The Gods Will Not Be Denied

What is sacred space?  And how do we approach it? Or do we? 

Eliade says "The experience of Sacred space makes possible the 'founding of the world': where the sacred manifest itself in space, the real unveils itself, the world comes into existence. " (The Sacred and the Profane, 1957) . (Mircea Eliade was one of my mentor's mentors when I studied the Philosophy of Religion at the University of Maine).  What Eliade talks about is when a people create a sacred site, they establish a point of orientation; a starting point for the psychic mapping of the world.  The world is always created out of chaos and will revert to chaos if we are not careful.  The sacred space is the anchoring of the world and is the link between the eternal plane and the temporal.  It is where the eternal, sacred world and the temporal profane world touch.  That is the symbolism of the Star of David - the triangle representing the temporal mountain reaching to the sky god and the focused power of that God reaching down to touch humans represented by the inverted triangle.

Sacred space also re-presents the sacred act of creation.  So when a people create a sacred structure, they are participating in the holy work of the gods.  They are, in fact creating order out of the void in imitation of the holy act of creation, but they are also, in fact, participating in that holy act.

Ok, so the point?  A couple of years ago, Dawn and I went to the Big Island of Hawaii for a business trip.  One afternoon, I took the car and drove up the Northwestern coast , near where we were staying and stopped to visit the Pu'ukohola Heiau National Historic Site.  There are several religious structures on the site, including the main one, a raised platform  on which human sacrifice to the War God Ku was made by its builder, King Kamehameha.

This is a picture I took.  It was on a warm day and I was literally the only person walking around the park that Sunday afternoon.  The temple is several stories high and at the base of the temple there is a sign that states that this is a sacred site to the native Hawaiians and non-Hawaiians are not allow to go up to the top.  On the one hand, the site seemed no different than the ramparts at Yorktown or Gettysburg . . . and yet, on the other hand, I did feel something special, mysterious, about this artificial mountain. My curiosity was intense, but so was my respect for the holiness of the site.  What would I encounter at the top?  Was there still an active altar or buildings of some sort?  Would I feel the ghostly presence of past warriors and victims?  Or even encounter the spirit of the Ku himself?  What would that encounter be like?

Whether I want to admit it or not, I am under the protection of the God of the Hebrews in the arena of divinities, as are most of my readers.  Some, no doubt would claim others as their God - Allah or Krishna or the Green Man or Gaia - but in terms of holy protection, most of my readers would call on the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost.  So what would it have been like to encounter the great god Ku, he who calls for human blood sacrifice and comes down to earth to dwell on Kamehameha's mountain top?  What would we have had to say to one another?  He with his retinue of warrior kings and me with my angels with their flaming swords? (Would the experience of one group been as overwhelming as the other to me?  When Jacob encounters the angel, he argues and wrestles.  Would it be any different with me?)

OK, I know this train of thought seems silly at best and sacrilegious at worst.  I don't mean it to be.  But I looked up at that temple and wondered and was awed; and I turned and looked out over that endless expanse of the sea and was awed and wondered.  We compartmentalize the world into sacred and profane.  We see God in the ocean or in a mountain or in a building or a work of art or a special person, perhaps.  But we don't , I don't at least, see God in everything.  It would be too overwhelming to acknowledge the sacred in everything.  That is why, I think, every religion has sacred spaces, like this temple, and sacred time, like this Easter day, to observe the holy in the world.  Then there is tomorrow; 'just another day'. To be constantly aware of he presence of God . . .  the gods  . . . whomever? Would that be sustainable?

By the way, what was on top of the temple?  See for yourself:

View Larger Map

The Myth and the Hard Truth

"You have already grasped that Sisyphus is the absurd hero.  He is, as much as through his passions as through his torture.  His scorn of the gods, his hatred of death, and his passion for life won him that unspeakable penalty in which the whole being is exerted toward accomplishing nothing.  This is the price that must be paid for the passions of this earth."

"If this myth is tragic, that is because its hero is conscious.  Where would his torture be, indeed, if at every step the hope of succeeding upheld him?

 The workman of today works every day in his life at the same tasks, and this fate is no less absurd.  But it is tragic only at the rare moments when it become conscious.  Sisyphus, proletarian of the gods, powerless and rebellious, knows the whole extent of his wretched condition: it is what he thinks of during his decent.  The lucidity that was to constitute his torture at the same time crowns his victory.  There is no fate that cannot be surmounted by scorn."

"All Sisyphus' silent joy is contained therein.  His fate belongs to him.  His rock is his thing.  Likewise, the absurd man, when he contemplates his torment, silences all the idols.  In the universe suddenly restored to its silence, the myriad wondering little voices of the earth rise up. Unconscious, secret calls, invitations from all the faces, they are the necessary reverse and price of victory.  there is no sun without shadow, and it is essential to know the night."

"I leave Sisyphus at the foot of the mountain!  One always finds one's burden again.  but Sisyphus teaches the higher fidelity that negates the gods and raises rocks.  He too concludes that all is well.  This universe henceforth without a master seems to him neither sterile nor futile.  each atom of that stone, each mineral flake of that night-filled mountain, in itself forms a world.  the struggle itself toward the heights is enough to fill a man's heart.  One must imagine Sisyphus happy."

Albert Camus

from The Myth of Sisyphus and Other Essays