CERNICA’S HALOS

-text and photos Andrei Dorian Gheorghe
design Florin Alexandru Stancu-

Knowing that the Cernica Monastery (one of the most beautiful in Romania)
has the Sun and the Moon reproduced on the crosses of its main church,
I photographed these two heavenly bodies in 28 July 2017.

Then, in 6 August 2017,
under the blessing of the Morning Star (the planet Venus),
I started from Bucharest to that special place,
passing near the Pantelimon Lake, where, on its peninsula,
another beautiful monastery existed in between the 1730s and the 1980s,
when it was demolished by the communist regime
to make room to a luxurious complex for tourists.

Before passing through the gate-tower of the Cernica Monastery,
it is to tell that it was founded in 1608 on the peninsula of the Cernica Lake
by the aristocrat Stefan Cernica
to become an important spiritual centre.

Thus, it hosted schools for painters and copyists,
and today it appears as a small religious town,
including three churches, three chapels, a few picturesque houses
and a cemetery where more Romanian cultural personalities are buried.

And ideal place for meditation about the human condition
between evil and good,
between darkness and light,
between reality and dream.

I opted to visit the main church, dedicated to Saint George,
and inside I especially remarked
a few paintings with solar halos in the colors of the rainbow,
one of them surrounding the Creator,
who holds the Earth in a hand.

On this controversial planet
Cernica merits congratulations
As a portal toward a purer dimension
With astral invitations.