Creating Sacred Space

I was recently at a men’s group gathering of about a dozen men, where the meeting was started by “creating sacred space.” As someone who’s guided vision quests for 35 years and been on over 30 quests of my own, I’m familiar with the concept, know the feeling of, and have spent days sharing time-honored wisdom and teaching about ritual, ceremony, and practices for creating and being in sacred space.

At this men’s gathering… following the practice of a large, well-known men’s organization… someone took out a smudge stick of wrapped, white sage and lit it as the guy to his right stood up. The person holding the smudge wafted the smoke over the fellow — front and back– stated, “welcome to sacred space,” and handed off the sage to the man, who then proceeded to do the same to the guy next to him. In this way, the smudging made its way around the circle.

While all this was happening, other men in the circle continued talking, making jokes, getting up and moving around, which, I confess, didn’t feel very “sacred” to me. I found myself wondering what (if any) sacred space was being created and also questioned how many of those dozen men had thought about and could define what the word “sacred” meant to them.

Sacred space can be contrasted to profane or mundane space. In our current western ethos, the material and daily world – “reality” – is largely divorced from the world of soul and spirit, and most interactions are focused on the values of secular society — economic values (money, work, career) … social (family, romance, friendship, entertainment) … egoistic (status, fame, power) … or homeostasis.

Creating sacred space involves a conscious invitation to enter an arena that’s more mysterious, to explore matters of healing, balance, spirit, and soul. In creating sacred space, we bring attention (“energy flows where attention goes”) – usually by ritual acts — to matters that are more profound, and activities performed within the space created are meant to support and facilitate moving past what’s familiar, social, and superficial and engage with those deeper concerns.

For most practical purposes, “sacred space” could be seen as synonymous with ritual space, and in most instances sacred space is created by ritual – smudging, invocation, prayer – by which other powers, energies, or intentions are invited into the room or “field” we create.

Though smudging was involved in the “opening ritual” mentioned above, by itself — without invocation, prayer, or any other form of inviting other powers or energy into the circle – it’s unlikely any special space was created. In fact, all the joking – common and familiar in a social, entertaining space — wasn’t even paused while the smudging was going on. In my view, smudging, by itself, doesn’t do much of anything.

Smudging — in its simplest form the burning of herbs associated with some medicinal properties – is found all throughout the world. Though often associated with Native Americans, who burned sage, cedar, or sweet grass for various purposes and intentions, peoples in Mesoamerica ritually burned the tree resin, copal; frankincense was regularly used in the Catholic church; and the genus artemisia — which includes sagebrush, the most widely used smudge in North America – was named after the goddess, Artemis, and burned in her temples in Greece.

Smudging can be used to cleanse (or bless) an individual, a room, space, or entire house, and the methods will vary accordingly. The burning leaf, stick, or smudge bowl may be waved over someone or throughout a space, or the smoke may be wafted and spread with a feather or wing. In general – unless you’ve been immersed in a particular tradition – it’s better to pay attention to the spirit or intention of the ritual (cleansing, blessing, prayer) rather than worry about the details or letter of whatever method you’re using.

Smudging can also be used as a vehicle for prayer. Smoke is something that spreads, scatters, and disperses throughout space – carried “to the four corners of the world” — and as such, smoke is sometimes credited with carrying prayers out into the universe.

Smudging — as intended in the initial example mentioned above — is often used at the start of a gathering, meeting, or ceremony. Believed to cleanse or bless, it can prepare the participants for whatever is to follow, and when used as part of a sacrament, the act of smudging marks a change. Done with reverence, silence, prayerfulness, the group is moved from secular, social, and scattered… to sacred space.

“Done with reverence, silence, prayerfulness, the group is moved…” Those words are important. The group is moved from one place to another… from secular social and scattered to sacred space. Something — secular and egoistic space — is left behind and some other kind of realm – “sacred space” — beyond the conventional point of view is sought. This pursuit of sacred space Is a movement from the ego or self to what is beyond the self, from the known to the unknown. And this “consecration-conversion-conversation,” … this invitation and longing for “the Unknown” by the known is called prayer, and it’s absolutely central to the creation of sacred space.

~ June 12,2024