CJ Fitchett Free Choice #3

Another experience I have had among nature involves a bike path that travels throughout my town. The path weaves in and out of the forest, providing the runner with great views. One particular time I was running on the path with my dog, a large yellow lab. We both froze when we saw a deer standing perfectly still in a stream on the side of the bike path. The deer was slowly drinking from the stream. My dog immediately began barking, and the deer ran off. It was a great experience seeing an animal in its natural ways, drinking from the stream.

CJ Fitchett Free Choice #2

I have had numerous experiences among nature that would qualify as extraordinary. In my particular town in NY, the town surrounds a medium sized lake. My family has a boat on that lake, and I have had many a great experience in that boat. Night swimming is particularly special. The way the stars seem to glimmer off of the water, combined with the presence of friends creates an awesome atmosphere. Great experiences are had when night swimming with friends.

CJ Fitchett Free Choice #1

In my opinion sacred experiences can be had without being among wilderness. Many sacred experiences have been had outside the influence of wilderness and nature. That is not to say that wilderness cannot act as a catalyst for these experiences. Wilderness and sacred landscapes can certainly contribute to the experiences that people have.

Class Reading #6

It is only through the power of ritual that community is converted into communitas. Comradeship in ritual. Communitas is an acute point of community. It takes community to the next level and allows the whole of the community to share a common experience, usually through a rite of passage. This brings everyone onto an equal level, even if you are higher in position, you have been lower and you know what that is.

CJ Fitchett Class Reading #5

The three approaches to understanding sacred place are the Ontological Approach, the Cultural Approach, and the Phenomenological Approach.

a.The Ontological Approach: Began with field research among indigenous tribes, asking how place and time were understood in the earliest mythic tales of tribal wisdom. From this approach, a sacred place is set apart from everything profance, it is a site recognized as manifesting its own inherent, chtonic power and numinosity.
b.The Cultural Approach: Every place considered sacred by humans is always a social construction of reality. A sacred place is most readily defined, culturally at least, as a site over which conflicting parties disagree. A place which people are willing to fight and even die
c.The phenomenological approach: Approach that gave voice to the operations of divine power among sacred places and experiences.

CJ Fitchett Lane #4

Lane's fourth axiom is that the impulse of sacred place is both centripetal and centrifugal, local and universal. One is driven for centeredness, a focus on the particular place of divine encounter, and then at other times driven out from that center with an awareness that God is never confined to a single locale. For example someone that is in a cycle of movement between their office and a sacred place. Yet the sacred place is not guaranteed to continue the holy presence.

CJ Fitchett Lane #3

Lane's third axiom is that sacred place can be tred upon without being entered. He states that some people may not recognize sacred places as sacred, while others will. He states that he has returned numerous times to his clearing in the woods, only to be let down that his experience does not repeat itself. Sacred places can be tred upon by the unassuming, while those that are attuned spiritually will experience these places.

CJ Fitchett Lane #2

Lane's second axiom is that sacred place is ordinary place that through ritual is made extraordinary. Once again referencing Lane's experience in the woods with the deer, he claims that he made it ritually extraordinary by slowing his breathing. Additionally, it was the discipline he showed in waiting for the deer to appear that sanctified the clearing to him forever.

CJ Fitchett Lane #1

Lane's 1st axiom of sacred place is that sacred place is not chosen, it chooses. He provides an example of how he had been searching for religious experience in the woods in vain one evening. He all of a sudden found himself drawn to a clearing in the woods. In this clearing appeared a deer. He describes this as an incredible experience because he was drawn to the clearing. This is an example of sacred place and experience choosing, and not being chosen.

Amy Barnes: #4 Free Choice

So I'm not really sure what else to write about. Just the other day my roommates and myself went for a run when it was a nice day out. We ran to the enterance of the Marineer's Museum and then we ran for about a good mile or two on the Noland Trail. It was quite the experience though. I love them to death but it was a work out and the scenery seemed like it was more beautiful then it normally is. We took breaks and talked and sat down and just glanced out observing what all was going on in the nature. There were a lot of squirrels and birds. We noticed that since the huge rain storm came through there were a lot of fallen trees and nature that seemed a little messed up. I compared it to the time that we went to the Noland Trail as a class and was thinking about how different it looked now. It is still a pretty place and since it is the fall all the leaves had changed and looked great. I feel like since I have been taking this class I seem to appreciate the nature and the living things around me more.

Amy Barnes: #3 Free Choice

The very first day that I had attended this class I had no idea what I was expecting. I had heard that Professor Redick was crazy, fun, entertaining, and interesting. All of those qualities I had thought people were just being funny and like trying to make me feel better about having to take another ULLC class. But actually all of those things were true and so much more. I have really enjoyed the class and the fun things that I have learned. I really never thought that I would be taking a class on sacred landscapes and spiritual beings. It was fun and interesting!

Amy Barnes: #2 Free Choice

I have been to the Grand Canyon once for a family vacation. I did not think that I was really going to like it at all. For some reason I was younger and I did not see the point that everybody was making about going to see it. I thought that it would just be a huge hole in the ground that looks just like any other rock canyon. But once we got there I was taken back. I could not believe my eyes and comprehend what I had been looking at. This huge hole that I thought that is all that it was, as absolutely beautiful and breath taking. I could not have been more wrong about something in my life. The fact that I spent the time there with my family made it more memorable. It was not just the sacred scenery or landscape that I had been looking at for hours it was the people and the experience that made it so important and special to me. It was a wonderful and great feeling!

Amy Barnes: #1 Free Choice

I really enjoyed the couple of classes when we watched the documentary of the "Lion King". He is a very passionate guy and loves to hike. The documentary really showed his passion for hiking and the love that he has for the people that he hikes with. It was hilarious to watch, there were many funny parts but also a lot of parts that were amazing and could never be redone. During his hike there was a whole lot of rain and it was very cold. But there were many good days even though they had a lot of bad ones too. During his hike he got hurt and had to sit out a day because the doctor told him to sit out at least for a week and he just couldn't stop hiking. He made a comment "it fixes you to come out there", which I took as the power of the landscape and the healing of removing yourself to get refocused and away by things. This place makes you plumb again and fixes you. I really enjoyed the documentary and I feel like I learned a lot about hiking and the feelings and emotions that many people have for the landscape.

Amy Barnes: #2 Student Experience

When I was writing my paper I originally thought that I would write mostly on how people try to choose a sacred place but really you can't choose them they choose you. I couldn't really find much information or data to back me up. If I could it wasn't nearly enough for me to write a ten page paper on. But while I was trying to find information I decided that I would write on how there are so many different sacred places and how they are all over the world. There are so many that people know about and many more that people don't even know about. It was a really cool experience to read about all the different places and why they are so sacred.

Amy Barnes: #1 Student Experience

When we had the class on the Noland trail that one day, I really enjoyed myself. It was a lot of fun to learn about the land and be informed on some of the good and bad things out there. It was quite the experience to have with other people in my class. It was a time to reflect and to almost bond with others and find out things about each other. I only walked a little ways on the trail but I sat at the edge of the water for a while just to think and reflect about everything. It was a very peaceful place and I would do it again for anything. Lion's Gate is such a beautiful place to spend time and to relax. I am very glad that we enjoyed that experience as a class, it was lots of fun!

Amy Barnes: #3 Outside Reading

The last outside reading I especially like was titled "Water's Uses in Religion and Spirituality". This focused on the relation between water, spirituality, and God. Water not only quenches our physical thirst, but our spiritual and emotional thirst as well. In ancient Athenian times they built temples especially for water in order to show their appreciation to God for the source. They considered it to be the simplest and purest symbol of soul purification. It also went on to talk about how God sent the Great Flood, and blessed the people with Noah, who built the arc to save them all. It then went into detail about how Moses parted the Red Sea in order to save the Israelites. One thing that our country does not take part in is the washing of certain body parts before entering any religious building, in order to show respect. Many places around the world take part in this custom, considering it second nature.

Amy Barnes: #2 Outside Reading

I read a book called, Mount Shasta: Home of the Ancients, by William Hamilton, is a great book for anyone that is open-minded, curious and desires to learn more about the mysteries surrounding Mount Shasta. This sacred place is one that I decided to use on my final research paper. Once I began to scan through it, I could tell it was all about the mysterious "Lemurians" that are said to live within the mountain. Supposedly there was a catastrophe with the Lemuria continent and Mount Shasta became a refuge for these creatures. Many people have come forward saying they have encountered the Lemurian peoples and described them as very little people with big heads. It is still intriguing and impressively fascinating to say the least. Not only are there strange facts about the unusual people in the Mount Shasta area but also records of stange events. Many speak of UFO sightings and abductions in this area as well. I would love to go visit Mount Shasta, it seems like fun and it would be interesting.

Amy Barnes: #1 Outside Reading

I read The Alchemist in high school. In the story, Santiago wonders from place to place searching for his treasure in life. The part of the story that truly connects in my mind to the class is the very end of the story. At the end of the book, Santiago finds himself back where he began, under a tree. The tree is where he decided he needed to go find his personal treasure, and by making that decision he blinded himself from the sacred experience he could have had. The end of the novel finds him with the tree again, only this time he is open to the unmediated communication necessary to share the sacred, and sure enough, the treasure for which he searched the world for was literally in front of him from the beginning. This story so easily demonstrates Lane’s axioms and I found it easy to connect to in my mind to make the class a little easier to understand.

Amy Barnes: #3 Image and Pilgrimage

Communitas happens on a pilgrimage when a group of people experience liminality, a psychological, neurological, or metaphysical subjective, conscious state of being on the "threshold" of or between two different existential planes. (Essentially people that something sacred such as a glimpse of divinity together.) It takes community to the next level and allows the community to share a common experience, usually through a rite of passage. It brings everyone onto an equal level and even if you are in a higher position, you know what it is like to be lower. A communitas shares a sacred experience and gives all involve instantly something in common which is what human beings strive for as an essential need of belonging.

Amy Barnes: #2 Image and Pilgrimage

Flow is when action and awareness merge, creating the ability to experience joy. You are not able to fully experience flow unless you completely encompass yourself in whatever action in which you are partaking. If you are able to totally involve yourself in this action, you become almost mindlessly involved in whatever you are doing. There is no conscious thought process dictating your actions. When you place all your attention on one thing, you lose sight of yourself because you are completely invested in your actions. Sometimes, it is difficult or undesirable to interrupt the flow. It is a tricky concept though, because if you become conscious, or aware that you are experiencing flow, the flow will be interrupted. I think this ties into Lane's third axiom because if you are looking for a spiritual journey or are aware that what you are on is a spiritual journey, you will not experience a liminal occurrence because you are too busy looking for it and you will not notice when one actually occurs because you are not encompassed in the flow.

Amy Barnes: #1 Image and Pilgrimage

An interesting topic discussed in Turner’s Image and Pilgrimage in Christian Culture was the topic of pilgrimage as a liminoid phenomenon. The idea is that a pilgrimage is a period where an individual escapes from every day normal activity of the mundane world and travels through a plane to reach the spiritual world. While at this state the individual is changed and is able to rejoin reality. I find this interesting because it is maybe something that everyone seeks to accomplish one way or another while they are on their pilgrimage, whether or not it is their main goal or a secondary thought. What I find to be a problem is that I do not believe this happens to everyone when they go on a pilgrimage. I believe this because people go out and have returned unchanged in any way, and I feel like the pilgrimage as a liminoid phenomenon should create some change in the individual that should improve them as a person in some sense.

Amy Barnes: #3 Landscape of the Sacred

After reading chapters in Lane's book I really began to understand a little more about sacred place and sacred experience. Sacredness of a place is hard to define and verbally explain for that matter. Say you have a special experience at a place that you consider to be sacred, going back to that same place to get that feeling is nearly impossible. Lane describes this aspect perfectly in the chapter titled, The Ephemeral Character of Place. The concept that caught my attention the most was our power of memory and our attachment to place. A place can have a big impact on your imagination. I'm sure everyone could think back when they were younger and describe a place they had been to that had a great impact on them. I bet they could describe that particular place all the way down to the littlest detail because it's a vivid memory that never goes away.

Amy Barnes: #2 Landscape of the Sacred

In Lane’s Landscapes of the Sacred he mentions three approaches to understanding the medicine wheel as sacred place. These approaches are the ontological, cultural, and phenomenological approaches. From these three different approaches the one I find the most interesting is the cultural approach. The cultural approach in my opinion is the one approach that most people will agree with or understand the most. In this approach it says that sacred place is most readily defined, culturally at least, as a site over which conflicting parties disagree – a place about which people are willing to fight and even die. I think this makes the most sense seeing how there have been years and years of crusades over lands, like Jerusalem. I also think it makes more sense to people to believe that they have influence over sacred places. It might be just a part of human nature to think that they have influence over what they believe in.

Amy Barnes: #1 Landscape of the Sacred

Lane’s Four Axioms is possibly one of the most eye opening points in the beginning of this class. Each of the axioms provides the landscape to have its own personality and power. The one axiom that stands out in my eyes is the first. The sacred place chooses you, you cannot choose it. From the first axiom it is understand that the landscape is not providing the experience but rather giving. With that I mean that it is not that a person comes into an area and sees things that they believe are sacred. Instead the landscape must decide to provide the person with the sacred experience. Coming into class I simply thought of a sacred experience as a moment that a person has with a landscape, but now I realize that a sacred experience is a shared opportunity between the landscape and the individual.

Topic of Choice 4: 9/11: Have we forgotten already?

Nathan Bloom: 8 December 2009

This is my final blog and I would like to use this blog to discuss the shooting that occurred at Fort Hood, Texas this past month. This was an occurrence of terrorism within these United States of America and it was barely talked about. 13 people were killed and 30 were wounded within the confines of a U.S. Army base and many people don't give it a passing thought. This is very, very wrong. Yes, the September 11 attacks were 8 years ago but we are still at war and we should be more aware as a country. The Pearl Harbor attacks were 68 years ago but that is remembered constantly yet WWII is over. The War on Terror is still happening and threats against this nation are still taking place. My point is that although it is important to know the current news, the media moves on to quickly. The shooting at Fort Hood could have been prevented had the community stepped up and reported the things they saw. We must be more aware of people's actions and habits and if Major Nidal Hasan's actions had been reported then he could have been stopped. We should not be afraid to speak up for fear of hurt feeling of the accused if we are wrong. The time is now! We must not forget that our country is at war and that war is closer to home than many would like to believe.

Topic of Choice 3: Technolgy

Nathan Bloom: 8 December 2009

I recently watched the Bruce Willis film "Live Free or Die Hard" which is a fictional story about a man who takes over the country using a series of complicated computer hacks. Although it is not real, it still gets you thinking about modern society. Today our world is filled with computers and things run by computers and the internet is available in nearly every country with a very large variety of different devices. Do we rely to much on computers to run everything? we are so technology based as a society that computer literacy has become mandatory to get by. What about the Amish? Yes, they function in there own society but stay mostly separate from the rest of the world. If they were to attempt to intermingle they would be completely lost; as if someone had used a time machine to go to the future. Computers run our lives, without them our society would be lost and in utter chaos. It just makes you stop and think. For example, we all remember Y2k; everyone freaked out because they knew without computers it would be as if the world ended and that was 9 years ago. Where does that leave us? We have only become more reliant on computers and technology as time progresses.

Topic of Choice 2: Home For the Holidays

Nathan Bloom: December 8, 2009

Although I have been home more than I would have liked to this semester I still look forward to going home for Christmas Break. It will be different this time because it is such an extended time frame. Going home for a weekend is one thing: you get home late Friday and pretty much just go to bed then you have one day (Saturday) to do with what you want then your on the road early Sunday and back in Newport News before you know it. I anticipate going home for 4 weeks will be quite a culture shock. I will have to readjust to living with my parents and probably have to find a job to keep me occupied and earn some much needed money to pay off this semester and get a start on next semester. It will be nice to see my extended family for the first time in a while and hopefully my sister will come home since I have not seen her in a number of months now. It will be exiting to revisit places from the past and reconnect with old friends. Christmas Break should be quite the adventure.

Topic of Choice 1: Exam Week

Nathan Bloom: 8 December 2009

Although the week is still young upon reflection of it thus far I have determined that my study habits are far from acceptable. It is now 5:34 AM and I have two exams to take later in the day. I have known this for quite some time now and I have also known about the papers that I needed to write. This is unacceptable and it is unfair to the professors who have to grade late work because they have to take time out of their busy schedules to do so. My study habits have strayed from negative grades for myself to negative effects on others. My roommate is kept up or sleeps restlessly because I choose not to complete work during the day but instead wait until the night before. These ways need to come to an end and the realization of all this has hit me hard this week, I like to think that I'm a smart kid but there gets to be a point when you can no longer bullshit your way through life. Things catch up with you; whether it takes a few years or a few hours, in the end you end up paying your dues to society. Some may call this Karma others call it luck but no matter the terminology I find it safe to say that this week my lazy selfish ways have caught up to me. Right now I take a stand and say this needs to end.

Natural Setting 2: Rain

Nathan Bloom: 8 December 2009

It rains so often in Newport News that we all become accustomed to it. Lately especially during the winter months I have noticed that the rain has become more and more frequent. It appears to change students attitudes around campus including my own. What would have been a leisurely stroll from James River to the Student Union looking at the scenery and people turns into a brisk walk or perhaps a run with hardly anyone to look at or converse with. In a normal place where it rained for a bit and then the sun came out again this would not be a problem but here it will rain for several days without ceasing. This gets spirits down, but when the rain does stop you see more people out than ever before.

Natural Setting 1: The Noland Trail

Nathan Bloom: December 8, 2009

We took the class trip to the Noland trail and were given the assignment to record our conversation with trail and the surrounding wilderness. It was not my first visit to the trail, I have been there many times before, both to run and for other school related activities. Going to the trail as a part of this course made it seem much more relevant than it has before. As I was listening to the trail and interacting with it I was able to see it and observe it in much greater detail than I have before. when I go for a run on the trail I only see it as an obstacle to overcome; the trees are no kind but only obstruct my vision as I attempt to see the finish line. The lake is not a thing of beauty but just a trap that I may fall into if I do not closely watch my step. When I went to the trail with this class I saw it differently, I was no longer in a hurry to pass by the scenery. I stopped to enjoy it all and appreciated becoming a part of it all. This further illustrates that an ordinary place can become sacred through the ritual that is preformed in it.

Outside Reading 3: Sacred Place Through Sport

Nathan Bloom: 8 December 2009
Ski Magazine

I recently started receiving Ski Magazine in the mail and upon closer inspection I realized that it is simply full of sacred places, there is just no way around that. I am an avid skier and reading that magazine brought me back to the slopes. When you are up on the mountain perhaps skiing a thick glade and not a soul is insight; just you and the mountain, your flow kicks into overdrive. You are alone with your thoughts and the Holiness of the place will often present itself. If you just went up the mountain on foot the experience would not be the same, the sacred presents itself when you are in contest with the mountain to get down in one piece. Furthermore, when in sport, such as skiing and your flow takes over it strengthens the sacred of the place.

Outside Reading 2: Art as a Sacred Place

Nathan Bloom: 8 December 2009
Gardner's Art through the Ages

This semester I am taking FNAR 201 or Art History. The text for this book although not outright, it does talk about sacred places and leads me to question the first axiom. My Text begins with cave paintings and moves right through Gothic Cathedrals. The First Axiom says that a sacred place chooses and cannot be chosen, however places such as the Great Pyramids at Giza, the Dome of the Rock(pg344), the Kaaba, and all Cathedrals seem to be chosen. All these places were chosen by the architects who built them. Today they appear to be sacred places so what does this mean for the first axiom? Is it only Circumstantial? Or did these places choose and the architects simply complied? That certainly seems the case in the Dome of the Rock; Muhammad ascended here and Abraham was prepared to sacrifice his son, is this a coincidence? Churches are considered sacred and building Cathedrals all over Europe certainly has the appearance of choosing th place.

Outside Reading 1: Sacred Place as Time

Nathan Bloom: 8 December 2009
http://sacredspace.ie/

This may appear to be a cop out for a blog entry by just using a website I found using google.com, however I went there looking for ideas and inspiration and instead was opened to a whole new idea. This website suggests that not only can we have sacred places, but we may also have sacred space in time. To my knowledge this was not discussed in the course and wish now that we could have delved into this. The website I found doesn't have much to it yet it opens the door. This course explained and discussed sacred places around the world and it was said that the places can be ordinary, made extraordinary by rituals preformed. Is it also true then that the place is not sacred but the time is? For example Muslims pray 5 times a day and it does not matter where they are so long as they pray at those 5 predetermined times. Does this make the time of day sacred or at that time of day does the place that they are become sacred? This is food for thought that I will look into further, I guess it is just something very interesting to think about.

Required reading 6: God is Everywhere

Nathan Bloom: 8 December 2009
Landscapes of the Sacred

Lane brings up a very intriguing point on page 242. He interprets what it means for God to be omnipresent. Lane states that if God is here; lets say in this room then He cannot be here because he is elsewhere at the same time. God is here as He is elsewhere too, so how can this be? Although this is but a small portion of the required reading, I found that it ties in with other concepts throughout the text. This concept is a direct representation of the Lane's fourth axiom. God is everywhere both inwards to a specific Sacred place and in others, but at the same time. Lane's discussion of Religious place is fascinating. He says that religion travels quickly and reaches everywhere but still seeks 'Place'. His example is the Christians seeking the promised land. As much as place is important, imagination and what you do in this place is what makes it sacred and Holy.

Required Reading 5: Ephemeral Character of Place

Nathan Bloom: 8 December 2009
Landscapes of the Sacred

Lane discusses the fact that Americans have always sought Space but in different ways. First to move to wide open areas, but then to build them up into large cities(pg. 217) and then again to seek space. Finally, we looked farther outward to outer space while still trying to take away space by building bigger taller cities. Sacred place is "hard to define" because it can so rapidly change although the place geographical place will remain the same. I find the quote by Gertrude Stein on page 219 very correct in defining America. "In the United States there is more space where nobody is than where anybody is. This is what makes America what it is." People are constantly traveling to find more space and in doing so leave the space they had open for others. Wayne Fields says that for Americans it has become the journey that is important not the destination. So it is to say that Americans are on constant pilgrimages. As I previously wrote: this makes them limenal. Is this possibly an explanation of the stress and busy environment of our country? Is it because everyone is in the threshold and does not in fact belong anywhere?

Required Reading 4: Reflection of Axioms

Nathan Bloom: December 8, 2009
Landscapes of the Sacred

The four axioms discussed by Lane on page 19 give a better understanding to Sacred Place. The axioms are rules to understand and to find sacred places. First sacred places choose themselves. you cannot go to a mountain and declare it sacred; it must declare this to you. It doesn't have to be a place that is postcard worthy so to speak, it can be any place but what you do there is what makes it Sacred. The third axiom that Lane presents is more confusing to me. From the reading it seems that a place is sacred depending on your state of mind, meaning that you may walk through place when it is not sacred but at another time when you are in a different sate of mind that same place will present itself as sacred. Finally, the fourth axiom explains that sacred places pull you in but at the same time pull you outwards and make you aware of the large scale of God in the world.
Axioms are a keystone for this course and should be understood from the beginning, but ironically enough they are confusing but the more in depth you get into the course, the clearer and clearer they become. Now although I should have written these blogs ages ago I feel that now as the course draws to an end, it is at this time that I find myself most qualified to reflect on the topics discussed as I can fully tie them all together with better understanding.

Required Reading 3: Flow

Nathan Bloom: December 7 2009

Flow hit home with me when we discussed it during class lecture. To be honest although I have found the entirety of this course absolutely fascinating, I have found it hard to connect the ideas with my own life. Flow hugely helped me bridge the gap between new ideas and concepts and my own life. I am an avid sports player so I can say that I have experienced Flow many times during games and matches. Flow is forgetting everything around you and acting on instinct. It is focusing all attention on one action and those to follow without thinking consciously only subconsciously. My question is how do you "forsake a comfortable life for its sake" (Turner and Turner p.254)? I would love to live my life in flow and give up everything else, but from my experience, flow is not a decision one can make. It is a state that you enter without choice when you commit fully to an action or ritual. How then is one able to choose this as a lifestyle?

Required Reading 2: Types of Communitas

Nathan Bloom: December 7 2009

To me communitas plays an essential role in this course and the understanding of Sacred Place. It is the lack of structure verse community which is full of structure. To go to a sacred place as a community would not let you experience the place fully because you will be caught in the structure. According to Turner and Turner (pg. 252) Communitas and Community go hand in hand. They cycle back and forth in order to create balance. To me this means that both are needed for the world to operate but in different places and at different times. Spontaneous communitas is found on the hiking trails as we discussed in class, it is random and without bounds. Normative Communitas appears fake to me. It tries to "capture" spontaneity by laying down rules and regulations, but the idea of spontaneity is that it is random and can in no way be planned so this type of communitas seems hypocritical to me. the last type is Ideological communitas is trying to create communitas to help society which again seems improbable to me. communitas will clash with society if brought together at the same place and time. the only real way for communitas to reach its full potential is spontaneously.

Required Reading 1: Pilgrimage as a Liminoid Phenomenon

Nathan Bloom: December 7 2009

As we discussed in class Liminoid is derived from the Latin word limen; meaning threshold. This is very applicable to Pilgrimages because during a Pilgrimage you are seeking answers and looking for or traveling to a sacred place. This fact makes you limenal: or on a threshold. You have left your world behind but are not yet in the world in which you have set out to find. To emphasize you are neither here nor there, simply caught in between. Turner and Turner discuss that liminality "is not only a transition but also potentiality." (page 3) It not what you have left but what you are entering into.

Angela White: Required Reading 6: Pilgrimage as a Liminal Phenomenon

Turner and Turner describe liminal in Image and Pilgrimage in Christian Culture as “belonging to a mid-stage in a religious processual structure consisting of rites of separation, limen or margin, and reaggregation” (231). According to the text, a liminal pilgrimage is not as meaningful as a liminoid pilgrimage, because then tend be something that people just do for pleasure in their spare time. I kind of disagree with this. I feel like a person can choose to go on a pilgrimage for any reason they like, and it should be just as important. Just because a person is not doing it for Holy reasons, shouldn’t mean that it is not meaningful. I do feel like pilgrimages are important for becoming close with God, but I feel like they can be made for personal reasons as well.

Angela White: Required Reading 5: Pilgrimage as a Liminoid Phenomenon

There is a section in Image and Pilgrimage in Christian Culture that talks about pilgrimages having liminoid characteristics. I find this interesting in that I see it as being one hundred percent accurate. Liminoid can be defined as "open, optional, or not conceptualized as religious routine"(231). This shows that a pilgrimage is a choice that a person must make on their own, meaning it is not required. Though it can be a sort of rite or passage, the fact that it is not obligatory can make it more meaningful to a person. The fact that they chose to do it on their own can show their commitment to the lifestyle that comes along with a pilgrimage. If a person makes the choice on their own, the pilgrimage becomes something that is unique to them, instead of something that is customary to their culture. The fact that it was something that they chose to do, I feel, is part of what makes it so important to becoming closer with God. A person must reach out to God in order for His love to have the positive effect on them.

Angela White: Required Text Reading 4: Rite of Passage

In Turner and Turner's Image and Pilgrimage in Christian Culture, a rite of passage is defined as a "transitional ritual accompanying changes of pace, state, social position, and age in culture" (249). The subject of rites of passage have always interested me, as I see change as a beautiful and necessary part of life. I feel like in order for a person to learn and grow in a certain community, they need to accept the ways of life and engage themselves into the community, sometimes this involves a rite of passage. For example, when I was in high school, I was on my school's cross country track team. Every year the team would sneak up on the new freshmen and attack them with water guns as they ran through a trail in the woods. We saw this as a type of rite of passage. This happened every year at the end of summer conditioning. The end of the conditioning period was sort of marked by this activity, so as soon as the freshmen were adequately soaked, they were official initiated as a full-fledged member of the cross country team. I find traditions like these to have vast importance in gaining a closeness with a community. After being initiated into a group, you feel more of a connection with them, in knowing that you have been accepted.

Angela White: Personal Choice 4: Manifest Destiny

Since I was a child, I have dreamed about going to California. For me, the entire state represented freedom and destiny to me. Therefore, I refer to my future as "Manifest Destiny". My entire life, the only constant that I have seen in the future that I want to have, is the fact that I want to live in Southern California. My parents always assumed that it was a phase, and that it would pass as I grew older. The determination, however remains. I do not want to fly to California; I want to drive there. To me, this is a sort of personal pilgrimage. Because I have dreaming of going there for so long, it has become sort of a Holy Place to me. Though it may not be related to religion at all, it is a place that I hold close to my heart. Sometimes when I get bored and/or stressed I work on planning an itinerary that maps my trip starting at my house, and ending at various locations in California, such as apartment complexes that I have researched, or just any place that interests me. My planning of this trip has gotten to an extent where it is somewhat creepy. I have even mapped out hotels in which I can stay, and gas stations where I can fill up my tank. I have been planning this trip for so long, that it has become something that I absolutely have to do. The idea of this trip that I plan on taking has become a part of me, and everyday I become more and more excited for it to play out in real life, instead of merely in my dreams.

Angela White: Personal Choice 3: My Parents

I have recently realized that I have been incorrect in a certain assumption that I have held my entire life. As it turns out, my parents are always right. I don't understand how they do it, but they manage to be right every time they give me advice, and I seem to fall on my butt every time I ignore them. For example, my parents told me not to wait until the last minute to get my work done this semester. They told me that because I am enrolled in Accounting, Macroeconomics, and Calculus all at once, I really had to be on the ball this semester. Like always, I assumed they were just telling me that because they had to, and I could still do whatever I want all semester, then just cram during finals week. I was wrong. They were right. When my parents tell me not to trust someone, and I do, it always turns out that they were right, and I have placed my trust in the shadiest person possible. When my parents tell me to clean up my room and I don't, I almost always end up stepping on something valuable that i left on the floor, rendering it broken. I don't really understand how they can be right about every little thing, every time, but I do think I've reached that level in my maturity when I feel that I am ready to start taking their advice. I guess they know what they are doing, after all, they are old.

Angela White: Personal Choice 2: Rogue Waves

Recently, I had the opportunity to see one of my favorite bands, Brand New, in concert. I was really looking forward to this concert, as I have been listening to them since i was in the eighth grade. When the day finally came, my roommate and I made our way through the destruction caused by the nor'easter to the Norva in Norfolk and waited outside to be among the first people let in. The concert was magnificent, and they played what has become one of my favorite songs of all time, "Play Crack the Sky". This song, for some reason, has reached out to me since the very first time I heard it. On the surface, the song is about a ship sinking. In actuality, the song is about a failing relationship. I find the sinking ship more appealing. My favorite line in the song comes in the first verse in the song, when Jesse (the lead singer) sings the words "they call them rogues, they travel fast and alone, 100 foot faces of God's good ocean gone wrong". This line is my favorite, not because I feel I can relate to it, but because it shows how the world can be as destructive as it is beautiful. The idea that God created something so beautiful, yet so harmful is a harsh realization. The rest of this band's music has strong themes about dealing with belief in God, but for me, this feels like the strongest point made in all of their music. If you would like to hear the song, you can find an excellent video of a live performance here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ug63Gdj_RJ0&fmt=18

Angela White: Personal Choice 1: Mount St. Helens

Mount Saint Helens used to scare the crap out of me. When I was a child I had an irrational fear of Mount St. Helens, thinking it would erupt again. At the time, it seemed completely rational, I mean, it was volcano. Everyone should be afraid of volcanoes. What I did not really realize is that I really should have seen Mount Rainier as more of a threat. Almost my Dad's entire family lives spread out around the Tacoma area in Washington state, so I spent many nights visiting family laying awake in bed, paralyzed with fear that Mt. Saint Helens would erupt again. During one of my trips to Washington state, my uncles took my sister, my cousins and me to a museum in the area about the eruption of Mount St. Helens. In this museum, we watched a video about the affect that the eruption had on the city of Vancouver. It told the story of a man that I will never forget. Mainly because the sound of his voice was the cause of countless sleepless nights. I have just researched the man of which I speak, and it turns out his name was David Alexander Johnston, and he was a volcanologist. He was doing an observation about 10 kilometers from the volcano, and he was the first to report the eruption. Shortly before he was killed by the volcano, he transmitted through his radio "VANCOUVER! VANCOUVER! THIS IS IT!!". I spent many a night lying awake in my cousins' tree house, imaging hearing that voice screaming in the distance. I would like to take this opportunity to thank the late David Alexander Johnston for warning Vancouver about the eruption, and for being the cause of my childhood insomnia.

Angela White: Natural Setting 2: Squirrels

I have been noticing the squirrels lately a lot more than I used to. It all started when we had class on the Nolan Trail a while ago. On my walk to the location where class was being held, I had nothing to do so I took to watching the squirrels interact with their surroundings and each other. I have realized that these little guys are vicious. As I was walking down the path I noticed a squirrel picking at something in the dirt. I stopped and watched it, because it did not seem to notice me, as they normally do. I watched it for about a minute, when out of nowhere another squirrel jumped out of a tree across the path. This second squirrel literally charger across the path at the other squirrel and tackled it. This scared me, quite a bit. After watching the squirrels have what looked like a battle royale, I moved on as I did not want to be too late to class. Since then I have been observing the squirrels a little more closely. When the n'oreaster hit, I wondered, "where do the squirrels go in such a terrible storm?". A couple of days after classes were back in session, I opened the back door of Gosnold to see a squirrel casually walking out of the building. In preparation for this blog, I sat outside of James River Hall for a while to watch the squirrels play. I watched as a squirrel jumping in and out of, and buried within a small pile of leaves. These little creations of nature are so precious, yet so violent. I am glad that they are not domesticated. They seem happy free. Even during their battle royale, they looked like they were having the time of their lives.

Angela White: Natural Setting 1: The Nolan Trail

Last year a friend and I decided to go on what we considered to be an adventure through the nature paths throughout the woods behind the Mariner's Museum. We did not know at the time that it was actually called the Nolan Trail, so we made up a name for it. We did not want anyone to know what it was so we called it "Anderson". We felt like a name so common and nondescript would help to keep it a secret from our other friends that we chose to leave behind on our journey. While wandering this place that we called Anderson we came along this little break along the path that opened up to the water. The two of us sat down next to the water for hours, just talking and skipping rocks, simply bonding with each other. There is a tree next to this clearing that has a big hole right in the trunk. For some reason, this tree stuck out to me. I could not stop looking at it. It was almost like this tree had a hole in its heart. The tree reached out to me, sort of spiritually. I feel like the tree understood each other. My friend and I do not go to this place together anymore, but a couple of weeks ago I went on a walk there by myself. When I saw this tree, it immediately reached back at me, and I remembered the effect that it had on me before like it had just happened yesterday. Going there by myself and seeing that tree with the hole in it almost made me understand it even more. It was like the tree was missing something, just like I was. That tree and I are best friends now.

Angela White: Outside Reading 3: On the Road

Jack Kerouac's On the Road, is yet another favorite book of mine. I first read the book during my senior year of high school, and I decided to read it again in my spare time earlier this semester. It is a coming of age story as Sal Paradise travels across the country and encounters many different people and adventures. My favorite quote from the book is "I looked at the cracked high ceiling and really didn't know who I was for about fifteen strange seconds. I wasn't scared; I was just somebody else, some stranger, and my whole life was a haunted life, the life of a ghost. I was halfway across America, at the dividing line between the East of my youth and the West of my future." This quote to me, represents the loss of innocence and security in the life of Sal, or Jack himself seeing as the character is based on him. This quote has stuck with me since the first time I read the book, and probably will for the rest of my life. It shows the reader that the character has come to terms with the fact that his life is changing and he is becoming a person that he no longer knows, and that he is growing up. To me, this quote is pivotal in understanding the concept of the entire book.

Angela White: Outside Reading 2: God, Pilgrimage, and Acknowledgement of Place

When doing research for my final paper, I came across this article by Mark Wynn called God, Pilgrimage, and Acknowledgment of Place. I found this article particularly interesting because not only did it give a brief history of pilgrimages (like most of the articles I found did), but it also provided a different perspective. It touches on the negative backlash of pilgrimages. The paper ties pilgrimages to superstitious beliefs, it said that pilgrimages "imply a crude experiential or emotional understanding of the nature of faith", and that they "rest upon a primitive conception of divine localizability". Though I do not exactly agree with the support and ideas that Wynn used in his paper, I found it particularly interesting to see a negative side of pilgrimages, where most writings that I found either praised them or simply provided a non-biased history of them.

Angela White: Outside Reading 1: Into the Wild

My favorite book of all time is Into the Wild. I'm sure many of you have read it, but it tells the story of Christopher McCandless, a college graduate, who donates all of his savings to charity and embarks on a journey to the wilderness of Alaska. I used to look up to Chris McCandless as a hero of mine. I admired his ability to change his name and abandon his life and do what he saw necessary to find himself away from the society that he saw as corrupt. I was about 14 years old when I discovered this book, so naturally I was at a time in my life when I thought society was corrupt as well. As I grew older and kept reading the book over and over, I realized that what he did was kind of selfish. I understand that he needed to find himself and get away for a while, but he literally abandoned everyone and everything that he knew with hardly a goodbye. He left his parents and his sister completely hard broken, as they had no idea where he was. He simply disappeared. When I was younger, I totally related to this, in that I wanted to abandon everything as well. Though I still would love to do what he did in a sense of living off the land, and breaking away from civilization (though I know I am far too dependent on technology), I feel like there are so many things he could have done better. If I were in his place, I probably would have at least left a note.

Angela White: Required Reading 3: Americans Fascination with Space

There is a section in Landscapes of the Sacred that talks about how Americans are fascinated by space, and how they see staying in one place to be “unambitious, unadventurous- a negation of American values”. I’ve realized that this is completely true in my life. Being a military child, I have not lived my entire life in one spot, and I went to four different elementary schools, in the mere five years spent in elementary. At first this bothered me, but once we finally settled in Virginia, I got bored with living there too long. The book talks about how Americans are nomadic by nature, and I agree with this. I mean, there are plenty of people that are born and raised in one specific town, and I see how that lifestyle could be appealing, but I feel like change is a great part of life. The text seems to show in a negative light American’s tendency to not stay in one place, but I like to think of it as something that is beautiful. Had I not traveled around as much as I did as a child, I would be nothing close to the person that I am today. The book refers to the concept as a quest that is “always physically for an Odyssean sense of home” (219). The way I see it, my home is not a house that I have settled in, but it is alongside the people that I have been traveling with.

Angela White: Required Reading 2: Mount Rainier

The chapter in Landscapes of the Sacred about Mount Rainier pose a certain interest to me, not because we talked about it so much in class, but because I have spent a great deal of my life visiting the towns surrounding the mountain and the mountain itself. In the chapter, Lane talks about how surreal being on and around Mount Rainier felt to him. I found this very interesting because I kind of knew what he was talking about. My parents and family members have been taking me on day hikes around Mount Rainier for years, and while I used to dread them, I now find them calming. When reading about how Lane saw it as somewhat of a pilgrimage, it made me feel more like I really wasn’t simply imagining the power of the mountain itself. It’s good to know that this is a universal realization, and that I’m not just a crazy person that likes to hang out on Mount Rainier every couple of years.

Angela White: Required Text Reading 1: Masks

In Landscapes of the Sacred, Belden C. Lane touches on the idea of holiness being hidden behind a mask. He quotes Martin Luther in saying that God’s “naked, awful majesty could never be pursued directly”. He goes on to mention things that could be masks of God, such as pieces of the landscape, artwork, and various other beautiful things found in the world. At first I was really spectacle about the idea of God hiding his holiness behind a mask. I thought, ‘If he were so great and magnificent, and wants us to love Him and much as He loves us, then why would he hide?”. After reading further, however I realized that it makes perfect sense, as God is present in everything. It makes sense for God to place Himself within things for us to find Him within the beauty. Why wouldn’t He want to be more present in this marvelous universe that He created? This idea forces me to look more closely at the world around me, attempting to find God in every little object that I encounter. The book says that Pablo Picasso died trying to find God’s mask in his artwork, why shouldn’t we all do the same?

Terango: Dirt versus Earth

Lane writes about the experience of soil in peoples lives with enticing comprehension. At one point he describes earth as something that we emerged from and continue to share a bond with. It is irrefutable that the earth sustains us as humans. However an appreciation for such fact can easily be lost on those who live in modern society away from the source of their nourishment. Nevertheless every feature of dwelling rises up from the earth and the earth supports it ungrudgingly. Thus everyone participates in a relationship with the earth.
Lane quotes a Lakota Sioux Chief, "the old people came literally to love the soil and they sat or reclined on the ground with a feeling of being close to a mothering power. It was good for the skin to touch the earth and the old people like to remove their moccasins and walk with bare feet on the sacred earth."
It feels that today we distance ourselves from the power given to us by the earth. Often water is referred to as the source of life but many forget that earth is the vessel for life. Efforts to not forget this sacred relationship can be seen in some religious traditions that ask adherents to take their shoes off because they tred upon sacred ground. This tradition has symbolic meaning that acts to illustrate the importance of the earth we stand upon every day. It is an empowering substance that provides space for life to grow. It contains an inherent sacredness that is systematically forgotten by pavement and other artifices that attempt to replace the earth. However no one can deny the pleasure of walking with bare feet in the soil of the Earth.

Terango: Magic Words

This poem is from the Inuit tradition and it has a profound affect on me.

In the very earliest time,
when both people and animals lived on earth,
a person could become an animal if he wanted to
and an animal could become a human being.
Sometimes they were people
and sometimes animals
and there was no difference.
All spoke the same language.
That was the time when words were like magic.
The human mind had mysterious powers.
A word spoken by chance
might have strange consequences.
It would suddenly come alive
and what people wanted to happen could happen—
all you had to do was say it.
Nobody can explain this:
That’s the way it was.

It strikes me a bizarre how many people refer back to an older time as that of great sacredness. There is a feeling that the sacred experience has become enigmatic for us today and yet we are aware that once it merely existed as a part of perception. This perplexing concept that appears in cultures throughout the world seems that it must be based on some historical credibility. It could be argued that it refers to a time before humans had learned to transform their world with any efficiency. Yet the stories in China, India, and Meso-America read the same yet invoke societies that were rich in technology. Therefore the paradigm where sacred was effortless infused in culture does not directly relate to technology but must refer to a general perspective on reality. The Inuit poem speaks of the power that words had as more than descriptive but actually performing the action of creating Being. This I think lies at the heart of the issue.
Today we have a few words that are performative like, "duck" or "fire," but the terms used in religious, or just daily, discourses have lost that power. It seems that the performative power of words has witnessed a demotion that can be salvaged through the simple process of awareness.

Terango: 'Primitive'

In his book, Sacred and the Profane Beauty: the holy in art, Van der Liew writes,

"There was a period - and for the so-called primitive peoples this period still exists - when art and religion stood so close to each other that they could almost be equated. Song was prayer; drama was divine performance; dance was cult. Every act of primitive man is, by its very nature, a magical act.”

This incredibly interesting statement gives us an awesome concept of sacred living. A culture where the everyday contains the divine within itself because the act of participating in reality is a sacred experience. This is something that today may be hard to grasp and is all the more interesting for it. Generally speaking people spend a great deal of time away from the present moment. People think that because 'then' happened, now isn't. They find it easy to ignore the ongoing sublime that is occurring right now. How did this change happen? Did literacy cause this great of a shift in perspective? Why do we have such a strong segregation of sacred and profane and that the same humans as us, living in history, did not experience?

Terango: Via Negativa

Gatta writes about he 'via negativa' or apophatic approach to understanding god in his chapter, 'reclaiming the sacred commons'. This method makes me think of the Muslim theologians Al-Sijistani and Al-Ghazali who used the via negativa method to reject the credibility of dogma and return Islam to its eternal introspection. Al-Sijistani use a technique of double negatives to attain to, as Gatta puts it, "confirm our knowledge of ignorance," of god. Using arguments that read similarly to, "al-Lah is not non-Being," and, "al-Lah is not not-good," Al-Sijistani tried to show the simplicity of a rational God discourse. This method closely resembles the neoplatonic via negativa.
Al-Ghazali's teachings were more directly in line with Gatta's description of the apophatic. He moved to this ideology after finding himself distant from sacred by the doctrines and dogma of contemporary Islam. This led him to the path of mysticism where he rejected the labeling of god's attributes as meaningless. Al-Ghazali found problems with concepts such as god is good because the word 'good' is relative therefore al-Lah cannot be associated with the word 'good' but he also is good because the true 'good' is too abstract to comprehend.
This shows how the via negativa can appear complicated but at heart is an attempt to become closer with god through the realization that our attempts to describe divinity only distance us from it. It further shows the theological struggles that lead to this kind of thinking stretch across the board.

Terango: Tred upon without being entered

Lane brings up as one of his axioms for understanding sacred place that, "sacred place can be tred upon without being entered." This concept offers a great deal of insight into understanding sacred place free from the constrictions of labels. It expresses sacred place as somewhere that is experienced existentially not ontologically. Therefore the sacred experience is relative to the inescapable subjectivity of human perspective. What makes this axiom so insightful is its rejection of sacred place as an established place of sacred but instead a place that instills the feeling of sacred within the person experiencing it. There is no requirement to feel sacred, it merely occurs for the person experiencing it. I find Lane's use of these concepts mystical in nature because they ask the person seeking sacred to leave rules behind and let themselves exist as a participant in sacred instead of an observer.

James D Cheeseman - Natural Setting 2

After we had the class outside, the one where we walked on the Nolan Trail, I became stranded there having to walk the length of it to go to my next class back on campus to take a test. Not realizing how long that would take, I took my time until I realized that I was probably not going to make it. So I rushed and in this place that I had begun to relate to my spirituality, I began to pray to God and ask him to get me there on time. I have this notion of prayers, where if you ask for something, the conditions will present themselves, but you have to take the leap to achieve them. In the end, I got to the test on time, but only nearly. It made me think of why people have designated places of prayer, such as churches, and the feelings of sanctuary that are carried with them.

James D Cheeseman - Personal Choice 3

The stories that I have heard in Wilderness as a Sacred Place at first was all I heard of the class, that and how cool of a teacher they had. I first drew no association to the stories to class. But I soon realized that there was a reason for each of them and how they affected learning and attributed to Dr. Redick's personal teaching style made me appreciate them even more. I can honestly say that the stories have given me a incredible interest back into my rediscovery of my spirituality and concept of god, to me, and my mind.

James D Cheeseman - Personal Choice 2

In studying and doing research for my final paper, it made me realize how people can impose spiritualism and religion on those that they have influence over. In learning about Teotihuacán, I have discovered the ideological consistency of Mesoamerican culture. By fostering and imposing cultural themes that a vast mercantile empire holds, you can communicate a number of different messages. Those of a war or an economic basis, and even go so far to attach some to notions of art and architectural ties to provide a sense of togetherness.

James D Cheeseman - Personal Choice 1

In taking this class, I find myself more comfortable with my spirituality through the notion of sacred place. I like so many young adults, become dissatisfied with the concept of religion. However, after taking this class I have regained some faith, but not that of what I originally held. Instead, I have a new concept of that which is God. In investigating how people perceive spirtuality, it has affirmed that there are always different interpretations of what has granted us existence and how that is tied to ourselves.

James D Cheeseman: Turner & Turner 3

Turner & Turner describe liminality as “The state and process of mid-transition in a rite of passage” (249), in Image and Pilgrimage in Christian Culture. Idea makes me draw the connection of this to liberation of likeness to anyone who exists in the ritual process to that when you have reached the point in a journey where the great realization has occurred, and now you must realize how this knowledge has affected you. Kinda like in the middle of a trip when you find you have come to terms with this overbearing thing, and you realize it is nothing but something that everyone feels.

James D Cheeseman: Turner & Turner 1

In reading about the types of communitas gained in Turner & Turner's book, it makes me realize how I have made some my great friends here at school. I find that it was mostly spontaneous, and gained through hanging out or going somewhere as a group, gaining new members as we continued. It was just a collective existence with no pretext other than just relaxing and enjoying company. In this, I have felt connections with these people like nothing I ever would expect. I had never really felt an understanding of community that was never organized before. We wouldn't seek people out to join us; they just would if they felt they wanted to.