Daniel DeWyngaert - Belden Lane's Second Axiom

Belden Lane in his book wrote about four rules or axioms as he calls them. These are each a philosophical tool to better understanding the connection between the landscape and human spirituality. This blog is an explanation of the second of these axioms. This axiom is "[a] sacred place is ordinary place, ritually made extraordinary." What this means is that a sacred place can be any mundane or profane place, that originally holds no special meaning to a person. Over time however a person begins to recognize this place as holding its own certain beauty, and through repetition of one person or many people, it becomes recognized as the sacred. However, a new sacred place is not created. As explained in an earlier blog a sacred place is not chosen by people, it is already there and just has not been recognized yet.