Terminus: Auburn Avenue

[jack_babalon]

"Speculating Masonry: All Eyes On Egipt"


"Urbanglyphics"
May 27th, 2007
~Rob M.

Auburn Avenue is one of the more vital currents flowing through the City Too Busy to Hate: An open air mueseum, one that provides an architectural record of the burgeoning Civil Rights Movement. It is also one of the few places in the United States where you can actually feel the history floating in the air around you. Usually you can pick up this 'feeling' all over Europe, where the Past is more than just an expensive shopping district where tourists window shop for fragile relics and crumbling documents, but rather acts as a palpable ghost, whose echos can be sculpted intuitively into an individually unique understanding. Auburn has this Ghost.

One of the often overlooked attractions here in the heart of the King Legacy, is the Prince Hall Grand Lodge as well as the integral role played by the African-American Children of the Widow throughout the South. I found this shop while cruising down Jackson Street. Sitting across from the MLK Historic Site's winding park, a pair of Eye of Horus's stare unblinkingly out across Auburn at the prestigious Ebenezer Baptist Church. Here we have a wonderful juxtaposition of symbols and frozen rituals. A crossroads of initiations, ceremonies, baptisms and burials. Where one can kneel before the great mysteries or cross the street and pursue them through library forests of estoric academia.

Hard to believe that only three blocks down towards the shores of the skyline, that Auburn becomes a ghetto no mans land. Perhaps it's because temples, lodges and churches have always thrived in the human heart of raw desperation.

Comments

[featherynscale.livejournal.com]

Every time you post something like this, it makes me miss Atlanta.

Of course, the Atlanta I know isn't nearly as fey and compelling as the one you live in. You just have the right eyes.

[jackbabalon23.livejournal.com]

Thank you. I'm sure you're Atlanta is just as compelling though, you have to keep in mind that for every photo I get kinda right there's about fifty shots that are pure crap (seriously I have no idea how I get so many tilted Orson Welles on crack photographs). You and yours should drop by though if you're ever missing the ATL too much.

[featherynscale.livejournal.com]

Heh, that's my problem - I publish every shot. :)
Actually, we managed to weasel an extra day around DragonCon this year, so we'll be down by you on Thursday before. Want to go to dinner or some such?

re:Dinner

[jackbabalon23.livejournal.com]

Love too!:)

Re: Dinner

[featherynscale.livejournal.com]

Eeeeexcellent. I'm putting it on my calendar.

[karis-straif.livejournal.com]

I really want to hit that shop!
We should make it a trip one afternoon.

[jackbabalon23.livejournal.com]

I've passed by a few times since and it never seems open. Maybe I just don't have the 'Widows Word' anymore;)

[ninsun.livejournal.com]

that looks like a neat place to go!!!
if you like that you should try visiting rondo's :)

[karis-straif.livejournal.com]

Let's make it a trip!

[ninsun.livejournal.com]

sure lets go!!

[jackbabalon23.livejournal.com]

I'm not familiar w/Rondo's, is that an occult shop of some form?

[ninsun.livejournal.com]

It is a occult shop in the middle of the ghetto past 5 pts station.

[musewithamagnum.livejournal.com]

Wonderful...Memphis has that that feeling as well - an incredible Prince Hall presence. In fact, I was first introduced to the phrase "ride the goat" by a couple PH Masons, talking over my head at the office one morning. That's when I first figured out there was a whole day-glo color having world out there beyond my uncles and their stody ol' boys club and started poking around to see what part of Egipt I could get myself into.

[jackbabalon23.livejournal.com]

Wow, i've never heard the expression "RIDE THE GOAT" before. You've intrigued me... can you share or is it a "Heal, conceal and never reveal" thing?

[vomikronnoxis.livejournal.com]

There's an All Eyes in Covington, Ga. I looked into it once. The guy behind all this weird black, southern Egyptian stuff is quite a character:

Seriosuly, you want ALL of this:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malachi_Z._York

:)

~rl

[jackbabalon23.livejournal.com]

Cool man, appreciate that. I'll print it up before I leave:)