Sacred Geography
Conversations with Place
Edited by Bernadette Brady and Jack Hunter
What does it mean for a landscape to be sacred? How do the elements of earth, sky, and human interaction shape the spaces that surround us? Sacred Geography: Conversations with Place delves into these profound questions, weaving together historical insights, philosophical musings, and contemporary studies to explore the sacredness embedded within our environments.
In this volume, contributors explore these themes with a phenomenological approach, allowing places to speak for themselves. They ask: What draws life to a particular place? How do places maintain their identity and resist change? What sacredness do they hold, whether in the quiet solitude of a mountain or the bustling energy of a city street?
Conversations with Place invites readers to view their surroundings with fresh eyes, to recognize the sacred in the mundane, and to appreciate the deep connections between land, sky, and human existence. Whether through ancient rituals or modern urban planning, this book offers a rich tapestry of thought, urging us to listen to the landscapes that shape our lives.
Share
Table of Contents
Foreword
Bernadette Brady and Jack Hunter
Download (PDF)
Editorial
Bernadette Brady : What is Sacred Geography Download (PDF)
Jack Hunter : Sacred Geography and the Other Download (PDF)
Overview of Sacredness
Chapter One: Amanda Jane Page ‘Sitting with a Dandelion: Plants as doorways to the sacred’
Section One: Sacredness Through Encountering the Ancient
Chapter Two: Sarah Bisby ‘The Lapis Niger of Ancient Rome: Hierophany or Social Construct?’
Chapter Three: Amy Mercy ‘A cave of stories: finding sacred space at Wayland’s Smithy Long Barrow’.
Section Two: Journeys as Sacred
Chapter Four: Holly McNiven ‘An unexpected pilgrimage to Seoul’s Namsan mountain’.
Chapter Five: Karen Hanson ‘Windy Bank, a journey into a secluded woodland’.
Section Three: Engaging with gardens as sacredness
Chapter Six: Berna Lee 李映晴, ‘The Art of Listening to Stones: Encountering a Japanese Garden.’
Chapter Seven: Kimberly Corrall ‘Gatherings, Lines and Enchantment: Engagement with a Butterfly Garden.’
Chapter Eight: Wendy Fey ‘The Gnome, the Rock and the Pool – sacredness in a domestic garden.’
Section Four: Dark Sacredness
Chapter Nine: Kathy Vinton, ‘A War Memorial in The New Forest – looking towards home‘.
Chapter Ten: Andrew Spencer, ‘The Hiroshima Peace Park: Is it possible for a nuclear weapon to create a sacred space?’
Chapter Eleven: Daniel Broadbent, ‘A Liminal Haven: exploring the sacred geography of an English drosscape.’
Section Five: Sacredness and the Other
Chapter Twelve: Jake Eshelman, ‘Hive Minds: Exploring the Spiritual Connections Between Beekeepers and Bees’.
Editor
Bernadette Brady holds a PhD in Anthropology (2012) a MA in Cultural Astronomy and Astrology (2005) and an MA in Egyptology (2022). Since 2008 she has been a tutor in the Sophia Centre for the Study of Cosmology in Culture at the University of Wales Trinity Saint David, UK. Her research interests are in varying forms of cultural astronomy and sacred geography. In particular she has directed courses in Egypt on Egyptian sacred landscapes and religious astronomy. Her research also includes the religious landscapes of the Cistercian abbeys and North Wales medieval churches. She recently co-edited with Darrelyn Gunzburg, Space, Place and Religious Landscapes, Living Mountains London, NY, Oxford Bloomsbury (2020) and authored Fate: Astrology and Philosophy, three thousand years of discourse, London: Sophia Press Forthcoming.
Editor
Jack Hunter is an anthropologist exploring the borderlands of consciousness, religion, ecology and the paranormal. He is an Honorary Research Fellow with the Alister Hardy Religious Experience Research Centre, and a tutor with the Sophia Centre for the Study of Cosmology in Culture, University of Wales Trinity Saint David, where he is lead tutor on the MA in Ecology and Spirituality and teaches on the MA in Cultural Astronomy and Astrology. He is also a lecturer on the Alef Trust’s MSc in Consciousness, Spirituality and Transpersonal Psychology. He is a Research Fellow with the Parapsychology Foundation, and a Professional Member of the Parapsychological Association. In 2010 he founded Paranthropology: Journal of Anthropological Approaches to the Paranormal. He is the author of Ecology and Spirituality: A Brief Introduction (2023), Spirits, Gods and Magic (2020) and Manifesting Spirits (2020), and is the editor of Sacred Geography: Conversations with Place (2024), Deep Weird (2023), Folklore, People and Place (2023), Mattering the Invisible (2020), Greening the Paranormal (2019), Damned Facts (2016), Strange Dimensions (2015), and Talking with the Spirits (2014). He lives in the hills of Mid- Wales with his family.