Inflamed my imagination...

Ask my wife: if there is a book, especially a big one with nice pictures, that has the words "ancient" and "mysteries" anywhere near the cover, I can't leave it alone. It's become more and more of an interest for me of late, reading about ancient civilizations, especially enigmatic ones. Because I know that incredible things have happened on this planet that our civilization will never know about because we can't see beyond our own city lights... Cities rising like shattered ribs from the desert, ancient buildings built on the foundations of ancient buildings built on the foundations of even more ancient buildings. And what did they think, those builders? They were the same as me - my brothers, my sisters, looking up at the same stars at night.
Lately, my imagination has been lit aflame by the ruins at Angkor. I'm reading about what we know of the ancient Khmer, the builders of these awesome temples. Angkor Thom, pictured above, is part of a temple city that includes the largest known religious structure on the planet, Angkor Wat, pictured below. The Khmer built them between the 8th and 13th centuries to honor their God-Kings; in fact each temple was meant to literally be a Mount Meru - grossly analogous to a Mount Zion for the Khmer. We don't know very much about the ancient Khmer themselves, because almost nothing of their writings have remained - instead, we have temples filled with pictures and sculptures.

This is all interesting, but what really gets me wondering, is what would it have been like to live in Angkor in the 12th century? There were people like us there then - not kings, not slaves, but people who just lived here: healers, soldiers, farmers. What would it have been like, then, living in the jungle, no electricity, no plumbing, but the fires of these temples blazing in the night, and the taste of warm spiced fish in our bellies, and the sound of songs and chanting and dancing rippling across the lake? What would it have been like to have been in love in that place: the heat and humidity of the jungle, the sounds of night birds and beasts, bats filling the sky, the stars flaming above the eternal fire of the temple-palaces? Would I have sat for a moment on the cool stone and stared at the towers of heaven? Stone hallways, stone doors, cool rush mats to sleep on... Would I have watched for the light from the door of my house, walking home, at night, through the lantern-strung, moon-reflecting universe of flooded rice fields?

There is wonder too be found in all times and all places. But the last few days, my mind imagines that world, and being there with my love...

Angkor on Wikipedia.