Bret Marfut Lane's axioms reading

I was interested to read about Lane’s four axioms for the study of sacred place. Sacred experiences are an extremely subjective phenomenon, and one that I always thought was unique to the individual. I thought it was interesting to read some theories about sacred place that can be applied to sacred experience in general. Lanes first axiom is that sacred place is not chosen, it chooses. You can’t control where you are going to have a sacred experience. I spent a lot of time in my middle and high school years camping on the Appalachian Trail. Every hike or campout is different, and you never know when you are going to see an animal, other people, or a beautiful sunrise. You have to hike with openness to whatever might happen, without looking for sacred experiences. Lanes second axiom is that sacred place is ordinary place, ritually made extraordinary. In the book, Lane tells a story about encountering a deer in a normal clearing, which gave the clearing an extraordinary status in his mind. I often camp in a small clearing on a side-trail of the Appalachian. The site is small, and is not even an official campsite. However, I have an affinity for it because of the experiences I have had there. The third axiom also applies to this place. Lane’s third axiom is that sacred place can be tred upon without being entered. This is especially true of this campsite: people who have not had the experiences would simply walk through the place without a second thought, just like I did the first time I decided to camp there. Lane’s last axiom speaks to the cyclical nature of sacred encounters: the impulse of sacred place is both centripetal and centrifugal, local and universal. Trips into the wilderness are an escape from the stresses of life. They give me a chance to recharge, but inevitably I have to go back into my everyday life. Lanes axioms helped me to find some universal aspects of my own personal experiences.