The TAO Metaversity Classes Begin
What is VAS?* The students at the University of Utah are in the “process” of creating the TAO Metaversity. Dr. Julio Bermudez and 13 senior architectural students have begun this winter’s Studio with a project that will have worldwide impact. *For complete description of VAS see Voluntary Architectural Simplicity
Synchronicity. When reading what the TAO Metaversity is about, one is struck by the subtle ways life uses the TAO Metaversity’s spirit as a teaching model — even before it is seemingly born. It begins. This project is brought to consciousness, an email is sent and received back east, the recipient meets the sender for the first time, and shares a professor, Dr. Julio Bermudez’s name, who is teaching sacred architecture – in Salt Lake City. This project, the TAO Metaversity, waiting to be brought into form, is in need of sacred architecture. The TAO Metaversity is introduced to the professor, discussed as though is was about to be born, acknowledged as a project who’s time has come and adopted by the professor and 13 architecture students. Coincidence, Synchronicity, Trust, Faith, and Miracle – these are the names we give to incidences we can’t quite explain yet know they are around us. They happen with or without our understanding.
The Relationship. The TAO Metaversity’s intent is to support the practice of experiencing these experiences and in doing so, unlock inner wisdom. It’s curriculum teaches there is much more than what is perceived by the five senses. It’s spaces must lift the spirit, cultivate imagination, fuel the intellect and remind us that we are citizens of ecological and spiritual communities. The architecture must raise aesthetic sensitivity and through it assist in developing gentleness, generosity, caring and compassion. “BEing” is celebrated over doing and having and allowed to interact with knowing in the here and now of the real.
What it looks like. The TAO Metaversity is taking form in design, colors, smells, textures, setting, and subtly in the lives of those it is being introduced to. As the students, project jurors, professors and client seem to be working to render a structure to be built, the TAO Metaversity is teaching. It’s classroom space is still undefined the curriculum is being written, the design in architecture is still being molded and shaped. Still, the TAO Metaversity begins its teaching – not waiting for us to agree what the final project will look like. It knows its depth, its wisdom, its purpose and gives itself in any way we might catch a glimpse of it’s beauty.
The teaching begins. The client’s project description is written and given to the students. They begin to read and study the requirements of the client. The TAO Metaversity enters into the students lives through the written words. It begins to access their knowing of this place that has seemingly only been introduced to them. It seems a little familiar to some of the students. As they read they begin writing down ideas, thoughts, flashes of creativity runs through them. The more they read about this project, the more it resonates with their experiences. The thoughts invoke conversations, “Yes I remember what it was to be a student. The teacher entering the classroom and talking to the blackboard. I remember hearing something I wanted to share with my classmate and when I did, I lost recess.”
While the developmental models are seemingly being created, the students are accessing memories, hope, and places they themselves want to come to. They begin talking about this place as if it were already “something”. The TAO Metaversity listens to these conversations, smiling as an old friend would upon being recognized.
The teaching is extended. As each phase is complete, it is time to introduce the TAO Metaversity to the client, and professionals who have been asked to see the progress of the students and to critique this project. The students come in groups of two, one has three, and they each describe, “What the TAO Metaversity means to them”. As they describe their experiences they begin to teach everyone present in the room. As each group finishes, the jurors and client wonder in the form of questions. They now have been introduced to this project. As it’s personality is shared, each person is giving their thoughts and ideas to this “project”. Some of the jurors are expressing their questions from the place of asking, “Why would I come here?” ” What will I feel when I come here?” They are asking the students these questions and they are asking from a place that has brought them together, with the students, under the guise of this project. They see it is long overdue, they recognize what its possibilities are, and most of the jurors are now imagining that a place like this could be built.
The joining of spirit. Through each exchange with friends, family, jurors, and seeming passer-bys, The TAO Metaversity is further recognized into consciousness. With each communication, the TAO Metaversity’s essence is taught. These 13 students and Dr. Julio Bermudez are already teaching others through their ideas, thoughts, experiences, actions and unseen interactions. They are giving form to this environment through their architectural renderings and models and they are giving life to its intent because they are the TAO Metaversity. As you witnessed these students and professor talk about this project, you recognize they, like the TAO Metaversity, are lifting the spirit, cultivating imagination, fueling the intellect and reminding us that we are citizens of ecological and spiritual communities. Many of us who have known – from an inner wisdom – that there must be something more, recognize and join with the spirit of the TAO Metaversity.
Leave a comment