TEMPLE OF TIME

A Reflection on Gratitude

There is always the need to carry on. Marjorie Stoneman Douglas

After the pandemic, temples will no longer be burned, they will become community gardens. David Best

The Temple of Time was designed by David Best and built with the David Best Temple Crew. It opened to the communities of Coral Springs and Parkland, Florida on April 14, 2019, exactly one year after the shootings at Marjorie Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland.

These temples are made to be temporary, built to be burned, places where people who are feeling loss and grief can bring mementos- notes written in Sharpie pen, photographs, small memorials- knowing that they will burn with the structure. Fires are cathartic and have been part of ceremony in traditional cultures for thousands of years. I have always explained the burning of the temple, the fire itself, as a way to feel release, feel some closure. The sparks spinning upward are like whirling dervish angels ascending to heaven.

But the Temple of Time did not burn to completion. The fire department decided that the fire was becoming dangerous so they put it out. At the time it was a severe blow to all of us who had worked so hard to bring it to life, yet something important still occurred. A therapist working with us helped me understand it with this story:

“I went to the circus the other night with my kids. We watched the trapeze artist fall into the net, climb back up, and continue their show. Evidently it was a missed catch, but we did not know it was a mistake. It was all still so miraculous to us. That is how it was for the people watching the temple burn tonight.”

There are two kinds of grief. That first type of grief is so much pain and anxiety, anxiety that can lead to panic attacks and depression. But there is another kind of grief that opens slowly, holds gratitude, and reveals itself over time. The temple is a place to learn how to grieve with gratitude, to get past the grief of anxiety and begin the transformation to a grief of gratitude. You feel the love and beauty in the structure, but even more you feel the empathy and compassion of all the people who have arrived there and shared something of their grief. You feel the love and you feel the sorrow. Many in Coral Springs shared with me that they felt this love, this sorrow, and this gratitude.

The Temple of Time made an impact on a suffering community. As of this writing people love to gather at the site to eat lunch. It still feels significant.

This book is a work in progress. It is my personal account with the people I worked with and talked to from the community. I’ve built many Temples with David Best and this Temple Crew, but what happened here held so much meaning. I believe this is so important in our world right now. It is something amazingly hopeful and optimistic.

In the Afterward I share some design ideas and some interesting mycelium products to evolve the temple, rather than something that is burned but is instead biodegradable and is part of a regenerative landscape, and a sustainable community park.

Afterward

Some inspirations on how to move forward after the Pandemic. How do we build a Temple that will not burn, but instead becomes a community garden? How do we have the temple be sustainable and regenerative? What kind of materials do we use? I’d like to share a few ideas that I have been working with, brilliant people I have met and have given me new kind of materials that I believe can change the world. The temple is a profound place to help people lay down that grief of anxiety and find love and hope along with the deep sorrow. These tears are different, they are from your spirit with the first glimmer of gratitude. And then what about our smiling, aching planet? where a cracked and weedy asphalt parking lot, or an old forgotten and toxic land fill is turned into something growing and living and attracting wonderful insects and birds, something miraculous. If the planet can do it, you can.

The monarch butterfly survives and thrives in milkweed. It lays eggs here and hatches as the caterpillar, it is where the caterpillar grows and can only nourish on the milkweed leaves, when fat enough turns into the chrysalis, the body completely dissolves into the nothingness of mucus and only then metamorphosis occurs, the chrysalis becomes translucent and the Monarch butterfly emerges– slowly moving its wings in front of the 4 year old child and then flies away on it epic 1000 mile migration. In the story of the monarch butterfly, the temple is milkweed, food for the transformational process. It is not romantic, magical thinking to see this arrival from the rubble and be overwhelmed with hope and gratitude.

When we see that the earth can heal itself with our smallest actions, we are inspired. Mycelium and milkweed are poetic reinforcements to a new path. Healing the planet and our relationship to it is as important as healing our hearts. The temple will contain that message. In helping to heal others, including mother earth, is the best way to heal ourselves. It starts with this wondrous young age of exploration and filtering hope and life, love and gratitude... the metamorphosis of a butterfly might be all you need to believe when you are two years old... and 30 years later when facing a life choice.

We remade Jenny Miller’s Garden Day Preschool so she could open during the pandemic. We planted 1” high milkweed in early July– here it is 3 months later

TEMPLE OF TIME

PARKLAND & CORAL SPRINGS FLORIDA • MSD STRONG