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Far up above, the supporting columns meet and combine in intricate geometric forms that seem to move and dance. Indeed much of the architecture is more like something alive than the regular, angular shapes of the buildings that are more familiar to us. Standing there in the nave on my first visit, I understood that Gaudí had found a language of building that discloses new ways of understanding what buildings are and are for. And that, in doing so, he opens up new ways of understanding ourselves and what is possible for us. For the hour or so that I spent there, eyes widened in wonder and gratitude, I felt a surge of possibility and the strange feeling of not quite knowing myself in the way I know myself in the more familiar places I visit. But here's the most moving part, as far as I'm concerned. In the cathedral museum is a quote from Gaudí which reads «Per fer les coses bé cal:
primer, l'amor a elles;
segon, la tècnica»
"To do things right,
first you need love,
then technique" We live in a world that so often wants to flatten everything to technique, to utility, to 'performance' - that would have us forget our complexity, our depth, and our capacity to take care of what is life-giving within us, between us, and around us. Gaudí's building, and his words, are a reminder of what's possible when we remember that we're not production machines, nor objects, nor commodities. We are, first, heartfelt, embodied, story-telling relational beings, and each of us is a one-time-only unique meeting point between consciousness and the world. Gaudï's architecture, and his words, are a reminder that there are many ways to make sense of being human, that better stories are possible, and that the sense of ourselves that we actively live into (through our imagination, practices, relationships, the tools we use, the things we make with them) has a profoundly shaping effect on the kind and quality of life we can lead. And it's this commitment to imagining, sharing, and living into new narratives that bring out care, artfulness, creativity, courage, wholeness and, yes, love, that keeps drawing me into the coaching, learning, and community-building we're up to right now in Thirdspace.
If you are feeling the pull of new possibilities, or different ways of making sense of your own life, your own human being, maybe you’d like to join us for a free day of coaching with one of the participants in our Professional Coaching Course in mid-January? See the links in the box below for all our events.
Wishing you well in this continued changing time
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