Landscapes of the Sacred Part 1

Touching the earth becomes a way of entering more fully the deeper mystery of ourselves and God, as if some vast correspondence linked our being to the place we are in. Belden Lane uses the examples of Mount Rainier as the “Mountain that was God” as well as Parikrama, a sacred pilgrimage that encircles Mount Kailas. The former site is a peak standing at 14,408 feet above Puget Sound. The latter has yet to be conquered (it is a terra incognita) so no human has climbed it to date. The aerial photos taken of Kailas shows a figure of a god, which is particularly interesting to pilgrims who come to worship at its base. … So what makes these places in particular sacred or holy? They seem to have a spirit about them, a genius loci that draws people from near and far. These places have a way of intensifying life, by simply being. These places take the pilgrim and strip them naked in the sense that they are just a little speck in comparison to the wilderness of these spots. This topophilia is a sort of attachment humans feel for particular places. Many topophilic locations become loca religiosa in that religious connotations are carried with the place after time and geopiety forms.