My Sacred Place

            Last week I received a poem from a poet friend, suggesting that everyone should have a secret place, a place to be alone for renewal, reflection, and recharge, for counting one's blessings, he says, instead of curses. He suggests some possibilities: "a hidden waterfall/a garden corner/a favorite walk/a mini shrine in a bedroom." "It's personal," he says, "not advertised, no chorus girls, no signage," and he suggests that it might include "a photograph/a sea shell from that day/a broken toy/a lock of hair."

            I like his poem a lot, but reading it makes me anxious. As a person who likes to think of herself as the sort of person the poem suggests, I must, therefore, have a secret and sacred place, but where is it? Is it my writing nook,

 where I sit at my computer, alternately gazing at the mountain and putting thoughts on paper? That is a way of reflecting and recharging, but the writing nook is also by definition a work space, which, by definition, doesn't sound sacred.

            Maybe my sacred space is the couch, where I sit to gaze on the mountain and reflect while I knit and where I renew my intellect with the New Yorker or the latest book I'm reading. 

 But there doesn't seem to be anything sacred or secret about a couch against a wall in an open room, and if I am sometimes contemplative while I knit there, at other times I'm learning the hard lessons of patience as I undo my mistakes. There is no photograph near the couch; all my seashells are in the bathroom, and the rocks, bones, and pieces of wood I've gathered over the years are scattered throughout the house, so there is no meditative focus, except that I do keep a coffee-table book of flower photographs on the table at the side of the couch, turning a page once a day, so that, as I walk by the table, I stop for a moment to admire the photograph that has caught my eye. That's hardly a meditation, just a quick moment of admiration.

            Because the couch lacks privacy, it seems more reasonable to think my sacred space is my bed. Sleep is renewal, and when I awake every morning and gaze at the mountain, I am always, always counting my blessings,

 though it seems a cheat to call the bed a sacred space, since I'm there by necessity, sort of like saying my sacred space is the bathtub. We go to bed to sleep and we bathe to get clean, although rest and renewal and also reflection come with those activities, at least for me.

            The fainting couch in the library might seem like a secret place, except that I don't use it that way.

I don't go there deliberately to renew but only when I need a book from the library or wander into the library just to enjoy looking at my books. This place only looks like a meditative spot. It doesn't function that way, sort of the way the bed looks like a functional space but functions like a meditative space.

            I do have a favorite walk, up the mountain. I also know of a secret waterfall I can walk to from my house, but it's hard to get to, and although I certainly consider it sacred (all nature is sacred), I don't go there very often, and either walk, like the bed and the bathtub, is functional with the side effect of meditation.

            So where is my sacred place? If I am that sort of person, I must have one.

            I do. It is big and spacious, not the sort of exclusive place indicated by the poem, but, still, my place of meditation, renewal, reflection. It is my home, inside and out, here on the mountain – all the places I mentioned above, its zen garden with canvas-back chairs, its deck with its flower boxes, its garden with take-a-rest chairs, and, from everywhere, its view of the mountain. It is not advertised, and there are no chorus girls, but its signage speaks truth: "Wonderland": where wonder fills the psyche and gratitude spreads bright wings.

           

Sacred Place

by Andy Anderson

Everyone should have 

a secret place

a sacred place 

to be alone undisturbed

a meditative moment 

brief 

or fasting for days.

a special place to recharge 

renew

reflect 

count one's blessings 

instead of curses.  

Be it a hidden waterfall 

a garden corner 

a favorite walk

a mini shrine in a bedroom.  

It’s personal 

not advertised 

no chorus girls 

no signage.  

My place.  

Your place.  

Don’t mess with it 

or with my ancestors.  

Perhaps a photograph 

a sea shell from that day

a broken toy

a lock of hair 

or nothing 

just space to be in 

a simple shack 

a cathedral

a sacred place.