Landscapes of the Sacred: Post 11

Three Approaches to Understanding Sacred Place

Chapter two of Landscapes of the Sacred deals with a more academic observance of the American sacred place. It asks plenty of cultural questions and attempts to balance that with the conversation in chapter one about the more personal aspect of the sacred.

Lane beings the chapter by discuss topos and chora-- two words for place that Aristotle and Plato emphasized. Topos is just an average place holding no significance. Chora, however, has "its own energy and power, summoning its participants to a common dance" (p. 39). He then discusses three very different approaches to understanding sacred place. Each of this is very distinct from the next, but very important to the conversation of the sacred communicating with culture. All three of these approaches are vital in grasping "the diverse character of any particular sacred place" (p. 44).

He goes on to discusses three different approaches to understanding the medicine wheel as sacred place. There are the ontological, the cultural, and the phenomenological approaches. The ontological approach simply asks people how both place and time were understood at the time of early mythic tales. Here, a sacred place is totally removed from the every day place-- from the profane as Tillich would call i; it is here where "supernatural forces have invaded the ordinary" (p. 43). This approach, however, fails to recognize that culture and sacred are not mutually exclusive-- the sacred continues to be influenced by cultural ties, even though t remains to be sacred.

The second approach Lane discusses is the cultural approach. It is here where sacred places fail to create power themselves, but are rather given power by culture; it is socially constructed. Places are void of any intrinsic meaning, but people give place certain meaning and power. This allows some "free-will" in religion. Some of what is sacred remains up to the people that wish to make something sacred, and not anything that transcends this world.

The third approached that is discussed is the phenomenological approach. "To be fully present to any locale is to recognize the reciprocity involved in touching and being touched by its particular array of rocks, trees, animals, and geographical features" (p. 44). It is within this approach where the places themselves begin to participate in the understanding that people have of them. These places call people to them in order to experience them; they call for human involvement to the place, which creates a reciprocity among the place and people. However, this approach fails to include and sociological or theological discussion in its exploration of communication between the sacred place and culture.