Ode to Rothko Chapel

The Rothko Chapel is one of my favorite places to be, and I have been visiting it for 30 years. However, it took awhile for it to really become such a reverant place for me. In fact, the first ten years where like-hmmm, well I don’t know, the next ten were like- HEY- something about the place……then the shift happened. Just like that. I don’t know if the shift was within or without, but that is the beauty of the chapel.

It softens the edges of your inner self with the outer experience of the art.

It becomes a mirror to the deep mind, heart, and soul when you widen your gaze and lose yourself in the circle of dancing darkness. Lose yourself, find yourself…

If you are in Houston, TX. I encourage you to make a stop. You may feel boredom, discomfort, grief, or joy. No matter, I encourage you to take the hierarchy out of the experience and just offer the moment your breath awareness, and— if you’re lucky- it will offer you back its gentle path to the unknown.

Happy 50 years Rothko Chapel, deep gratitude to The de Menils and Mark Rothko. Learn more about the chapel HERE.

And Read on for one of my poems in dedication to it…

ODE TO THE ROTHKO CHAPEL

There is the space 

And there is the void

And there is the watcher

Silent over her charges of night

Protecting the channels

Of subconscious leaps

Of monsters and allies

Of yesterday and now

I look up and you are shifted

again, a border

arises and dissolves on the 

Edge of my sight

I ask and I wait

(I used to ask and create)-

and I die into the quiet

Medium of now

Discipline at my back;

to stay unraveled and not knowing

The guardian she watches me still.