A Hair's Breadth Away

 

Personal Sacred Space

The question is not what you look at but what you see. It is only necessary to behold the least fact or phenomenon, however familiar, from a point a hair’s breadth aside from your habitual path or routine, to be overcome, enchanted by its beauty and significance.”

Henry David Thoreau

          Lately, I’ve been doing some painting and research about liminal space and time and thin places. I’ve discovered some rather universal ones—the beach, the sunrise/sunset, all the circles of standing stones in the British Isles, the desert canyons in the US, the pyramids of Gaza and of Central America. Liminal times and places have to do with human experience more than geography. People describe them as moments when time stops, one is aware of a presence, and in many cases, their ancestors seem close, almost visible. It is a thin place because the two worlds, our physical world, and the realms beyond, are closer together and sometimes seem to overlap. People experience a sense of power, though it cannot be named or seen.

          What I have discovered, though, is that besides the universal liminal places, and there are personal times and spaces, and some of them are not places of power, but places of comfort and beauty. In other words, they are where we feel our own power, our own comfort, our serenity, and strength. For example, my friend Isie finds that in her garden and on her back deck, early morning, where she reads and prays and communes with the sacred inside herself. The time, the place, and the thoughts that connect there are what make it powerful.

          As Thoreau suggested in the quote above, it’s not so much what you look at as what you see. I have a little succulent plant in my kitchen window. A friend gave it to me a couple of years ago and I have repotted it several times. It is now putting out “pups” and every time I notice a new one, it thrills me all over again. One way to experience sacred time and space is to simply pay attention to what is in front of you and all around you. Mostly we move through our days on autopilot—in our heads talking to ourselves or ticking off our list of next things to do. We tend to be oblivious of our surroundings because they are familiar. But when we take the time to focus on them, we discover new and brilliant things, as Thoreau said, just one hair’s breadth from our usual path. Right in our own house, in our own back yard—sacred space, liminal time. Try it. Pay attention to the connections it creates within you.

                                                  In the Spirit,

                                                  Jane