I have never seen anything more golden than the London Central Mosque’s dome in stormy weather. Running out of Regent’s Park through Hanover Gate, a strong blow of wind rushed blossom bits in my eyes and I stopped. Spring is a wicked season. (“Spring is a wicked temptress!”, and so on). I stopped between two trees so thick, they created a small frame of the minaret with its crescent moon and the dome. The sun had pierced through, coating its copper alloy cladding against a very dark sky. At first, it was a big banality, too predictably divine and imposing. It was what the devoutly religious would have called God and it was what the atheists would have called nature’s with a small “n” game of light after rain. Again, I have never seen anything more golden. The running heart rate and the throbbing of my temples (which you magically hear internally sometimes) dramatized it. It was neither God nor nature, (or Nature or god). It was a child’s first sight of snow, a big idea, first words, a forced pause to venerate the physics of colour and the human eye. It was the best example of vision. Spiritual and not.
