Architectural Theory: Meditation Space

Meditation Space

1.5 weeks

materials: trace paper, 'silky' crayons

I made a paper balloon. You start with a square piece of paper and fold it up and then blow into it and it poofs right up. The ‘meditation space’ is within the blown-up balloon.

The paper is the body. The physical, densest matter. Its colors represent the chakras, or the body’s ‘energy centers.’

There are seven chakras, in ascending order along the spinal cord:

1. Muladhara - Base or Root Chakra (last bone in spinal cord) Red.

2. Swadhisthana - Sacral Chakra (ovaries/prostate) Orange.

3. Manipura - Solar Plexus Chakra (navel area) Yellow.

4. Anahata - Heart Chakra (heart area) Green.

5. Vishuddha - Throat Chakra (throat and neck area) Light Blue.

6. Ajna - Brow or Third Eye Chakra (pineal gland or third eye) Dark Blue.

7. Sahasrara - Crown Chakra (Top of the head) Purple.

The unfolded paper has a beautiful pattern. There is an organization and understanding of higher order. When the paper is folded into the right pattern, the chakras line up into the ascending order. When it is blown up, they are illuminated.

I like the idea of the balloon because it has unassuming potential. I like the idea of using paper to create this balloon: that a square piece of paper with no volume or depth can have both without any stretching or elasticity involved. Everything material is already there, simply.

The mind is what grasps this potential. It sees that the body can be creased, folded, scared, crinkled, torn, tattooed, unfolded, and does this. It folds the body into a deflated balloon. It breaths into it...and woah! The body swells up with new space. The mind is the action.

The act of blowing the balloon up has to do with breathing (obviously). Steady, conscious breaths into the hole at the top of the folded shape is the only way to blow it up. Sometimes it works the first time. Sometimes you need to coax it, get half way and refold it carefully along the creases and begin again.
The more frequently you blow up the balloon, the softer and more worn the creases become; the easier the shape understands what to do.

In this model, a meditation space is something within yourself. A higher consciousness, a deeper awareness and state of being is something that can be physically and mentally realized. It is beautiful and fragile; simple and complex. Light can come from within.

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(study models)

*I learned how to make origami paper balloons (and much more) in a week-long day-camp in the basement of a downtown church in Boulder, Colorado. I still remember how to make balloons and frogs. (They start the same way.)