Chris Estes, 3 approaches and medicine wheel

Chris Estes
3 approaches and medicine wheel

During the book, Lane describes three approaches to understanding the medicine wheel as Sacred Place. He states that these 3 skills will help understand the personal experience of a place. The approaches that Lane teaches are ontological, cultural, and phenomenological. The ontological approach means that a sacred place is radically set apart from everything profane, or evil. The cultural approach explained that the "notion that sacred places inherently possess an intentionality and power drawn from within or beyond themselves (Lane, 43). The Phenomenological approach was demanding the attention of the people to the realization that the existence between humans and a "more than human world." However, Lane stressed the importance of “embodiment in the human experience of place” (Lane, 44). These 3 skills were to help understand the medicine wheel as a Sacred Place in Landscapes of the Sacred.