Landscapes of the Sacred 1

“Sacred place is not chosen, it chooses” “Sacred place is ordinary place, ritually made extraordinary” “Sacred place can be tred upon without being entered” “The impulse of sacred place is both centripetal and centrifugal, local and universal”
Landscapes of the Sacred page 19


Listed above are the four axioms of a sacred place. They all answer my question in a previous blog post which asked “what makes something sacred?” (specifically referring to a place). No one chooses a sacred place, someone doesn’t look at a tree and decide that it’s going to be a sacred place. Unfortunately, it doesn’t work that way. The sacred place itself has a deeper meaning, and it is chosen by something beyond us. However, upon first glance, a sacred place looks just like any other place, throughout ritual, it is made sacred. Also, if one were to enter or be in the vicinity of a certain sacred place and not know at all, this isn’t necessarily a surprising occurrence. The physicality of a sacred place is beyond us and has to be mentally entered, not physically entered, as some tend to think. Sacred places are tied to a higher being or a deeper meaning, and higher beings are beyond earth, meaning that the sacred place itself serves as something local (like directly in front of you) and universal (like from a more spiritual standpoint).

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