Colin Huber: Lane's Second Axiom

   
 Lane's second axiom for the character of sacred place is,

"Sacred place is ordinary place, ritually made extraordinary"
        My family used to keep a sail boat in Gloucester county Virginia at a pretty run down boat yard.  The facility was littered with boats being worked on and various large rusted nautical equipment and parts.  Lane says that most sacred locations are fairly unremarkable, and becomes profound through ritual.  Despite its derelict appearance the place was a sailors play ground.  It was never a location I found particularly profound or sacred, until my grandfather passed away.  My father was left with the ashes of his father.  Both of them greatly enjoy reading tales of the sea and practicing sailing.  To our family spreading the ashes of a loved one is a ritual.  We spread my grandmother on their farm in New Jersey where the birds sing the songs she likes, and then we spread my grandfather in the bay of the boat yard.  His spirit is now free to sail the seas.
      A few years back we changed boat yard, but I will never forget the marina where we laid my grandfather to rest.  The ritual my dad and uncle preformed there transformed the boatyard into a place of communication and respect for my grandfather, and in this way it became sacred to me.


- October 10 2013