Passion of the People – 1.4.3

Spiritual Landscapes and their Proximity to the Stars

The landscape is mainly characterized by tourism and culture, and more and more often, with the awareness and deepening of people’s self, a new dimension of perception of the landscape through which the spirituality is born. Spiritual landscapes are not only related to religion, but open up spaces that can be inhabited or inhabited in different spiritual registers. Using the concept of spiritual landscapes, Dewsbury and Cloke (2009) offer an analytical lens through which we can understand “co-constructive networks of relationships between bodily existence, felt practices, and beliefs about things that are immanent but not yet manifested.” Spiritscapes therefore highlights the various ways in which the everyday sensations of the spirit are enacted and acted upon through certain representations and architectures of potential, emphasizing how spiritual presence “brings about real bodily dispositions, markers in the landscape of existence and emotion, leave memories, follow in the body”.

In other words, spiritual landscape describes the relationship between place and religious spiritual beliefs and practices.

Philosopher Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote in his 1836 essay “Nature,” “If a man wants to be alone, let him look at the stars. The rays coming from these heavenly worlds will separate him from what he touches.” He raised the stars, despite their constant presence, as portals for complete assimilation into something greater than ourselves.

For thousands of years, people have been fascinated by the night sky. Ancient civilizations, from the Maya to the Babylonians, have been fascinated and mesmerized by the universe. The ancient Egyptians even used the stars to precisely align the great pyramids with the four cardinal points of the Earth.

When we look at the night sky, we are looking at history. Proxima Centauri is the closest star to the Sun. From its constellation Centaurus, light takes 2.24 light years to reach Earth. The light from this star, as you can see it tonight as a stargazer, began its journey about two years ago. The Andromeda Galaxy is visible to the naked eye from a distance of 2.25 million light years. This light began its journey before the development of Homo Erectus. This information shows us how magnificent the heavens are and why the stars have been given a spiritual dimension. You could say it’s a temporal mediation that can be a very spiritual experience. Looking at the night sky, we can experience the spiritual messages that the stars carry about eternity, the dimensions of time, the meaning of the universe, which usually leads the individual to introspection. Through meditation we can enjoy better spiritual insight than any other world. When we sit in meditation in our spiritual landscape, we see not only the stars, the moon and the sun, but also our inner universe.

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Passion of the people

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Fantasy Sky – Image by steven underhill – Pixabay

Universe – Image by Gerd Altmann – Pixabay

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Video of cave – stars – tunnel