Structure of the Temple

[WingedPaladin]

I have seen much interest here in building a Daheshist Temple. I've considered trying to build a virtual temple in Second Life, but I don't know where to start. I have no blueprint or idea of what a Daheshist Temple would look like. Does anyone here know?

[Mario]

You can find (among others) discussions about and images of a proposed Temple in a sub-forum called "The Image of the City"

or...

http://www.daheshville.com/forum/forumdisplay.php?f=97

Please note that the discussions and essays about the City at large are also important because a Temple cannot exist in a vacuum. Hence, context is key.

[Mario]

An Imaginary Street

A couple more thoughts, hopefully worthwhile.

I think "words" are equally, if not more important than images in this case. In the past, we've seen Zionic and David (Johnson) enter written passages about their respective visions of Daheshville. I think this type of approach married with a healthy balance of loose as well as clearly delineated drawings and sketches will pave the way to (at least) defining what Daheshville ends up being.

Cities cannot be built overnight. And even if they are, it takes time for people to feel at home and make a deep connection with it. However, I do feel that if a people dreams, and often, about the type of environment they would like to find themselves in, a city could (then) be (so to speak) built in an accelerated fashion. The Architects, Urban Designers, and City Planners are merely here to refine what has already been "drawn" in the mind.

For example, I see myself living on a street where I hear battery powered vehicles drive by. The Town houses and buildings are often connected with bridges. In fact, that idea was suggest by Doctor Dahesh himself. One time, in the very early 1980's, I saw him point at two buildings and say, "wouldn't it be great if these had a bridge between them?"

In the (very, very quickly made) sketch, we also see a suggestion of the towers we see at the doorsteps of Daheshville.com. When I initially drew that bird's eye view, I thought of honoring the Six Personalities. Also, water, to me, was important. Doctor Dahesh (from what I remember) loved boats.

[Mario]

For what it's worth, these are ancient and initial sketches featuring in particular the design of a reinforced concrete column. Please disregard the blue color. In the interior shot, we see the Daheshist Star encased in stained glass.

[WingedPaladin]

More about Second Life

Thank you Mario! Very nice images. This gives me something to start working on. So far, I've figured out how to make a pentagonal prism without lines (star with some depth) using 3 triangular "prims" (basic building blocks to 3D graphic design). I thought I'd start off with the simple temple there in the daheshville intro drawing based also on Johnson's sketches.

The hardest part in Second Life is finding good and cheap "land" to build on (although registration, scouting out the world, and building objects is free, land space to build on isn't) so for now I am building pieces in public "sandboxes". A dear friend of mine owns several islands and rents out land plots. His is "PG rated" land which he set up mainly as a safe haven for Latter-Day Saints and others who come looking for family safe areas in Second Life. I'm really not sure how he would feel about other faiths building on the islands as it is very LDS themed. I have a tiny parcel of land in the middle of nowhere on the mainland, but it's filled up. I think it would be ideal for Daheshville to have its own island given the many ideas and creative talents here, but that is very expensive.

Lately work has been very demanding on my time. (Today was 13.5 hours (9 am-10:30 pm) which is actually less than the usual Wednesday.)
Unfortunately, because of my time and money restrictions, this will be slow going... which then gives us lots of time to think and to plan.

There may be other low cost or even free virtual worlds to build in, but I'm not aware of many of those at this time.

Here are some screenshots of the projects I've worked on or been a part of:



This is my own little parcel in the middle of nowhere. I have a little display here for my dad's business on the left, and on the right, I have an LDS themed water temple. The water is actually falling like a waterfall. (The water angel in the middle is my Avatar. It is supposed to be water in all three states - solid, liquid and gas - but I don't have my ice skates on at the moment. I guess you could say the glowing thing in the middle is plasma for a fourth state.)



Inside the falls are relics such as the gold plates and a modern Book of Mormon, a golden trumpet, the Los Lunes Decalogue stone, and a stained glass of Joseph Smith's First Vision.



This is a zoomed out view. On the top of the water cube is the Christus, or statue of Jesus Christ often found in LDS Temple Visitors Centers. The idea of it here is Christ being the source of living water. The water flows from Him here.



This is the center of my friend's land. There is a chapel to the right. Behind it is the Mormon Tabernacle. On the left is representative of an LDS Temple. Members couldn't decide which temple to build and many felt that the temples are too sacred to build in SL due to traffic, so, we have this to represent all of the temples. On the other side of the white block is a picture which is always changing featuring the many different temples. Most LDS temples have the angel Moroni blowing his trumpet at the top of its spire, so I built this statue for it.

One feature with Second Life is that you can block public traffic from your section of land and only allow members of a group, or certain people, to enter that parcel should limiting traffic become a concern.



This is another project I was able to be involved in. The flags actually do wave a bit in the wind.

[Johnson]

Wonderful images Winged and Mario. In the end, everyone's "image" of their sacred place will be somewhat different. The very notion that these ideas are being thought about and explored is such an inspiring piece of thought in and of itself. Those that have thought about such things, whether as actual physical architecture or even as conceptual feelings, have already walked a very quiet, reflective (and sometimes lonely) introspective road. Each of our individual inner spiritual worlds have a unique character and color all their own.

I can easily see Winged, that as you have shown here, a virtual temple, a virtual island, can be almost as real as any physically built structure or place. What it all comes down to in the end... is what is in our hearts; what is in our minds; and then finally what is in our hands in the realm of what we are capable of executing.

If these desires of making such places real capture the hearts and minds of enough people, then yes, I have to imagine, invariably, something physically "real" will happen... something physically "real" will get built. There is a tremendous pool of creativity, knowledge and intellect in this community of Daheshville and I think part of the collective dream here is to utilize all of those resources, however great or small... for something strong and positive.

In as much as we all try to daily live our faith and belief and share our experiences (good AND bad) of how we all got here...and try to support and encourage one another through all this good and bad... what is important to everyone here is that we can find value and strength in one another. Sandrine and Mario have spoken so wonderfully over and over the goal of this for Daheshville.

It has talked about in earlier posts that many in what were the early "core" of Daheshists after Dr. Dahesh passed away, ended up being very exclusionary of other Daheshists. This early "core" was looked up to as "the way" of the next chapter of Daheshism. They had very tightly guarded ways of doing things and disseminating information (much of this was very understandable in the early years of trying to 'reorganize' after the death of our prophet). Everyone wanted to be "in" with this core of people, and viewed being "in" as the ultimate point of arrival within Daheshism. If one was "accepted" by this core of people, one had "arrived"...

Ultimately, time passed and this core of Daheshists publicly denied on record Dr. Dahesh being a prophet...only admitting that yeah, "he must have been very charismatic though..."

All this was coupled with many Daheshists that were outside this core being "shunned" and made to feel useless in any of their contributions... useless in their very existence within the Daheshist community. For all intents and purposes, those on the outside were knowingly left adrift. This core of people knew the earnestness of those who wanted to be part of the community of Daheshism and contribute... but this did not matter... those on the "outside" of this core were effectively abandoned and rendered useless.

Well, here we are. All of the discussions and works here were borne out those that were discarded. All of those deemed insignificant and not important are here creating something very real and open and tangible for the greater community. There is indescribable pain and suffering that lay along the path that has culmunated into the forming of Daheshville.

It is ever so inspiring to me to see the ideas here grow and the community sharing in larger and larger concepts.

Even just along the lines of this one particular topic...look at your life Winged of all the life events that brought you here to share your images and ideas of a place of faith and God and belief...tie that in to the lineage of the lives of all the others that are sharing their lives and images... and we all meet here in the middle! Such wonderful events, where we all matter in our worlds and our ideals and our visions matter, dare I say, never occured like this in the days of old when things were under "different management"...