The 600-Year Building Site
Cologne revisited, more details on the Advaya course, upcoming talks in Denmark
A few of you asked for further details of the upcoming course with Advaya, so this post includes an update on that – along with a chance to wonder a little more about Cologne Cathedral, the starting point for yesterday’s post. And any readers in Denmark, look out for news of two public events next week.
For four centuries, the skyline of Cologne was topped by a medieval crane. The building of the city’s vast Gothic cathedral began in 1248, but came to a halt at the time of the Reformation and it stood unfinished for the next three hundred years.
The Romantic movement of the early 19th century brought a new fascination with the Middle Ages and also with ruins. In Henry Winkles’s engraving, made after a painting by Theodor Verhas, the unfinished structure appeals to the same sensibility as Piranesi’s depictions of the fallen grandeur of Rome. Yet what is on show here is not exactly a ruin – and in the course of the 19th century, building began again, so that the completed cathedral has the strange status of being at once a landmark of Gothic and Neo-Gothic architecture.
There’s something that haunts me in the image of the long-abandoned building site, though I can’t draw it out into a clear line of thought. It’s a sound more felt than heard, like the low notes of the Dekke Pitter bell I wrote about yesterday. (Here’s the text in which Ivan Illich tells the story of his friend who was floored by the power of that bell.)
I start with these notes, because I wanted to pick up on yesterday’s post, as several of you got in touch to ask for more details of the Contemporary Spirituality: Meaning and Mysticism in Modern Times course. The Advaya website is beautiful and detailed, but perhaps not the easiest to navigate, so here is the key information:
The course runs for six weeks, starting on Tuesday 13th February.
Each week there will be a two-hour session with two or three teachers.
The sessions start at 6pm UK time / 1pm Eastern Time.
My session will be on Tuesday 27th February, when I’m teaching alongside Timothy Morton.
Video and audio recordings of the sessions will be available to participants, along with a community discussion area to carry on the conversation in between times.
The regular fee is £220 for the single course, or £480 for a year’s membership of Advaya with access to all their courses.
To book at a 15% reduction on the regular fee, use this discount code: SPIRIT-HINE. (Apologies to those who tried to use the code given in yesterday’s mail, it seems that the website didn’t like that one.)
In order to book, head over to the Advaya site and click the Register button:
To find the full details of the sessions, including teachers and themes, scroll further down that page to the Course Modules section and click the Learn More links.
I hope that’s helpful, but let me know if there’s anything else that could be clearer.
Finally, having written about Cologne Cathedral and Iona Abbey in yesterday’s post, it struck me that there’s a curious history to the building of both of these churches. A century ago, the medieval abbey at Iona was a roofless ruin, until a group of ministers and working men from Glasgow came to rebuild it, led by the vision of George MacLeod, the First World War veteran, Church of Scotland minister and peace activist who went on to be the first Green Party peer in the House of Lords. The image of the rebuilt abbey – and the story of Stone Eagle’s visit to it with Alastair McIntosh – came up in this conversation with
, recorded last year.Thanks for reading – and look out for some posts on other themes in the coming days, as we approach the first anniversary of the publication of At Work in the Ruins.
DH
PS – I’ll be on a short tour to Denmark next week, with public events in Ry and Aarhus, so if you’re anywhere in that part of the world, check out the events page on my website.
Gosh! Is it only a year . . . seems to have lived with me longer
I visited Cologne when I was a teenager, and the cathedral made a big impression on me. I remember thinking that those that built it had a different feel for space and time: shorter space, longer time.
I don't know if you remember me. The name you'd know me for was Doly Garcia, which isn't the name I use for anything to do with mythical stuff. Involved in green issues, worked on a revision of the model from The Limits to Growth. If you want to see some more of that thinking, very much in draft stage, it's here:
https://energywatchers1.wordpress.com/
I've seen you recently on Gordon White's site. There is stuff you ought to know about him and the people around him, if you don't already:
https://cluelessmagic.wordpress.com/2024/02/02/how-to-kill-a-black-wizard-with-sigils/