Landscapes of the Sacred Journal 1: Adin Katz

In my first journal on the required texts I would like to take the time to discuss Lane’s axioms for the study of sacred place.  These axioms provide a few simple rules by which sacred places abide by.  There are four such axioms but in this journal I would like to focus on the third axiom which according to Lane (2002) is that “sacred place can be tred upon without being entered” (p.19).  This axiom is one that I find particularly interesting because it describes how sacred place is not universally so for everyone.  In fact sacred places can be so for individuals based on a personal experience, or maybe for a religion such as mount Sinai in Judaism. This axiom explains that other people can be in the sacred place, there is nothing preventing entry, however just by being there it doesn’t necessarily make the place sacred for that individual like it would for the group that holds it sacred.  Honestly when I read the four axioms this one probably is my favorite one to think about because it reminds us just how small and unimportant we all are and just how much we don’t know and understand.  If we can exist in a place and not fully understand what it means it just makes me wonder what else we don’t notice.