Over break I visited Cabo in Baja California. I was particularly excited to experience the sunset there because I have never seen it from the pacific coast before. I made it a point to be on the beach 15 minutes before the sunset almost every night as to provide ample time to weigh the significance of such sublime contrasts as the sun disappeared beneath the vast ocean. It was epic to say the least, but something was missing. I couldn't understand why I did not feel the same euphoric effects that I do at the neighborhood beach so often back at home on the James River. Then I considered what sacred landscapes had said about the criteria for the makings of a sacred place. Although I held ceremonial value to the act of the sunset, I had no emotional ties to the place in which I was experiencing it even though the place was quite significant. It was in this moment that it became clear how truthful the quote that "you cannot find a sacred place, but rather the sacred place finds you" is.
The emotional ties that emanate mentally from the beach on the James river are what deem it a sacred place for me and those ties cannot be severed in any physical manner. Even if the whole place was bulldozed and I house was built upon it, the value of my emotional connection to it would not change. Thus, I learned that sacred place cannot be sought out, only realized through experience and emotional awareness.
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