TURNED TO PLUMB FOR THE PLANETS’ WALK

COSMIC ROMANIA 42

-introductory photo Valentin Grigore
text and photos Andrei Dorian Gheorghe
design Florin Alexandru Stancu-

Many times, across the years,
I admired Valentin Grigore’s photos
which included the Winter Triangle
(the stars Procyon, Sirius and Betelgeuse -
the first from the superb constellation Orion)
and this is one of them enriched by a Geminid fireball.

In 2013 that group of stars
gave me an idea connected to the cipher 3.

So that I decided to visit a public park,
which I think that should be included in the Book of Records
for the three edifices of the same kind which were built on its territory
(you will understand later about what I speak).

I began my small expedition in 1 May 2013,
after I watched the sunrise,
from the Technical University of Civil Engineering,
near the statue of Anghel Saligny
(the Romanian national genius in this field),
and I passed through the Tei (Lime) Park
(where I saw the far silhouette of the Sky Tower).

Then I passed to the neighboring park (my target!),
Plumbuita (Turned to Plumb),
near the Ghica-Tei Palace (made in the 1820s),
and I saw an Orthodox church made in the 1830s
and named the Lime of Lady Ghica,
the two edifices being initially conceived as part of a small fortress
and belonging to a family illustrious in Romania,
Ghica,
who gave more “voievods” and “domnitors”, ministers,
and personalities in culture, art and even sport.

This church is rich in solar symbols:
the introductory stone cross, the gates and the metallic crosses,
and it was built in the form of an ecliptic,
seeming to simulate the annual walk of the Sun.

At the south-east edge of the park,
I found out another Orthodox church with lofty sun crosses,
made after 1990 through the efforts
of another Romanian family important in the past,
Budisteanu.

After that I passed near a monument for Romanian heroes,
I arrived in the peninsula of the park (to north)
and, beyond its edges,
I saw an industrial tower from the communist era
(which in fact was a tentative of anti-religious religion)
and a recently built Muslim cultural centre (including a mosque).

Then I advanced through full Romanian late Middle Age
(or rather early Renaissance)
to the Plumbuita Monastery,
founded in the 1560s,
seat of the first Bucharestian typography since 1573,
re-made by Matei Basarab (a great protector of culture) in 1647,
with a tower added in the 19th century.

It is said that the name of the monastery,
Turned to Plumb,
comes from the cannonballs used here in 1632
during a battle for the Wallachian rule between
Matei Basarab and a rival sustained by an Ottoman army,
which was defeated by the first.
In fact,
it was a fight in which many plumb cannonballs
flew over the monastery
not like the beautiful natural fireballs,
but like destructive artificial fireballs.

And about the Cosmos,
it is present here in solar models and starry paintings,
with the Sun, Moon and Earth as heroes on the cross of the tower.

When I came back home,
I felt indebted to write:

Since 1573
Due to the Plumbuita Monastery
A new great star
Shines without rest
In the Guttenberg Galaxy:

The city of Bucharest!

POST-SCRIPTUM

In 21 May 2013,
also from cosmic reasons
and wanting to commemorate the name day of my departed father,
I returned to the Plumbuita Park,
this time to the northern bank of the lake,
for a view with the peninsula,
the Sky Tower, a crane and the monastery spire.

A few children were my colleagues
in admiring the sunset.

After that,
the moonrise in my back and the dusk…

And finally, the continuation of Earth’s rotation
with the Sky Tower and the crane…

A newcomer, Venus,
over the crane…

…another newcomer, Jupiter,
over the crane,
and Venus
under the crane…

…the church spire looking full of curiosity
at the Sky Tower,
Jupiter still over the crane,
and Venus lowering to sleep
in the silence of the small forest.