COMMENTARY BY: MARTI
EARTH GUARDIAN
Majestic Mount Fuji, japan

SACRED SITES

Our Prayers to the Earth

A secret cave under a waterfall on a remote rocky island, a monolithic petrified tree where hills meet prairie, a calving glacier on the edge of a turquoise blue lake—sacred sites abound everywhere on Earth. The feel of each place may be different, but what they have in common is that each and every one of them is a living prayer to some form of divine consciousness. 

If we really look at it, the whole Earth is, in fact, sacred. But when we roam our planet’s surface some places speak to us so directly that our hearts take a giant leap. These sites might whisper their wisdoms, share history, or exude the fragrance of another moment in time. 

Sacred sites are sacred sights. They are often electrically and magnetically charged. When you enter Chartres Cathedral in France, there is a place on the floor where, as you stand on the stones, yo­­­­­­ur entire body will involuntarily begin to swirl in a clockwise direction. Chartres Cathedral was built on an ancient Celtic site and shares both Druid and Christian energy. The site was undoubtedly chosen for its connection to the Earth’s electromagnetic fields and their relationship to the cosmos.

Uluru, or Ayer’s Rock in Australia, is sacred to the aboriginals. For thousands of years, on their walkabouts, clans have met to sing to the Earth under this majestic outcropping.

Bear Lodge on the South Dakota-Wyoming border is sacred to the Arapaho, Cheyenne, Crow, Kiowas, Lakota, and Shoshone. For hundreds of years, native American tribal chieftains, shaman, young warriors, and youth leaders have made vision quests under the flanks of its high towering sides.  For native Americans, every step we take is a prayer, an offering to the Earth. Bear Lodge was where prayers intersected with the heavens and guidance was sought for our earthly lives. 

The ghats of Varanasi in India are sacred to millions of people who come to bathe and be blessed in the glacier-fed waters of the Ganges. Here, among the crowds, people pray for a peaceful transition from life to death to life again with an auspicious rebirth on Earth. Just as the Ganges River is said to have been born out of the crown of Shiva’s head and to flow over the land to the great sea beyond, so is human life carried on nature’s ebb and flow. 

Tiger Mountain Monastery in Bhutan is a vertiginous home to beautiful Buddhist temples at the end of a narrow mountain trail that traverses steep, breath-hanging cliffs and climbs into the heavens. Prayers of thanks for the gift of life and the pursuit of wisdom are offered here, as well as thanks for a safe arrival at the temples.

Mecca in Saudi Arabia is a site where millions of people come with an aspiration to worship their deity in all its glory. The very presence of so many souls in one place at one time has a power of intention in and of itself.

EVERY PLACE CAN BE A SANCTUARY

While these examples are dramatic, every place on Earth has silent eddies, large and small, where reflection, gratitude, and inner awareness are possible. Every home and community needs space for grace. If a sanctuary doesn’t exist, we can create one. Shrines, coves, forests, and abandoned fields. Places where sanctuaries can flourish in nature are endless. There is a saying: 

“You cannot travel on the path before you have become the path itself.”

If the path is the way, sacred sites give us the space for inner contemplation. They have transformative powers to hold our energy as we seek the way. They have the force to embrace us in our preparations for whatever is coming. It is our honor to protect and cherish them as we become the path itself.