Temple Area Zero

Over the weekend, I set out to give life and material presence to what I call Pittsburgh's Temple Area Zero, the sacred site I feel is the heart of the city.

My goal was to outline the space physically, to inform the city that I considered this already-holy site worth further study and investigation, and that I wanted to make it's already-sacred nature more materially present. In short, I wanted to take a sacred site and make it a Temple.

The Name

I named it Temple Area Zero for two reasons: as a former computer science nerd, I index from zero, and so the most important temple should therefore be the zeroith one. Second, and more subtly, Temple Area Zero acronymates to TAZ, a reference to Hakim Bey's Temporary Autonomous Zone.

The idea came to me last year, in Long Beach, that the space I already hold sacred (and have for quite a number of years) should be instantiated even more as a Temple. The idea also came to me that such a temple would need a guardian, a physical creature with a larger etheric body attatched, to protect it and protect those in it.

All of the Temple Areas i instantiate will have such guardians- and a few are already built.

The Guardian

The Guardian is not the first of his kind. Years ago I built a City Totem, a wire construct of different detritus I had found in the city. Its head is a rail spike. Its body, a property line marker, its arms more rail spikes. Its tissues are steel wire.

The Guardian is a smaller cousin of this City Totem, built of a rail spike, a rusty, decorative hinge, and steel wire. Long yards of thinner wire attaches him to a strange volcanic stone I found in my youth.

The Ritual

The ritual, briefly, consisted of the following steps:

Building the Guardian and sanctifying him with the city (happened months ago)
Taking the Guardian to the Temple Area
Using my City Key to open a way into the Other City.
Once in that magical medium, calling four city spirits (in this case, historical figures) for each direction
Walking the West, North, East, and South outlines of the Temple Area, speaking to each spirit in turn, asking it to watch over the site and lend it strength.
Going to the center of the Area and beseaching the City to continue to strengthen the site magically, especially within the Temple Area previously proscribed.
Asking each of the spirits to imbue the Guardian with something kin to them: life, motion, will, and temperance.
Placing the Guardian.
Dismissing the Spirits in reverse order.
Speaking directly to the City.

We'll see how well this Temple Area works out, but building it felt excellent.