The Temple of Stillness

It was not built. It grew.
First, there was the lake — so still it didn't reflect the sky. It kept it.
Then a bone rose from the water. Hollow, pierced by wind, reaching for the sun. The mountain people said it was the rib of a mountain that dreamed it was a tree.
An old woman braided a staircase from living roots to reach it. For seven years she braided in her sleep. When she woke, the stair was there — narrow, winding upward, with round holes in its balustrade where the sky could pass through.
At its end, at the heart of the structure, hung an ovoid. Blue by day. Golden at dusk, when it seemed to glow from within like a lantern.
The first monk who climbed the stair did not seek the ovoid. He simply sat upon the steps.
He said the stair itself was the prayer — each step narrower than the last, until there was room for only one thought.
Now ivy covers the rails. Moss softens the steps. Small wildflowers grow from the cracks.
The temple has no doors.
Because stillness is not a place you enter.
It is a place that enters you.

Original concept, drawing and final decisions are mine. AI was a brush, not the artist.