…or do we just trivialize the former?

This is a tribute to the world around us and not necessarily one beyond – an appeal that can captivate anyone’s interest. Step inside and your gaze immediately chases the enormity of stone trunks that jet skyward to a vast canopy far overhead. Carved stars sit atop the trees, mediating the path of natural light in bursts of colors, as well as the stark shadows that follow from jagged edges throughout the forest. This is the landscape within the cathedral. A stage for recreating natural beauty and the triumph of natural surroundings.

The layout is intentional though. The architects know the strengths and weaknesses of the structure and hidden within the environment is geometry that governs and facilitates the continual growth of the mammoth structure year after year, decade after decade; and more importantly to us, its continued aesthetic appeal. “Golden ratios” and “Fibonacci sequences” emerge on all scales in the design and in the placement of the forest, honeycomb spires, nautilus stairs, and flowers, but its blatancy is shrouded in how big the world is that has been created.

Maybe this actually is more of a tribute to the complexity of creation rather than just a surrounding world that is? Either way, it is captivating, ongoing, and will be an experience.