St PAUL’s CATHEDRAL - City of London

Following a client visit today I found myself walking (guided) to St Paul’s Cathedral.

St Paul’s was a bit of a haunt (‘scuse the pun :)) in my youth. First dates visit on a wander about town age 15 (where is CG now, I wonder…?) and falling asleep in my early 20’s during midnight mass on Christmas Eve…like some of the congregation today. Arriving at the cathedral, I have missed visiting hours but am invited for prayer and choral evensong at 5pm.

Wow.

Tuning in for an energy reading and I’m surprised at how little energy I pick up. Mostly I’m gobsmacked at the extravagance and sheer majesty of the building. And then the choir begin…and I begin to understand. Designed, like so many churches at the time, by Sir Christopher Wren, one could almost believe he designed the building around the song and sound. A call into the ether, captured, at the highest point in the city of London. 111 metres tall, the highest dome in the world. The choral musicality fills the space, so that there is no space. Just presence and…something. I thoroughly recommend an hour spent delighting in the witnessing and meditative experience of listening at multiple levels. Quite extraordinary (…and I am of no religion or faith).

Of the English Baroque building, I am struck most by the paved floor - which I sensed was ‘laid last’, ‘owing to the generosity of a benefactor’. It has a different intention and energy from the rest of the building. Reading Wiki after, I note it was laid 1709-1710 (the cathedral, was rebuilt - with funding from a special tax on coal - after the great fire between 1675-1710). My sense is it’s the fire which ‘cleared the energies of old’ (a church in the name of Paul the Apostle has stood on the site since AD604).

Taking photos from the outside, I immediately notice the aura around the cathedral (it does not show so clearly on the images). A working cathedral of worship and song, the purity of sound: a natural space-clearer. Rings of angelic beings filled the space, orchestrating waves of harmony. Consecrated ‘to overcome adversity’ was what I sensed.

If you can, go and sit in its vision and purpose. It’s special, and timeless.

[25th June 2021]