The Sacred Space Conference

As we strive to unpack the shadows of our culture, one that persists in pagan communities is a purity ethos that holds wild places–grottos, groves, and other ‘untouched’ places– as more sacred than humanized ones, and replicates dominant culture patterns of simultaneously devaluing and worshiping the foreign or distant Other. In this time of upheaval and consumerism, there is a counter call: in guerrilla gardening and reclaiming of the commons, to upcycling, and graffiti arts. The “negative” spaces of abandoned buildings, irradiated landscapes and other edge spaces offer a possibility for generational healing: how can we reclaim as sacred that which we have abandoned, trashed, or poisoned in ourselves and the places we belong?