As always, use this as a space to connect with fellow Tangentialistas. To get the ball rolling, I wonder what, if anything, you hold sacred. How do you define “sacred?”
Guess it depends on what meaning we want to attach to the word. Religious or secular? No doubt there are folks that hew devoutly to ideologies where they hold all sorts of things sacred. Even objects like a book or a flag. Feel like a lot of us have had that sort of tribalism burned out of us by trauma, life experience or even terrible examples from others.
For myself, the things that come closest to sacred must be authentic human connections and feeling a part of the natural world. In this lousy zoo we find ourselves, it might be intolerable without those things that make it worthwhile. If taking a walk in the woods with my dog ain't sacred, I'm not sure what is.
As others have touched on, "sacred" implies that which cannot, or should not, be changed. I believe this implication of stasis can be dangerous thinking. The malleability of opinions is a catalyst to harmonious communication and relationships. Openness and a willingness to examine perceptions different than our own is how we avoid division. Thus, I believe that a space in which we may exit popular social echo chambers and ponder freely without coercion is paramount. In the ethereal sense, that would render free thought as sacred. In the closest physical approximation sense, I think you could view wilderness as such. Hence, I am reminded of Edward Abbey:
"Wilderness is not a luxury, but a necessity of the human spirit."
"We need wilderness whether or not we ever set foot in it."
To me, sacred is the moments , minutes and hours it often takes me to get past myself in order to create art . Sacred is the agreement I make with the muse each time I muster the courage to show up and stay until the light bulb goes on.
Most sacred is my dedication to being in it not of it in this upside down world.
I like this, when I think of the word sacred, I think of my church upbringing, in the Catholic Church, there are many things considered sacred. But now I think of things sacred as things that are sacred to me personally. Nature, being specifically alone in nature. My time with my grandchildren is sacred. My memories of my family, since all my immediate siblings except one and my parents, grandparents, etc. are all gone. Sometimes I feel incredibly alone in this world, and then I think about my grandchildren and they are a beaming light. This is a roundabout way of saying that these are my sacred items.
I define sacred as "valued beyond all else." For me what is sacred is truth and the highest form of truth in this world is scientific truth. Even though some of the scientific truths we once held have been revised or even overturned, it's the best form of truth we have. There are other ways of "knowing truth". Mystical experiences can feel as real as any scientific truth but they can't be completely explained or replicated scientifically. We are beginning to understand the science behind drug related experiences but have a long way to go.
What I'm really talking about here is that we need to guard against firmly believing in or promoting things that cannot be scientifically or observationally proven. Or worse, knowingly denying the truth for personal gain. As the theologian (not defending or advocating Christianity here) William Sloan Coffin said, "The world is too dangerous for anything but truth..."
I work in a psychiatric hospital for the youth. From the “at-risk” youth to victims and survivors of all types of neglect, abuse, and trauma and psychosocial issues from all over the u.s. and this is what I have seen.
Our emotions are sacred. Until the individual acknowledges, honors and respects their own it will be very hard for them to grasp any concept of self.
I see these kids and I acknowledge them and their feelings and I watch them change day by day. It is amazing and a beautiful sight to see as an individual builds self respect but the trouble arises when these individuals have to interact with other staff.
Because it is what it is. The world is not fair and so few have the time to stop and explain things in the moment. So in these metaphorical moments I’m talking about I have to remind the patients about being flexible and that everyone works differently.
So to conclude myself I believe our emotions are sacred but we have to be dynamic and flexible in the processing of them we all often simply over look the sacred power in the acknowledgment and recognition the words “ I feel…”
And I kinda had a crazy day. I went to the hospital because I need psychiatric help.
I get sent out the back of the hospital and told to go home.
I saw the movie and in my manic state of being frustrated I talk to the cop in the movie theater. I calm down.
I see my friend I’ve never met before wondering the same direction as me but I notice she’s gonna need help opening the door to the movie theater.
I help her.
She has special needs. I have special needs. We all win. Not only was she going the wrong direction but no one was going to help her. I get her to her movie. She saw bad boys 2.
As I walk back the lord speaks through me as he does now as I say loudly “You all deserve to feel SHAME! Y’all were just watching me and my friend wander around. It was obvious she needed help!”
I see the movie. I talked to the cop bout it because hey what movie did I just see? Hey let grab something out my pocket… oh snap… my shirts inside out. I confront multiple staff trying to get some one to tell me the see the truth of what just happened.
No one would admit that I saw went to go see inside out 2 with my shirt inside out too. I’m getting pissed.
The cops obviously been watching me at this point and kindly say let’s just go talk outside. We do; he ask me about the movie and hey looksy hear this is convenient because I said I didn’t like it’s over on message, but the movie was too short and didn’t go deep enough into the information that it was talking about. It wasn’t enough of the actual information movie and we both kind of giggle and laugh because hey, we both admitted real life is not like a Disney movie. We both knew that.
I thank him for his service because he gets it. I do not.
Then I went to talk with my neighbor he is not from here but he shared a lot of information with me and motivated me to calm down and play a more appropriate role into society. I need help. I need to help. We can all win. The movie still kinda sucked thought cause on purpose as I walk out of the theater I said kinda of loudly “ when they gonna talk about the real emotions like when your high as tits with your friends?” 🤡
Anything held sacred is an invitation for disappointment, disillusion. Sacred implies untouchable, non-negotiable, a closed mind. If touched, it may tarnish. If held, it may fall. If discussed, it shatters.
From my perspective, "sacred" is a social construct. What is "sacred|"in oue culture might be "obscene" in another culture. The defining aspect of something "sacred,|"is that if it is violated, dire consequences will follow. But only for people who accept the "sacredness" of an obect or action.
Spaniards desecrated sacred Aztec and Incan sadred sites and customs (and rulers) without suffering untoward consequeces. Same was true of the barbarians who ransacked "sacred" Cathoic sites in Italy duing their invasion. HOWEVER--
I know of someone who took a chunck of a "sacred" Hawaiian volcano home, which was not only a violation of the ancient cutlure that held the volcano to be "sacred" but also a state law that forbids such taking these "souveniers." Upon returning home, he had a string of misfortunes unlike anything he had ever experienced in his hitherto happy life -- illnesses, financial, crises, thefts, relationship disruptions. He mailed the chunk back to a friend on Hawaii who simply put it back on the volcano site. (No, the volcano was not active at the time.) Believe it or not, all of his miforutnes came to an end and he resumed his happy life.--what there was left of it.
For those readers who know Hawaiian mytology, you simply do not mess around with Pele, the goddess of those volcanos!
Sacred is closing my eyes when I have time to wait for something else to do or to happen on a warm clear day outside and turning my face toward the sun and holding it at several angles for a few minutes each to let the light wash over its entire surface, and stretching every muscle in my worn-out body before I go to bed without music or any tonal or visual inputs from any source other than a turned-down lamp that gleams less than a candle in my bedroom which otherwise would be pitch dark. Those are the two experiences I’ve consistently had when the word “sacred” has spontaneously come to mind even though I am not religious and do not consider myself “spiritual” in the least.
With both, there is a meditative stasis, because they must be done slowly and require that the time to do them be actually taken without distraction and with a certain effort or commitment, especially to avoid more than a single source of controlled sensory input, though there is not necessarily a zen-like meditative letting go of thought. The stasis puts the body back, it seems, into a right relation with, respectively, its most consequential surroundings in nature (the sun), and itself. Both produce certain physical sensations that feel pleasurable as ordinary sensations but also informative in some remotely primal sense (can’t think of a better way to put it), such as being warmed in the life-giving and possibly, someday, life-destroying way that only the sun can effect, or being returned to an original maximum range of motion and physical energy after stiffening with exhaustion, which I’d describe as a rested but exhilarated state, a combination of the jolt that exercise can give and the feeling of waking up after sleeping well for the first time in as long as one can remember.
Certain mental states and ideas attend these physical experiences. Don’t ask me how. And I still question how much of the “sacred” we’d be able to acknowledge if we weren’t informed of its existence before the fact and given the language to describe it, But there is a restoration of concentration and focus, which opens the door to the recognition of a deeper purpose in existence, of which one partakes and, if this mental state endures for any length of time, it can lead to reverence.
I’ve always liked the word sacred. It feels warm, brings to mind the color red, there’s a dignity to its intention. I don’t hold much sacred but I like the idea of sacred spaces simply as way to signal something meaningful is happening here.
I get the urge to want to have “sacred” things. But when you go to a war zone or third world for instance, and witness mass murder and famine; it hits you like a slap in the face. There’s nothing sacred in nature. There’s only things getting horribly unbalanced, usually by man, causing my war and famine, or ecological disaster.
My freedom to relate intimately and sexually as a part of wild nature. My tendings for the robins and field mice to whom I tend daily with seeds and peaches. They are my friends.
The japanese knotweed with its warrior and concrete destroying properties.
The bramble with its thorny protective nature, is how my secret home in the woods has remained undiscovered in a city for over a year! Bless the thorny tunnels.
There's something to be said for the general prevalence of lost land relation on pandemic scale and the many evolutionary needs that the vitamin-free, grey skinned people do not know they need or can not easily access. Hmmm.
Grief. I am going through heartbreak right now and the only thing keeping me grounded in reality is that sobbing uncontrollably and breaking down is the only way through. As I get older, feel more deeply, and have deeper relationships, it feels like every new heartbreak is the worst yet. This ending hurts so much.
I could have written this word for word about 2 years ago. And I guarantee you are correct that sobbing uncontrollably and breaking down IS INDEED the only way through. It works and it eventually cleanses.
Solitude has always been sacred to me, before I could even conceptualize the meaning of "sacred". Truly alone (but not lonely), no threat of interruption, and away from distractions. Letting others' perspectives fall away, and also my own "ego" perspective fall away. Just being alone and sinking into perennial humanness. What a wonderous state to be in. Of course, it can only be fully appreciated when periodically being around others as well, at least in my experience. Throw in some cannabis and music - yes! I'm not a misanthrope. I love being around the ones I care about, but I do need frequent alone time to connect with that sacred feeling and cultivate the insights that naturally arise from it.
You beat me to this. Without nature and the natural world we are doomed as a species. To me the word “sacred” denotes something without which we could not survive. Nature is that one thing.
not sure i've tried to define it before. but in this case, it means the most important thing in the world. only love could approach its importance to us and every being.
https://www.zerohedge.com/economics/100-miles-south-salt-lake-city-new-type-grid-community
Circling around the fire with community,
Singing songs with heart and harmony,
Dancing in an embodied wisdom.
And in our many diverse and beautiful ways, sharing a sacred sense of belonging to the land, each other and the stars.
Guess it depends on what meaning we want to attach to the word. Religious or secular? No doubt there are folks that hew devoutly to ideologies where they hold all sorts of things sacred. Even objects like a book or a flag. Feel like a lot of us have had that sort of tribalism burned out of us by trauma, life experience or even terrible examples from others.
For myself, the things that come closest to sacred must be authentic human connections and feeling a part of the natural world. In this lousy zoo we find ourselves, it might be intolerable without those things that make it worthwhile. If taking a walk in the woods with my dog ain't sacred, I'm not sure what is.
"Too lazy to be ambitious,
I let the world take care of itself.
Ten days' worth of rice in my bag;
a bundle of twigs by the fireplace.
Why chatter about delusion and enlightenment?
Listening to the night rain on my roof,
I sit comfortably, with both legs stretched out."
— Ryokan
As others have touched on, "sacred" implies that which cannot, or should not, be changed. I believe this implication of stasis can be dangerous thinking. The malleability of opinions is a catalyst to harmonious communication and relationships. Openness and a willingness to examine perceptions different than our own is how we avoid division. Thus, I believe that a space in which we may exit popular social echo chambers and ponder freely without coercion is paramount. In the ethereal sense, that would render free thought as sacred. In the closest physical approximation sense, I think you could view wilderness as such. Hence, I am reminded of Edward Abbey:
"Wilderness is not a luxury, but a necessity of the human spirit."
"We need wilderness whether or not we ever set foot in it."
To me, sacred is the moments , minutes and hours it often takes me to get past myself in order to create art . Sacred is the agreement I make with the muse each time I muster the courage to show up and stay until the light bulb goes on.
Most sacred is my dedication to being in it not of it in this upside down world.
I like this, when I think of the word sacred, I think of my church upbringing, in the Catholic Church, there are many things considered sacred. But now I think of things sacred as things that are sacred to me personally. Nature, being specifically alone in nature. My time with my grandchildren is sacred. My memories of my family, since all my immediate siblings except one and my parents, grandparents, etc. are all gone. Sometimes I feel incredibly alone in this world, and then I think about my grandchildren and they are a beaming light. This is a roundabout way of saying that these are my sacred items.
I define sacred as "valued beyond all else." For me what is sacred is truth and the highest form of truth in this world is scientific truth. Even though some of the scientific truths we once held have been revised or even overturned, it's the best form of truth we have. There are other ways of "knowing truth". Mystical experiences can feel as real as any scientific truth but they can't be completely explained or replicated scientifically. We are beginning to understand the science behind drug related experiences but have a long way to go.
What I'm really talking about here is that we need to guard against firmly believing in or promoting things that cannot be scientifically or observationally proven. Or worse, knowingly denying the truth for personal gain. As the theologian (not defending or advocating Christianity here) William Sloan Coffin said, "The world is too dangerous for anything but truth..."
I work in a psychiatric hospital for the youth. From the “at-risk” youth to victims and survivors of all types of neglect, abuse, and trauma and psychosocial issues from all over the u.s. and this is what I have seen.
Our emotions are sacred. Until the individual acknowledges, honors and respects their own it will be very hard for them to grasp any concept of self.
I see these kids and I acknowledge them and their feelings and I watch them change day by day. It is amazing and a beautiful sight to see as an individual builds self respect but the trouble arises when these individuals have to interact with other staff.
Because it is what it is. The world is not fair and so few have the time to stop and explain things in the moment. So in these metaphorical moments I’m talking about I have to remind the patients about being flexible and that everyone works differently.
So to conclude myself I believe our emotions are sacred but we have to be dynamic and flexible in the processing of them we all often simply over look the sacred power in the acknowledgment and recognition the words “ I feel…”
How beautiful!! Have you seen inside out 2? I think what you are saying here is the point of the movie
Omgeee I have not! I’m excited! I’m gonna be crying like a baby… I can’t wait 😬
So I did see it.
And I kinda had a crazy day. I went to the hospital because I need psychiatric help.
I get sent out the back of the hospital and told to go home.
I saw the movie and in my manic state of being frustrated I talk to the cop in the movie theater. I calm down.
I see my friend I’ve never met before wondering the same direction as me but I notice she’s gonna need help opening the door to the movie theater.
I help her.
She has special needs. I have special needs. We all win. Not only was she going the wrong direction but no one was going to help her. I get her to her movie. She saw bad boys 2.
As I walk back the lord speaks through me as he does now as I say loudly “You all deserve to feel SHAME! Y’all were just watching me and my friend wander around. It was obvious she needed help!”
I see the movie. I talked to the cop bout it because hey what movie did I just see? Hey let grab something out my pocket… oh snap… my shirts inside out. I confront multiple staff trying to get some one to tell me the see the truth of what just happened.
No one would admit that I saw went to go see inside out 2 with my shirt inside out too. I’m getting pissed.
The cops obviously been watching me at this point and kindly say let’s just go talk outside. We do; he ask me about the movie and hey looksy hear this is convenient because I said I didn’t like it’s over on message, but the movie was too short and didn’t go deep enough into the information that it was talking about. It wasn’t enough of the actual information movie and we both kind of giggle and laugh because hey, we both admitted real life is not like a Disney movie. We both knew that.
I thank him for his service because he gets it. I do not.
Then I went to talk with my neighbor he is not from here but he shared a lot of information with me and motivated me to calm down and play a more appropriate role into society. I need help. I need to help. We can all win. The movie still kinda sucked thought cause on purpose as I walk out of the theater I said kinda of loudly “ when they gonna talk about the real emotions like when your high as tits with your friends?” 🤡
If you remember, when you see it let me know if you agree that It talks about what you find sacred!!
Anything held sacred is an invitation for disappointment, disillusion. Sacred implies untouchable, non-negotiable, a closed mind. If touched, it may tarnish. If held, it may fall. If discussed, it shatters.
Hold nothing sacred except love.
Thanks Chris. 😎
From my perspective, "sacred" is a social construct. What is "sacred|"in oue culture might be "obscene" in another culture. The defining aspect of something "sacred,|"is that if it is violated, dire consequences will follow. But only for people who accept the "sacredness" of an obect or action.
Spaniards desecrated sacred Aztec and Incan sadred sites and customs (and rulers) without suffering untoward consequeces. Same was true of the barbarians who ransacked "sacred" Cathoic sites in Italy duing their invasion. HOWEVER--
I know of someone who took a chunck of a "sacred" Hawaiian volcano home, which was not only a violation of the ancient cutlure that held the volcano to be "sacred" but also a state law that forbids such taking these "souveniers." Upon returning home, he had a string of misfortunes unlike anything he had ever experienced in his hitherto happy life -- illnesses, financial, crises, thefts, relationship disruptions. He mailed the chunk back to a friend on Hawaii who simply put it back on the volcano site. (No, the volcano was not active at the time.) Believe it or not, all of his miforutnes came to an end and he resumed his happy life.--what there was left of it.
For those readers who know Hawaiian mytology, you simply do not mess around with Pele, the goddess of those volcanos!
Sacred is closing my eyes when I have time to wait for something else to do or to happen on a warm clear day outside and turning my face toward the sun and holding it at several angles for a few minutes each to let the light wash over its entire surface, and stretching every muscle in my worn-out body before I go to bed without music or any tonal or visual inputs from any source other than a turned-down lamp that gleams less than a candle in my bedroom which otherwise would be pitch dark. Those are the two experiences I’ve consistently had when the word “sacred” has spontaneously come to mind even though I am not religious and do not consider myself “spiritual” in the least.
With both, there is a meditative stasis, because they must be done slowly and require that the time to do them be actually taken without distraction and with a certain effort or commitment, especially to avoid more than a single source of controlled sensory input, though there is not necessarily a zen-like meditative letting go of thought. The stasis puts the body back, it seems, into a right relation with, respectively, its most consequential surroundings in nature (the sun), and itself. Both produce certain physical sensations that feel pleasurable as ordinary sensations but also informative in some remotely primal sense (can’t think of a better way to put it), such as being warmed in the life-giving and possibly, someday, life-destroying way that only the sun can effect, or being returned to an original maximum range of motion and physical energy after stiffening with exhaustion, which I’d describe as a rested but exhilarated state, a combination of the jolt that exercise can give and the feeling of waking up after sleeping well for the first time in as long as one can remember.
Certain mental states and ideas attend these physical experiences. Don’t ask me how. And I still question how much of the “sacred” we’d be able to acknowledge if we weren’t informed of its existence before the fact and given the language to describe it, But there is a restoration of concentration and focus, which opens the door to the recognition of a deeper purpose in existence, of which one partakes and, if this mental state endures for any length of time, it can lead to reverence.
My health
I’ve always liked the word sacred. It feels warm, brings to mind the color red, there’s a dignity to its intention. I don’t hold much sacred but I like the idea of sacred spaces simply as way to signal something meaningful is happening here.
Balance.
Balance is the harmonious state of nature. If anything needs to be protected its balance especially in nature.
The term “sacred” feels religious, christian, and moralistic to me. I prefer a more stoic or zen value, like Balance.
Nothing is sacred.
the first part is easy to agree with.
the 2nd part took me a few minutes to agree with.
I get the urge to want to have “sacred” things. But when you go to a war zone or third world for instance, and witness mass murder and famine; it hits you like a slap in the face. There’s nothing sacred in nature. There’s only things getting horribly unbalanced, usually by man, causing my war and famine, or ecological disaster.
My freedom to relate intimately and sexually as a part of wild nature. My tendings for the robins and field mice to whom I tend daily with seeds and peaches. They are my friends.
The japanese knotweed with its warrior and concrete destroying properties.
The bramble with its thorny protective nature, is how my secret home in the woods has remained undiscovered in a city for over a year! Bless the thorny tunnels.
There's something to be said for the general prevalence of lost land relation on pandemic scale and the many evolutionary needs that the vitamin-free, grey skinned people do not know they need or can not easily access. Hmmm.
Grief. I am going through heartbreak right now and the only thing keeping me grounded in reality is that sobbing uncontrollably and breaking down is the only way through. As I get older, feel more deeply, and have deeper relationships, it feels like every new heartbreak is the worst yet. This ending hurts so much.
I could have written this word for word about 2 years ago. And I guarantee you are correct that sobbing uncontrollably and breaking down IS INDEED the only way through. It works and it eventually cleanses.
Solitude has always been sacred to me, before I could even conceptualize the meaning of "sacred". Truly alone (but not lonely), no threat of interruption, and away from distractions. Letting others' perspectives fall away, and also my own "ego" perspective fall away. Just being alone and sinking into perennial humanness. What a wonderous state to be in. Of course, it can only be fully appreciated when periodically being around others as well, at least in my experience. Throw in some cannabis and music - yes! I'm not a misanthrope. I love being around the ones I care about, but I do need frequent alone time to connect with that sacred feeling and cultivate the insights that naturally arise from it.
Are you me?
Glad to know I'm not alone in my sensibility. : )
agreed.
nature.
Yeah, nature's the big one for me. Especially when learning about space and physics.
You beat me to this. Without nature and the natural world we are doomed as a species. To me the word “sacred” denotes something without which we could not survive. Nature is that one thing.
well put.
not sure i've tried to define it before. but in this case, it means the most important thing in the world. only love could approach its importance to us and every being.