Sacred Space is any place where people go to reconnect and interact with the Divine, however they define Divinity. This can be a physical interaction such as Yoga or Tai Chi or Qi Gong which brings the body into harmony with the mind and emotions and Spirit. Or it can be meditation which brings the mind and the Spirit into harmony with the body. Or prayer which sends the thoughts and emotions and intentions of the person out into the Universe to become part of the great conversation or it can be ceremony which cooperates with the all that is to make prayers physical.
Sacred Space can be a place in nature or something created by the hands of man. For millennia cultures have revered bodies of water such as the Great Mother Ganges in India, the sacred wells of Ireland, the Badlands of South Dakota for the Lakota people and the four Sacred mountains of the Navajo to name only a few. Religions create their own sacred sites such as Stonehenge in England, the Temples of Jerusalem, the great sites of Mecca, and St. Peters in Rome. There are Sacred Spaces all around us and you probably can think of at least five in your neighborhood or town right now. Just think of your local churches, synagogues and temples. If you look around a bit you might find a discreet Mosque or Buddhist temple as well.
All of these places are Sacred Space where people go to remove the burdens of everyday life and allow themselves to participate in their inner selves through external actions. We bring our inner voices and our inner lives into the external world as well as allow the external world access to our internal selves. These places, whether discovered in nature or created by people, mark the division between the normal and everyday and the numinous. They create a safe place where we can lay down our needs the minutia of survival, and allow our attention to broaden out into the All That Is around and in us. In order to create this space, a place that is safe and we can participate fully in the sacred, an intention must be set. To use corporate terminology, an intention is the mission statement defining the purpose for the space. As any business, small or large, will tell you, if you don’t know why you are doing something, it is less than likely that you will actually do it.
