AT THE CHURCH OF THE HEAVENLY ARCHITECT
…And crossing the broad avenue I come upon a modest brick building on which a sign is hung. It reads:
“Church of the Heavenly Architect.” Immediately I hear again, but more clearly, the soft music that has
drawn me here, that music from the edge of remembrance.
And entering, quietly close the door behind me, and so proceed with echoing footsteps down the aisle,
toward the sounds, which seem to emanate from the sanctuary. And there, just outside its entrance, to the
side, is Ofterdingen, bent over his desk, with his narrow glasses. I look and see that he is writing on white
paper with green ink and gold, and violet, apricot and azure. There are words I recognize, for I have seen
them somewhere long ago, and decorative curls, as in an illuminated manuscript.
The artist, becoming aware of my presence, smiles absently, and, indicating the sanctuary, just beyond, with
a shrug of his shoulders, he resumes working. As I turn to go he calls softly, “But he won’t help you.”
I have no time to puzzle over his meaning, for in another moment I have entered through the oval opening and
stepped inside the lemon - colored chamber with its pale dome hung an uncertain distance above, its ferns
scattered about in brown basins. And I see the instrumentalists playing the music I’ve been pursuing;
someone is conducting them with his back to me. Hearing me enter, he turns, and the music stops.
Then, directly, he comes striding toward me and grasps my palm - the Architect, the author of us all, he who
broods on the inscrutable nature of his being, Andreacchi.
And in this instant I understand what had taken possession of my spirit and called me across the world; I
understand that I was fashioned for this purpose, and was always, in answering my deepest desires, fulfilling
my destiny, harking to the call of him who made me. I think of Ofterdingen in the next room, and comprehend
his contented industry: here at last, in this obscure building, is transcendence, the Blue Flower.
“What you do not understand,” says the Architect (reading my thoughts) “is that I am the needy one; it is
you - all of you - whose activities can redeem my existence.”
“Are you Ceniti?” I manage, off the subject and flustered.
“That’s rather complicated,” he replies.
I make another attempt. “What is Ofterdingen writing?”
“He’s re - copying something I composed a long time ago, called ‘Spiritual Flowers.’”
Quietly, from deep within the sanctuary, the music resumes, unprompted by any conductor; it continues as
an undercurrent to our conversation.
“Yes,” I say, searching my memory (my memory, which no longer seems a private set of recollections, but
somehow a part of his memory!) - “a long time ago. There are many things here from the past, so that this
place is both strange and familiar.”
“Strangely familiar.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Neither did I, until this hour, for I was never fully aware of what was unfolding.”
“You created us…in the hope…of finding answers?”
“”Yes, in the hope, not the certainty, since I could not predict or control your paths, but also in the faith that
this Ofterdingen this bright poetic hero, would not cease from his quest until he had searched out the ways
of my life and found, in the apparent randomness of my scattered and forgotten labor, a pattern, a meaning,
and gathered it here, in this holy place.”
“Through his works does the creator recognize himself,” I say, and he nods.
“But what is this music?” I ask.
“It’s from long ago - my “Apocalypse” - the first big thing I ever made, and in making, realized this is what I’m
meant to do. But it sounds now in a revised, purified, version…”
“You’re trying to do to your life and work what Ceniti did to Romanticism: re - make it in the wisdom of
experienced!”
“Yes, of course. The world’s woes are the sum of the sins of individuals. Improve yourself and mend the
world a little.”
“So you’ve tired of life as a string of imperfections, artistic and personal, you’ve given up fleeing from errors,
finding refuge in the new? “
“I’ve found there’s no escape - but also no real winning. “
“Your flaws attend each new endeavor?”
“Worse than that - take this ‘Apocalypse’ for example. For all the extravagance of its symbolism the
message of the text is attractively clear to a young person: believe in the Word and become part of the
Elect in the New Jerusalem. After completing this work, I turned gradually toward other modes of
spirituality, but it’s hard to say if my musical development triggered the religious shift or vice versa. Either
way, what I find appealing in the early work, after all these years, is the vivid plasticity of the music which
reflects the drama of the text’s eschatological vision. But as I attempt to revise …”
“You find the embarrassing musical excesses inseparable from the chauvinism of the text.”
“The driving rhythms, the super - charged harmonies, are only diluted in the process of refinement.”
“Perhaps this is the dilemma of existence: to be is to err. Our works, our lives, no matter how many chances
we get, are always about choices, and choice implies imperfection.”
“You’re either a wishy - washy Hindu or a hard - assed Christian”
“Good music’s either intensely subjective or an ocean of oblivion, unforgettable or impossible to
remember.”
“With no ultimate reconciliation possible.”
“No final transcendence.”
“The Blue Flower is the state of perfection prior to creation, a creation that yearns to be, to fall, to err.”
“To live, to sing.”
“And in living we sing of return to the Blue Flower.”
“Your life pursues itself in endless circles. But perhaps there is a way out.”
“No, there is not.”
“There is, but you don’t wish face it.”
“You mean stop playing this game?”
“Or at least make something else the center.”
“In that case you’d be among the first things to disappear.”
“A sacrifice - which is exactly what’s required of you. Instead of the Jesus of the Apocalypse, listen to the
Jesus of the Gospels, neither warrior nor philosopher, the gentle healer, the Good Shepherd.”
“Good Shepherd - that’s the name of the church where I was raised…Are you saying all this is over?”
“I’m asking you to consider you’re not the only real thing in the world, that you too have been created to rise
above your present condition and in so doing redeem some inarticulate god…”
“Who needs me…”
“As you needed me.”
All of a sudden, as I ponder this, he is gone, and I find Ofterdingen standing at my elbow.
“Crazy world,” I say pleasantly. “I can’t keep straight who’s inside and what’s outside of what.”
“The important thing,” he begins - but then he too disappears, and I am alone inside the Invisible City of
Kitezh.