Nicole Jacobs - Landscapes of the Sacred #2

A second axiom depicted by Lane is that a sacred place is very often an ordinary place, however, ritually it is set apart to become extraordinary. An example we discussed in class was a man traveling in the woods searching for a spiritual experience. However, after hours of endless wandering in hopes of enlightenment the man retired to head home. It was at this moment that the man unexpectedly stumbled across the path of a young peaceful deer feeding nearby. The woods would normally be regarded as an ordinary place, but due to the spiritual emergence of the deer at an unexpected moment, the ordinary landscape was molded into scared ground. A similar experience occurred in my life recently when our class took a walk on the Noland Trail. I'd been on through this ordinary landscape dozens of times prior to this afternoon, however, when we were instructed to pay close attention to details above and around us rather than directly in front of us I came to realize the immense amount of wildlife there truly was. Flowers were in bloom, bees were buzzing, squirrels were scattered about, all were beautiful details that hadn't existed previously, until I was least expecting it.