The Sacredness of Place - Yucca, Stupa, San Luis Valley
The sacred is not in heaven or far away. It is all around us, and small human rituals can connect us to its presence. And of course the greatest challenge (and gift) is to see the sacred in each other. Alma Luz Villanueva
Empty is a beginning. Sue Bender (Everyday Sacred: A Woman’s Journey Home)
Recently I’ve found myself present to the idea, perhaps belief, that everything is sacred. It landed deeply in me as I found myself mindlessly pushing to complete sorting through lots of things with the intention of passing lots of them along. Letting go, releasing books, family and personal keepsakes, and personal items no longer in use to find new homes. How might this push, this chore become more enjoyable for me? How might I become mindful in engaging in the choices of what to release?
Enter the Sacred. I recognized that I wanted not just to clear things out, but to create both physical and energetic space in my home and my life for the sacredness of place, this place to enter more fully. At the same time I recognized that the things I was choosing to release were sacred as well.
I woke one morning thinking about the energy of our ‘stuff’, family and personal things that I was sorting through deciding what I was ready to release. As I became aware that each and every ‘thing’ at some time was a treasure either to me or to a departed family member I hold dear, a sense of the sacred, their sacredness, joined me. The ‘chore’ became ritual; the drudgery and push, joy and flow.
When we embrace everything as sacred and recognize its energetic holding not as a ‘thing’ but as a treasure dear to another beloved, we engage in a ritual of flow. I began to honor and respect each ‘thing’ as something created at another point in time by someone and later treasured either myself or a beloved friend or family member. I became more mindful, respectful, and tender in this letting go, trusting the process as sacred, divine flow. Remembering that the sacred is in everything and that emptying creates the space for beginning.
I know not what beginnings are before me as I complete this phase of release, but I do know that I’m more deeply present to the sacredness of place. Home, the woods out back, and the paths and trails nearby. Sacredness is not only in the sacred structures like the nearby Padmasambhava Stupa and Ziggurat but in the ground I walk and the grasses growing along way. Sacredness in the birdsong, the morning raven on a post, and the community of hummingbirds that gather at the feeder. With eyes to see and heart to feel, sacredness is indeed all around.
Wild grasses in the Morning Light