while ago, but since I've been stomping around Mexico City today looking at and thinking about mesoamerican temples, it's top of my mind, so:

If you had unlimited resources to build the temple of your dreams for your gods (or any one god)/your religion, what would it look like?

For myself, I'm torn; part of my tree-hugging pagan-ness says any place outside in nature is my temple.

But my "go highfalutin!" impulse, no small part of me, has been fueled by imagining the grandeur of what the ancients did, so here goes:

Mine would be a large circular hard-floored space open to the sky, with the symbol at the bottom of my posts as its floor plan. Gates--torii-like twin posts with a top crossing beam--would stand at the points of the triangle for entering/leaving the space; the remaining 9 stations around the circle's perimeter would be marked with posts--free-standing columns or monoliths--so that the whole effect would be rather like Stonehenge.

The inner side of each monolith would have a statue or relief carving depicting that god or divine entity, or some defining aspect of that deity and its associated concepts; the visual should be at least abstract enough to make it race-neutral. These would each form a shrine within the larger temple to a particular god. (At the gates, perhaps the carving could rest atop the crossing beam.)

Finally--and this is where the whole thing falls apart!--a giant head with 3 faces would somehow float in the middle of the circle, high enough above to look down on the congregants. How this miracle of engineering would be accomplished, I have no idea. (I originally thought a tree could support them in the center, but I like the idea of the middle being open, so that those gathered can face each other in circle.)

Ideally this would be located on a bluff, with the top of the triangle pointing out to the cliff drop and the horizon. Directly opposite that, at the bottom of the circle, there would be a secret entrance to an underground passage (that is no longer secret since I just mentioned it).

Not that I've thought about this at all.

I would do my best to recreate the design of any of the larger Hellenic temples of ancient Greece, with the minor inclusion of local river spirits native to Kentucky in keeping with the general practice of honoring these local spirits that changed with location. 

[Sefiru]

I would do my best to recreate the design of any of the larger Hellenic temples of ancient Greece, with the minor inclusion of local river spirits native to Kentucky in keeping with the general practice of honoring these local spirits that changed with location.

Doric, Ionic, or Corinthian? (Would you have caryatids? Those are cool.)

I keep meaning to respond to this thread when it pops up, but I never seem to have a clear idea of what kind of temple I would have. I think currently it would involve tatami mats, lots of colorful pillows, and altars/shrines set up in tea trays. Cozy but not quite casual, I guess is the aesthetic I'd go for.

[Jenett]

I keep meaning to respond to this thread when it pops up, but I never seem to have a clear idea of what kind of temple I would have. I think currently it would involve tatami mats, lots of colorful pillows, and altars/shrines set up in tea trays. Cozy but not quite casual, I guess is the aesthetic I'd go for.

Based on my ritual work this evening, apparently what I really want in my temple space are fairy lights, a few candles, some music, and a fuzzy blanket to put my feet under when I'm stretched out on the couch/futon meditating or reading.

(I know this because I spent two hours doing that tonight, and wow it was great. The fairy lights got added last fall, and it's one of the best uses of $20 or so I've done recently. The fuzzy blanket, ditto. I've been reading for 20 minutes (usually between work and the rest of my evening) every night since solstice, usually lying down with music on and tucked up cozily, and that is very good.

[Rodney_Dawn]

Doric, Ionic, or Corinthian? (Would you have caryatids? Those are cool.)

I keep meaning to respond to this thread when it pops up, but I never seem to have a clear idea of what kind of temple I would have. I think currently it would involve tatami mats, lots of colorful pillows, and altars/shrines set up in tea trays. Cozy but not quite casual, I guess is the aesthetic I'd go for.

Most likely Corinthian, and yes it would have Caryatids.  I would do my best to make it as accurate as possible, following traditional architecture and structural design. 

As for construftion methods, I would be as accurate as is reasonably feasable without compromizing the strength and structural soundness.  Some aspects would benefit from modern advances, (like computer modeling to lay out the blueprints) and steel reinforcements, but the majority of the actual work would be done by hand, in the traditional manner.

[Sefiru]

As for construftion methods, I would be as accurate as is reasonably feasable without compromizing the strength and structural soundness. 

Would you go with marble, or locally sourced stone? Either could be seen as accurate in different ways. (Hand working that much stone would be difficult, but that's why these are fantasy temples I guess.)

[Sefiru]

Cozy but not quite casual

'Intimate' is the word I was looking for. Yes.

[TheGreenWizard]

Anyway, this comes remarkably close to my idea of an ideal pagan temple (open air, stone plaza with central focal point, etc.). And you can rent out the space! (For a fortune, I'm sure.) I would dearly love to have a summer solstice ceremony here with a bunch of like-minded pagans. It. Would. Be. Awesome!

So... I looked into this and found that if we wanted to rent it for a weekday morning ceremony for up to 75 people... it's $750. TOTALLY worth it! Though from what I see... they really do not like kids either for general admission or private events.