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Landscape of the sacred

 Page 4 Michael Taussig would suggest Juan's understanding of the meaning of a place emerges out of the process of an imitation of all the “differences” that we discern there. We mimic (in language and action) the full range of sounds,movements, and other sensory perceptions that come to us from the more than human world.”  It’s hard to put a place that strikes us as sublime into we’re words; we can try to describe it as a feeling and try to put language to that feeling, but sometimes the feeling of the beauty of nature or the power of a sacred space is too big to try to translate or make sense of.  Would every place and experience be subjective, and would the discourse be the same? Would the mountain top make me feel the same as another? Or does my personal experience with the natural world and divine keep it intimate/ unique, or would my experience be relatable enough? The author uses the messiness, ambiguity, and mystery of people's deeply personal experience of place....
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1-30 phenomenology of prayer

1-30 phenomenology of prayer  From the beginning of chapter 1, the introduction, there is some explanation about what prayer is... My highlighted explanation was: the moral and spiritual discipline that introduces and directs us to the sacred dimension that infuses and undergirds all that is. Prayer is the connection to the divine, an experience that not only shows devotion but it’s humbling of one's self. Often associated with “the stripping the soul of its pretense.” When praying to a God, there seemed to be no secrets or vail to hide upon because the acceptance of a divine is to know there is an omnipresent force that knows all, sees all and is all. This allows a participant in prayer to show up fully and authentically because there is nowhere to hide.  Prayer is an experience, but not always is it an individual act. In some cultures, it’s collective, but another part of the prayer is extremely intimate. As I’m reading as I’m journaling… I’m thinking.. prayer is a hard expe...
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