Rough Draft: Na Mu Sa: Its Korean for "Tree Temple"

She said that she wanted something special. my husband is an Architect. Its about time you did something for our house. Na Mu Sa means Tree Temple in Korean. I planted a tree (transplated) that we got at Muir Woods in 1997. The same year our son, Simon was born. That tree is known as our "Simon Tree". The house we have made (renovated, changed, added to) is inspired by the "simon Tree" thus -- the name Tree Temple or Na-Mu-Sa. I first traveled to Korea in 1989 to visit Hea Young and to continue our romance. One day I was in Champaign Urbana then suddenly i found myself with a Korean Beauty, sitting on the floor of a monk's retreat at Hae In Sa (Hae In Temple) on a snow covered mountain, with the sound of "mok toks", monks chanting and the smell of incense permeating the temple complex. But all of that is another story. The key here is that our house called Na Mu Sa is inspired deeply by the peacful transcendence of the korean buddhist temples. The final result doesn't "look" anything like a temple. That's the point. The point is --- how the place transcends memory and feeling via wood and other materials to connect us to the present material reality. . . ALSO ... the work is inspired by the many five star hotels we've stayed at over the past 30 years of marriage and the fact that the cost of our travels instead of saving for this project is why we are doing it at this point in our lives.

‍

So it looked like for once we could get some cash out in a refi in order to get the thing going. That was in 2018. That's where the adventure begins.