LEXICON

Necessary words. Definitions are stable until a practitioner tears them down, which is encouraged.

THE ACCIDENTAL WILDERNESS n.

What the dump became. The finest phrase anyone has coined for the Spit; we did not coin it, and we tip the hat each time (see Resources).

THE APSIS n.

The far point of an orbit; the place where the light lingers longest. Every devotion has one. Ours was found at the foot of a great mullein (Verbascum thapsus) on the temple's outermost peninsula, and the crown on the Seal marks it.

THE ARMAMENTARIUM n.

The practice room; the full kit of instruments for the study of light, including the practitioner. Contains, ideally, an oak view, a bird feeder, incense, and at least one tool you cannot yet justify.

AUDACITY n., prized quality.

To act perversely, for the sake of it.

THE COVE n.

Where the rock is. (You will know it. It is the one that fits.)

DEVOTION n.

Any place, person, or practice you keep returning to on purpose. Drawn as an orbit; weighted in hearts; revealed by density.

THE ENDIKEMENT n.

The engineered arm that shelters the Spit's cells. Doctrinally: our beak. We feed on the nectar of the lake with it.

FIRST LIGHT n.

1. The hour the temple is at its most honest. 2. The instrument that tells you when to leave the house.

FLUBORIOUSNESS n., prized quality.

From fluborius: to create with an intentional reverence for the unknown. The word itself is an act of it.

THE GATES n.

A theory the city maintains about when the temple begins and ends. The light holds a different theory. We side with the light.

ICONOCLASM n., prized quality.

To tear down symbols, even our own. Especially our own. Practiced on the front page, where the seal forgives it every time.

THE MIDDLE PATH n., literal.

A multi-use trail running the length of the Spit, maintained by the Toronto and Region Conservation Authority. Walk it to the end. Turn around.

THE NAUGHTY DIP n., rite.

Brief, imperfect, strictly speaking against the rules. Purification usually is. (The rules exist for good ecological reasons; the rite accepts the contradiction and does not recommend itself.)

PLATE n.

One photograph in the folio, numbered in roll order. The lake did the colour grading.

RUBBLE n., sacred material.

The city, dug up, discarded, and forgiven. Bricks soften; holes are revealed as places for the water to pass through. Nothing is wasted.

THE SEAL n.

The whole radius compressed into one image: real devotions, veiled; rings that wobble because a hand held the compass. The crown marks the apsis, and the small light keeps its appointments.

THE SHIELD n., relic.

A carved shield of the Bamum people of Cameroon, ring within ring within ring, found at Kiondo in Toronto. It stopped the founder mid-stride: another tradition, on another continent, writing in circles long before the Seal was drawn. It hangs in the Armamentarium, honoured as a guest and never claimed. One day the Seal will be projected onto it, light on carved wood. That entry is not yet ready to be written.

THE SPIT n.

The Leslie Street Spit; the headland; the temple. Legally a park managed by the TRCA, with which we are proudly unaffiliated.

THE SWORD OF TOMMY THOMPSON n., relic.

A stick and a holed brick, found separately at the cove, mid-rite. Carried home. Joined there with a wrap of hemp cord around the stick: a friction fit, a sword in its scabbard. Not forged. Found twice, joined once. It will be carved, in time, the way everything at the temple is still being made. It is drawn only for good reasons, and it is drawn often.

THOMPSONIST n.

Anyone following a middle path: their own. Membership is by walking.

THE TRUCKS n., liturgical.

Creation, ongoing. You can hear it from the Middle Path.