Somewhere in the world of designers and shapers… There appears an arch. Be it MacDonalds or Keystone, Omega or Rainbow and that comic great pairing of Archie and Jughead. Yet when one looks beyond the arch there is a greater story. The Bay of Finland (Or as the Russians call it: The Sea of Finland) dances with a morning wind as generous rain bounces off the tidal breaks. A vista infinite with promise. There has to be a faster way from here to the city. Many times I have stood in the archway at The Last Door Keystone Retreat and wished for a shorter way back to the city. Today the hydrofoil cut across the sea and distance as it whisked us to the Cathedral in the city. An hour compressed to twenty minutes.

Dragging my mind from the gardens to the St Isaac’s Cathedral, my thoughts wandered from gardening to the Gardener and even to St Isaac named after the tsar and the patriarch. Somehow patronymic and family show up in the dome. Between the waterways there are trees!

In the palace the curtain hook marked with a 4 centimetre bee spoke of an attention to detail that anchors great art. An attention that held everything together because every detail mattered.

The dome of the Cathedral marked with a nearly 3 metre dove scaled so that when I stand on the ground it appears real life and ark appropriate.

Then at the altar-piece a collection of Icons. The Icons placed in classic locations, however these are not Icon paintings, these are inlaid mosaics. Icons fabricated in a traditional mosaic style with the smallest of fragments so that to the unaided eye the Icons look like oil paintings.

The arch in the wall is an opening to a world of wonder and some days it is good just to sit in the portal and ponder all that might be and has been. Some days it is good to step through the doorway and be at one with the Gardener.