I took the kids to see the Rosslyn Chapel outside Edinburgh and it blew our minds with its stunning intricate stone carvings and rich mysterious architecture.
Made famous by the DaVinci Code, legend states the Knights Templar hid their treasure from Solomon’s Temple underneath the chapel, and the building itself is a near replica of the original Solomon’s Temple. The Rosslyn Chapel is called “Roslin” because it is technically on the “Rose Line” meridian of marking the magical Isle of Avalon from King Arthur’s legends. But experts on the Holy Grail state that “Roslin” is the name for the “Line of the Rose” — the ancestral lineage of Mary Magdalene.
The chapel has many mysteries surrounding it. For example, it is covered in hundreds of carvings of the Green Man and ears of corn, carved 150 years before Columbus founded America and “discovered” corn. The Green Man is a pagan god who symbolized pleasure, fertility, and the return of spring after the winter.
It is often called the “Cathedral of Codes” and every surface is carved with many symbols from several different traditions: Jewish, Egyptian, Christian, Pagan, Masonic. There are pyramids, Templar crosses, Jewish stars, cruciforms, Masonic seals, pentacles, astrological signs and roses. Built in 1446 on the site of an ancient Mithraic temple, the chapel abounds with legends. The Knights Templar were known to be expert stonemasons, but the Rosslyn chapel goes way beyond beautiful carvings. It’s sublime, a shrine to all faiths and most of all, to nature and the goddess.
A few years back, a 75-year-old musician and his son, an ex-code breaker, visited the chapel and immediately knew there was something more to the unique geometry. So, they spent years trying to cracking the code. In the arches of the chapel, they saw angels playing instruments and 213 geometric cube carvings accompanying them. They also found geometric patterns on the cubes that correlated to a Chladni Pitch, which are the patterns sand and liquid makes on a flat surface when certain musical tones are played. By looking at these for the notes and an angel that points to a musical staff for the key, they managed to understand the architecture as a giant musical score, which you can listen to on YouTube.
We walked around the Rosslyn Chapel with our heads tilted back, looking at the stunning scrollwork, and listened to the stories of murder, treasure, goddess symbology and pagan worship mixed with ancient Egypt, freemasons, Christianity, Jewish stars, and so much more …
Apparently, one of the stone masons finished carving a column and left town to look for inspiration. He told his apprentice they would pause the carving, but the apprentice felt inspired and went ahead and did the most gorgeous carving of the other column, strangely making it look nearly identical the helix DNA strand, even though the discovery of DNA was centuries out. When the carver returned, he was so enraged at his apprentice for continuing without him, he murdered him. The face of the murderer, the victim, and the victim’s grieving mother are all carved into the church.
Dan Brown wrote in the Davinci Code that the two pillars are replicas of two pillars from Solomon’s Temple, and that they are replicated in every Masonic temple in the world. In addition, one is covered in that gorgeous spiral, like the DNA helix, also a symbol of the goddess.
The chapel was hauntingly beautiful, and when I saw the corner of candles, I lit a few and whispered the names of the beautiful souls we have loved who have moved on:
Kim, Laura, Chuck E., my Dad, James Galante.
There are many legends about the church: that it hides the treasure of the Knights Templar, the head of John the Baptist, something that belonged to Mary Magdalene, that is was originally built to honor Venus, and that several armed knights are buried under the church. Radar has found a larger structure beneath the church, much larger than the chapel, but excavation has not been allowed. Because of the elaborate structure and stone carvings, we can create many stories about this sublime place, all of which may or may not be true.
Whatever the meaning behind the building, the only truth I know is that there is magic here.
