Guest Blogger- The Evolution of the New SweatBox by Darrell Cooley

When I first saw The SweatBox in the summer of 2015, is was from across the street through a tangle of trucks, men, and equipment in the process of making a new sidewalk out front. A little jewel waiting to be uncovered, standing alone like an island in the middle of a flood tide called Amazon.com that is slowly but surely saturating every corner of our beloved Capitol Hill with new high rise apartments, restaurants, and people.

            The awesome old style steel roll-up door was wide open allowing the late summer sun to saturate every corner of the ‘feng shui infraction’ lobby; spilling a soft shaft of light into the muted studio that swirled through the studio where people had sweat out their demons for the last fourteen years. My kind of place!

            Good resonance with the building and good resonance with the owner and so it is time to figure out the remodel plan. Sometimes a project will speak to you; we could hear voices as we looked around and the format unfolded, both physically and metaphysically; lots of light, love, feng shui, and Sacred Geometry.    

            The physical part of the project, floating bamboo floors, ground and polished concrete, new paint, showers, new entry desk, and lighting were woven together between Laura and myself. We had a great time and lots of fun recreating the finishes at the good old SweatBox; and working together was smooth and easy because Mr. Ego could not be found in this part of town.

            The metaphysical part that we incorporated is based upon building practices that I have had the good fortune to discover over the past 30+ years. Ancient builders and architects have used Sacred Geometry, golden mean, and Fibonacci components in buildings, places, and spaces all over the world for millennia. We like to use intention to work with golden mean proportions which we decided upon for all of the rectangles in the studio; and somehow seven such spaces appeared on the south wall, and seven is the number of chakras in the human body. 

So we painted the colors that correlate to the various chakras in the proper sequence across the seven spaces and then placed the corresponding Sanskrit symbols for each chakra in the appropriate rectangle--powerful palpable energy that permeates the entire yoga space with a somehow familiar song of peace and relaxation.

            The Flower of Life is also a favorite tool we like to use for lifting up the energy of any place, space or person. This is an incredible symbol that has been found all over the world in ancient and sacred sites. We painted the Flower of Life using stencils and golden spray paint on the concrete underneath the hardwood floor before we installed it.  There are over  fifty flowers underneath the studio floor putting out massive vibrations of light that that rise up through the bamboo and illuminate the room, kind of like a in-floor heating system of psychic energy.

            The crown jewel of our creation is the large Flower of Life that greets you like a huge search light beam of positive vibrations as you enter the lobby. It is so strong that we recommend seat belts for the overly sensitive people who might just fly away.  It was hand painted by a beautiful Russian Angel who somehow landed in the lobby for a few days and imparted some magic upon us all.  Another Golden Mean rectangle surrounds this incredible piece of art and comingles to greet everyone who enters with a 10.0 energy quake on the Renegade Richter Scale of seismic salutations. Can you feel it ?!

            It is always an honor to have to opportunity to participate on a project like this, and sometimes the work takes on a life of it’s own and we all just watch excitedly as it unfolds.  This was one of those times. Of course if you want to see the true source of the Energy that illuminates The SweatBox today, well if you get a chance just take a look into Laura’s eyes. End of Story!!!

            Namaste…..

           

About Darrell Cooley

Darrell was born into the building world and has been living there all of his life. Darrell's dad was a builder as are both of his brothers. About 40 years ago Darrell had the opportunity to travel to far away exotic lands-- India, Afghanistan, Nepal and many European countries. He has continued traveling extensively over the past few decades and visited many Sacred Sites all around the globe.  With an inherited eye for building methods and practices Darrell is constantly amazed at what ancient builders and designers manifested centuries and even millennia ago. Darrell has been incorporating some of these magical building formulas into his work for over 20 years now and continues to learn and be fascinated by the grace and beauty of the structures and places his ancestorial building colleagues created so many years ago.