Spirituality & Perception - Paper 6

THREE NEW ZEALAND SYMBOLS FOR CONNECTEDNESS

 

INTRODUCTION

THE LENS

THE KORU CROSS

THE DUNEDIN CITY OCTAGON

OBSERVATIONS

REFERENCES

 

INTRODUCTION

In December 2008 I spent ten days in the South Island of New Zealand. I discovered three symbols for connecting things or seeing them as parts of a whole. Useful for connecting built environment with theology, they are:  

            the lens,

the Koru cross  

the Dunedin city octagon.

I comment in each section on each, with some concluding observations.  

 

THE LENS

In a small art gallery in Queenstown I came across an exhibition by the New Zealand and Cook Islands artist, David Teata. On one wall he had a series of half a dozen pieces each of which consisted of two circles drawn to overlap in such a way that the overlapping area was in the shape of a horizontal lens. This overlapping area is, he suggests, a place of merging and joining; even more, it is a place where a new entity can come to be.  

A dominant feature of Teata’s work is the symbolic use of the lens shape. He explains that when two circles intersect the shape created where they overlap is the lens. This union of two separate units results in the creation of a new entity. Therefore whatever is contained in each circle becomes interwoven with that intersecting space. This dynamic process reflects the merging and evolving of our multicultural society in New Zealand . It can also represent the joining of different times, people, places, beliefs and ideas, the intersection of the natural and spiritual realms, or the interweaving of an ancestor’s world with one’s own.

www.toi.co.nz

On www.toi.co.nz, the examples I find most interesting to reflect on are:

Sacred Steps    and   Across Zones.

Often in my own work I have thought somewhat mechanically of connecting built environment and theology, or of a dialogue taking place between them.

I don’t think I’ve thought up to now of an entirely new thing being created, a new lens through which to see the world.

What can such a thing be, and what can it do?

THE KORU CROSS

In Christchurch I discovered Michael Coleman’s work on Koru Christianity and in particular the Koru Cross.

See www.korucross.org for design and details

The Koru cross brings together two images from our beautiful New Zealand nature.

Koru, or baby fern frond, symbolizes new life and growth.

Flax represents welcoming, respecting and caring.

 

The koru in the cross speaks of new life coming from God

From the centre of the Koru flows God’s life to all things

 

People are created by God;

they are renewed by the Son of God, Jesus

 

            The koru connects to flax.

            As we are welcomed, loved and cared for by God, so we show this kindness and care to those around us

 

            The three strands running through the entwined flax depict the Father Matua, Son Ihu Karaiti, Holy Spirit  

            Wairu Tapu flowing through every aspect of our life

            The flax winds its way back to the centre of the kuru; we begin and end in God

 

Fern and flax, growth and care, intertwining with each other within the framework of the cross is perhaps a universal symbol.

Whether we are designing a large growth scheme for a town or something as small as the extension to a house, holding that growth in tension with care for people and places is, arguably, at the heart of Christian spirituality in a built environment context.

 

THE DUNEDIN CITY OCTAGON

Elsewhere (particularly in the paper Building – a project in ministry) I have used the symbol of the octagonal font or baptistry to signify aspects of life being brought within a Christian theological framework. I was therefore delighted to discover that the city centre of Dunedin is in the form of an octagon.

Practically all great cities, large or small, have a physical focus. Dunedin’s is The Octagon, that not overlarge eight-sided, sloping space which is intersected by Stuart Street and joins Princes Street to George Street, and is presided over by a statue of Robert Burns as a mark of the city’s Scottishness. Around its perimeter are the Town Hall, and the city’s administration building, St Paul ’s Cathedral [Anglican!], the art gallery, the Athenaeum, and the Regent Theatre. It has also been the scene of many civic events and, with its plethora of cafes and bars, can claim to be the city’s social centre, challenged only by the north campus of the university.

Though The Octagon was planned by the Surveyor Charles Kettle as early as 1847, for long it was rivalled, overshadowed even, by the Exchange area, where High Street crosses Princes Street . Only in the second half of the twentieth century did the Octagon become unquestionably pre-eminent.....

Stuart Strachan in Preface to Norman Ledgerwood’s

The Heart of a City – the story of Dunedin ’s Octagon, 2008

   

Part of Kettle’s original concept of the Octagon was of a Reserve, or public open space, at the heart of the city. That concept has remained, with the space enclosed by the eight sides being without buildings and open to all. Strachan in the above quotation summarises the public buildings as seen today; close by there are commercial enterprises in the form of shops and some offices.

Norman Ledgerwood himself says:

It is fair to say that of all the major cities in New Zealand, Dunedin’s Octagon is the only central city space that in any way compares with the piazzas and places of the old world. The existence of the old plane trees and the outdoor gathering, relaxation, eating and drinking facilities which have developed in recent years, make it a nicely sheltered and comfortable place, rich in history yet built to a human scale that is lacking in so many other New Zealand cities.

See 3dnewzealand.com and www.dunedin.govt.nz for illustrations

To me, it is the octagonal form that prompts the question, what is the nature of this city’s conversation with God?

What do we imagine the baptism of a city to mean? Not the creation of any kind of religion-led republic; more a centring of our concerns for its well-being in terms of justice, peace, beauty and hope. These are not uniquely Christian concepts but there can be no valid Christianity without them embodied in city and civic life.

 

OBSERVATIONS

These three symbols have different perspectives:

Lens – traditional cultures of New Zealand and the South Pacific

Koru Cross – blending of the traditional cultures with European Christianity

Dunedin City Octagon – blending of European Christianity with modern Western secularism

My visit presented me with two ways of drawing the three perspectives together.

First, I discovered that, unusually in my experience, the New Zealand Prayer Book links the natural world and the built city in a prayer of thanksgiving:

We offer thanks and praise to God
for this good land;
For its trees and pastures,
For its plentiful crops
And the skills we have
learned to grow them.

Our thanks for the marae
and the cities we have built;
for science and discoveries,
For our life together,
For Aetoearoa,
New Zealand .
 

Second, in the university bookshop in Dunedin I found In Praise of the Secular, a booklet by Lloyd Geering, a Presbyterian and one time Professor of Old Testament there. His teleological vision is of religions coming together in a secular spirituality, the marks of which are:

  1. An attitude of awe towards the self-evolving universe

  2. An appreciation of the living eco-sphere of this planet

  3. An appreciation of the capacity of the earth to regenerate itself

  4. The value to be found in life, in all its diversity

  5. An appreciation of the cultural legacy we have received from our human forbears

  6. Responsibility for the care of one another

  7. Responsibility for the kind of planet we pass on to our descendants

Built environment is implicit in all of these.

Lloyd Geering’s God is the God of Scotus Erigena (c810-877) – ‘the everlasting essence of things beyond space and time and yet within them, the one who transcends and yet pervades all things’.

As David Teata says, ‘We are each on a journey navigating our way through life’.

Michael Powell 14 June 2009

 

REFERENCES

A New Zealand Prayer Book (1989) The Anglican Church in Aotearoa , New Zealand and Polynesia

Coleman, Michael Koru Christianity  36pp from korucross@paradise.net.nz

Geering, Lloyd (2007) 56pp In Praise of the Secular St Andrew’s Trust for the Study of Religion and Society, Wellington

Ledgerwood, Norman (2008) 111pp The Heart of a City: the story of Dunedin ’s Octagon Personal publication, Dunedin

www.toi.co.nz

www.korucross.org

3dnewzealand.com

www.dunedin.govt.nz.com

 

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