Jacquelyn Powell - Lanscapes 3

I love the axioms for understanding a sacred place. They are as listed: 1. Sacred place is not chosen it chooses, 2. Sacred place is ordinary place, ritually made extraordinary, 3. Sacred place can be tred upon without being entered, and 4. The impulse of sacred place is both centripetal and centrifugal, local and universal. It is true that all four of these axioms relate to pretty much any sacred place you can think of. Also, they are very understandable and even relatable unlike some of the other ideas in this book. The axioms made a lot of sense when Professor Redick told the story of visiting a sacred place (I believe it was the Medicine Wheel or something like that). And he managed to relate every axiom to the place. I thought one part was particularly interesting when he did not recognize his wife as his wife but rather as a woman in the same place at the same time. I think that the third axiom really relates to my trip to Machu Picchu because I had done some research and knew that it was a sacred place many years ago and even now to some people. It wasn’t sacred to me however yet I was still walking through it and on it and around it and I wished that I could have appreciated it the same way the people who believe it to be sacred experience it.