Making Your Life Sacred

Among the several dictionary definitions of sacred are “dedicated or set apart for the service or worship of a deity” and “worthy of religious veneration.” Perhaps this is how you first heard the word used, in a religious context, and implying that only certain designated things or people can be sacred.

Let’s look at other definitions from Merriam-Webster Online: “entitled to reverence and respect” and “highly valued and important.” Unshackled from religion, the word sacred could be applied to many more things. Using these two latter definitions it might apply to money, status, celebrity and positions of power in our current cultural value system. Do those things feel sacred to you? Do you treat them as if they are? I certainly have.

What if everything in your life was sacred?

What if you decided that everything in the universe is entitled to reverence and respect, highly valued and important? Because from a secular viewpoint, humans decide whether something is sacred or not. It’s a choice, whether or not those are also qualities inherent to the universe.

Animists experience everything from stones, insects, plants, rivers and stars as alive and conscious in their own ways. And all of it is imbued with the mysterious and inexpressible divine source/Great Spirit. In that sense, all of it is sacred. Nothing is more valuable or important than anything else.

But this is a foreign concept to those who have grown up in most non-indigenous, “modern” cultures. We are accustomed to hierarchy and even believe it’s the natural order of the world. It seems right to us that a few select things or people are sacred, better than and “above” all others. And all those many things that are not sacred can be treated with disrespect, disregard, or contempt; this is how we’ve treated the earth, the natural world, and each other for centuries.

If you’re not an animist, perhaps you can convince yourself of the equal value of all things that exist through your confidence in science, which has shown that within ecosystems all life is intimately connected to and interdependent with everything else. If one element changes or is lost, such as an animal or plant species or the rainfall or bacterial composition of the soil, this has a ripple effect on all. One thing is not more important than anything else. And it’s all interconnected.

Perhaps you’re willing to consider the idea that all things are sacred. Not as a spiritual practice or thought experiment but as an actual way of life. A way of bringing more meaning and joy to your days, and more lightness of heart. How might you go about doing that?

To make a place sacred, according to Steven Foster and Meredith Little, “…you can make almost any place holy if you find it yourself, occupy the space there, and truly respect what is happening all around you.” [from The Book of the Vision Quest} I would rephrase this as:

Sit quietly in a place and observe every detail of what is happening there with humility and respect.

In other words, give it your full attention. With no agenda. And this applies to people and things as well as places. Even your cellphone! This means observation and sensory perception, not engagement with it. Not thinking about it. Just pure attention for as long as you can stand. This is respect and reverence.

Attention is one of the greatest gifts you can give to both the object of your attention and to yourself.

Another way to live as if everything is sacred is to mentally remind yourself to pay attention to things and people around you multiple times throughout the day. This is very similar to, and overlaps nicely with, mindfulness practices. Pure, neutral attention does not judge or compare; there is no better or worse, no good or bad. You give everything a chance to show its true self to you.

Neutral attention usually leads to appreciation. And connection. Gratitude. And even love and awe. You find yourself wanting to take care of things to which you give your attention, or at least wanting to not harm them. (This includes yourself.)

One reason this happens is that the generalized masses of “stuff” in the world become known to you personally and intimately. What was once a vague impression with assumptions becomes a precious, familiar individual. “Me and Other” becomes “We.”

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Two bonus practices:

1)     Left-brain method - Try adopting the mindset that everything you encounter in your day is miraculous, worthy of wonder and amazement. For example, the coffee or tea you drink in the morning is amazing when you realize all the steps along its way to your cup, from the farmer who planted and harvested it somewhere far away to the string of people involved in processing, shipping and selling it, not to mention the complex systems of soil and water and sunlight that made it grow…

2)     Right-brain method - If you’d like to experience that all Beings are alive and conscious and thereby deeply know the truth of it, it’s possible to communicate with and become (shapeshift into) Bear or Oak or Granite Stone by entering a trance state. This can be done through fasting, dancing, ceremony, entheogenic drugs and more, but my preferred way is to do a shamanic journey. Learn more here.

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I admit it’s not easy to live this way. It requires practice and commitment, like all other healthy changes seem to do. We are so easily distracted from a sacredness mindset by the rush and overwhelm and daily obligations of our lives; it’s easier to just take a break and sedate our minds with social media or television. The things our culture tells us are “highly valued and important” lead us away from the beauty and wonder of life.

One technique that works well for most people who want to establish a new habit is to attach your sacred mindfulness moments to a pre-existing habit, or to set a timer to remind you periodically to take a sacred attention break. You could also schedule a mindfulness walk during the week, or practice with a partner.

In addition to creating more joy and fulfillment in your life, an everything-is-sacred mindset fosters deeper and more authentic relationships, including those with humans and the other-than-human. And if enough people start to see the entire world as sacred, worthy of reverence and respect, perhaps the destruction, cruelty and abuse of that world will diminish or cease.

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I’d love to hear your ideas on the topic of the sacred, and any suggestions you have for fostering mindfulness and wonder in everyday life – please comment below or send me an email!

Amy