Walking the Wall

Heather
put up a beautiful photograph and wrote about sanctuaries, noting that
it could be a place, but not necessarily so and asking the question,
“What things are sanctuaries for you?”

There are certain books
that are sanctuaries for me, I find that those are the ones that I
return to again and again for different reasons. I read Song in the Silence when I just want to enjoy the magic of someone discovering what they thought was only a dream was magically real. I read He, She, and It
when I want to remind myself not to take humanity at face value, when I
want to remember that sometimes we take humanity for granted. I read
any of Charles de Lint’s collections of short stories when I need to not forget to sometimes look for magic in ordinary places. I read Robin McKinley’s Deerskin
when I forget how very strong we can be when we need to be, and that
sometimes retreating for a breath is not cowardice, but wisdom. I read
any of Patricia McKillip’s
works when I just want to soak in beauty. There are more, suffice it to
say that books often become a place of refuge when the world is chaotic
or stressful and I just need to step aside for a moment.

Joseph
Campbell, in The Power of Myth, stresses the need for each person to
find their sacred place to simply be and focus on finding your own
personal bliss. This thought has always been intriguing to me, although
I do not have a particular place like that as yet. I do find some
places to have the feel of being sacred, for example, the room full of
prayer candles in my grandmother’s little church (even though I am not
Catholic, or religious); a delivery room at the moment of watching a
baby slip out into the world and take his or her first breath; watching
my children sleep in the dark quiet of a sleeping house; friendship.
Woods are sacred to me, I think there is no more place of quiet
solitude for me than standing against a tree surrounding by the whisper
of the wind through leaves all around me. I remember taking this
picture in the Smokey Mountains and feeling completely at peace looking
out into the mist covered trees. I think my ideal of sacred sanctuary
is standing in the middle of a redwood forest, breathing in the air
surrounded by all those ancient, giant trees–someday.