I am often working in the reading room of the John P. Holt Brentwood Library in Brentwood, Tennessee a few miles from my house. I can walk there via the Brentwood trail system, a paved walkway that circles in loops for twenty-plus miles of paved peace.
Do you believe that ideas have power beyond that which they embody? Some creativity gurus say that ideas roam like wild winged horses, looking for a green pasture to land in, which they find in the welcoming stretch of a visionary's open mind. I wonder if the ideas of the ancients sleeping in the grounds somehow called to the ideas swirling around this place twenty years ago. "Land here, this is good ground." Because the Brentwood city planners did not know the spot chosen for the library building had once been a thriving ancient city. And yet they made a plan to bring an enormous and beautiful collection of modern knowledge to the exact place where an entire culture is entombed in a card catalogue of earth.
Bones and artifacts unearthed here belong to the Mississippian Culture, most dated circa 1300 and 1400's. The more I researched this culture, the more fascinating it became. With the help of the international audio tour app, VoiceMap I created an audio walking tour so I could share the mysteries.
Sprits of the Ancient South is one mile and 30 minutes of audio.
Read what Matt Blois from the Brentwood Home Page wrote about the tour HERE.