It was in my solitude as a child that my favourite place revealed itself to me through the process of hierophany (Eliade, 1959) its belonging to the realm of sacred. Despite my lack of understanding exactly what that sacrality was, I was consistently instilled with a sense of wonder and awe whilst passively or actively engaged with the land. This short essay will describe my sacred place, and examine some reasons why it held such importance and finally compare it to the lifelessness of the car parks at my place of employment.
Each afternoon, once school had completed for the day and the number twelve bus had delivered me home again, I would walk north from my house for forty-five minutes before coming upon the spot where I spent much of my free time as a child. Moree is a small country town on a large flat plane and there was no place which revealed this as much as my favourite space. Thick, black soil stretches out as far as the eye can see, so level and empty of trees that it gives the impression that you are desperately alone. Standing in the midst of all that flatness, there is one tall mound of hard dirt which I would climb and sit on to watch the sun sink from the sky. Slowly it would lick the land and then melt hesitantly over the horizon like a scoop of ice cream on warm concrete. It was in this space that for the first time I felt the beginning of my eco-spirituality as described by Cock (2004). I felt connection with nature as a being in its own right; I could feel its presence and recognised it as a distinct ‘other’.
Contrastingly, the built environment of my adulthood bears no resemblance to the breathing, black planes of my younger years. Five days a week I make the pilgrimage to my workplace which is the largest hospital campus in the southern hemisphere. A small city with veins of bitumen and bones of steel, to me it has no breath or spirit. The car parks in particular are the most barren and uninviting. They exist only to serve as a gateway from Brisbane into the hospital and consistently exude a sense of transience and sterility. Lane (2001) explores the transition of a place from being ordinary, with no ability to alter its inhabitants (in Latin, topos) to a space that compels people with ‘its own energy and power’ (Lane, 2001), known in Latin as chora. This change in status is significant and depends almost entirely on the perceptions of the beings which dwell within it. Sacredness is entirely subjective in that way which enables one person’s view of a place as being topos to not impede on another’s perception of it being chora.
It is important then to explore the reasons which cause one place to be topos and the other chora. Obviously, a personal preference for natural as opposed to man-made settings plays a considerable role in determining what one would consider to be sacred, especially when comparing such starkly different spaces like the Australian outback and an inner city car park or hospital. Most importantly however is the time period which hosted the experiences with such spaces. Cock (2001) and Relph (1976) both emphasise the significance of the places in ones life where they have been born, grown up and enjoyed momentous moments in their development. The magnitude of these events has the ability to reshape the way we perceive the places where they transpire, thus creating chora, which is evident in this example.
Interestingly, it is not difficult to imagine that perhaps another person, who has spent their youth in the mountains could find my sacred place stark and frightening in comparison. Furthermore, if they were to experience some other life-changing occurrence then their perception of what is considered chora and topos could assuredly be reversed from my own; such is this most predominant feature of the sacred.
Bibliography
Eliade, M. 1959. The Sacred and the Profane: The Nature of Religion. Harcourt, New York.
Lane, B. 2001. ‘Giving Voice to Place: Three Models for Understanding American Sacred Space’. Religion and American Culture. Vol. 11, No. 1, pp. 53-81.
Relph, E. 1976. Place and Placelessness. Pion, London.
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