b'Where Everything Moves Toward EnlightenmentFinally, when the journey ofspiritual pilgrimage is completed, the aspirant is reunited within the centre. He becomes one with the nave ofthe world. . . .He has attained . . . the Highest Perfect Awakening: the axis mundi has contracted to a point and the sun is forever risen.Adrian Snodgrass, The Symbolism of the StupaBecause the entire path of the house leads up and toward the center, when you enter the observation room there is a distinct feeling of having arrived. This is the lotus seat of the house, the place where dualities of the path are transcended and attention turns inward to rediscover the self. Althoughopens the house to the heavensthe spaciousness of the the room was designed to create that feeling, to have thesky, the warmth and inspiration of the sun, the rhythms of impact of both a physical and spiritual destination, it is inthe celestial bodies.The observation room is designed to no way an end in itself, but an ongoing part of the journey,lift the spirit and integrate the larger environment with the 276Life & Revelationa place of contemplation and serenity, renewal and inspira- heart, to connect the quiet at our core with the vastness of tion, awe and gratitude.space. It is the sky door of ancient temples, sending light The separation between inside and outside begins tothrough the central column where the staircase becomes the blur as you take in the panoramic view of the mountainsladder from the heavens to the navel of the earth below, four to the west. We are now forty feet above the first floor,stories down in the basement. facing Overlook Mountain, which has drawn generationsThis is the only room in the house that is equally of artists, musicians, and spiritual seekers to the town ofproportioned: the height from floor to ceiling is exactly the Woodstock at its base. North and south of Overlook, thesame, to the inch, as the width of the floor. So the room Catskills extend across the horizon. Above, the skylightcircumscribes a perfect sphere, an equally balanced space, unique in a house filled with rooms that are asymmetric combinations of large and small proportions. All of the The Sound of the Golden Proportion dynamic movement of the spiral is equalized and brought [Tom] Often, upon entering the room, I emphasizeinto unity here. The centerarchitecturally, geometrically, a shiftin perspective, consciousness, purposeby striking a harmonic lyre that sits on a windowsillmetaphysicallyfinds its still point and its perfect balance (left). The chime is tuned to a perfect fifth, the tonalhere. The architectural metaphor is of awakening.equivalent of the golden proportion, and the sound tunes your body to the wavelength of unity. We have left behind the intellectual and cultural distinc-tions represented by the library, and entered a realm open to the Music of the Spheres and the silence within. From another point of view, the vibration of the lyre is the primordial sound from which, in Hindu philosophy, all things originate.'