Some years ago I began exploring how to design buildings which mirror the universal structures within the human psyche. One such “structure” is the ancient notion of the Upper and Lower Worlds.

For aboriginal people, life took place between the Sky realm above and Mother Earth below. The masculine Upper World was associated with light, vision, inspiration, creativity, and the power to fertilize the earth through rain and sunlight. In turn, the earth was the abode of the nurturing feminine, a womblike cradle of death-and-rebirth, dark, watery, mysterious, and immense. Ancient myths abound with tales of the hero or shaman journeying into the Lower World in search of healing or power, or ascending into the Upper World on the back of a spirit bird.
Thousands of years ago this worldview was modeled in pyramids with underground crypts, and more recently in cathedrals with soaring spires built over ancient underground shrines to the Goddess. It’s an outlook which is very much alive at Taos Pueblo, where the multi-storied buildings themselves emulate the World Mountain, and where the people climb to the rooftops to contemplate the heavens but journey down into the kivas for spiritual rebirth. The Pueblo is a wonderful example of balance in both architecture and lifestyle.

 

We have a lot to gain from restoring a similar balance in our homes, which have veered sharply in the Upper World direction with soaring ceilings, huge windows, and a surfeit of powerful technology. Not that there’s anything wrong with high ceilings and bright rooms, but earthy, womblike spaces with gentler light levels are needed as well.

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