We passed through to a wondrously surreal landscape, alighting upon a ridge of woven furrows. From here we had a deep view of gorges, undulating hills and rangy mountains. The space within the gall was warped to enormous size—I could barely see to the opposite side. A choir of voices surrounded us, like a hundred Tuvan monks throat-singing a chant, with each voice layered into three or four overtones. A steady tabla beat threaded beneath the chant, and wrapped around it were sweet filigreed lines of melody, as if from electric guitars. Atum’s Lotus was both shape and sound. Looking into the deep spaces around us, I saw peaks alternating with saddles, and a deep valley meandering to our right. Low, curved walls wove back and forth along the landscape’s ridges. They were like waist-high stone fences, curved in elegant rhythms that I could hear as lines of music within the chants. The steeper slopes were terraced as if by rice paddies, with a puckered crater within each level spots.
