(Llewellyn Publications, 1999)
review
by Baruch
Whatever your spiritual practice, whether you meditate, pray or perform rituals, whether you work alone or in a group, chances are good that you have a special place. If you're a member of an established and mainstream religion, you probably go to a building dedicated to your practice: a synagogue, a church, a mosque or a temple. If you're a pagan, witch or Wiccan, you more likely work in a corner of your living room or bedroom, or in your High Priest's backyard or your High Priestess' finished basement. Wouldn't you like a really special place, one you've designed to best reflect your relation to nature and the divine?
With this desire in mind, I looked at Secrets of Sacred Space: Discover and Create Places of Power. The subtitle, especially, attracted me. Just what the shaman ordered, I thought. It's 277 pages, including such useful items as glossary, index, extensive bibliography, appendices, illustrative photos and drawings, even a section of color photos. The photos show both ancient monuments such as Stonehenge, Avebury and assorted megaliths from England, France and New England, and modern creations such as the Eco-shrine in South Africa and the author's own Mutiny Bay Stone circle and Ellis Hollow Stone Circle.
The book is well and clearly organized. The subjects are arranged from basics, through preparations and discovering a site to the specifics of design and elements that can be included. Each chapter concludes with a summation of key points, suggested projects to better learn the information and notes.
So what's in the book? There are thirteen chapters covering a diverse range of subject matter, all related to the central ideas of understanding sacred space, finding it, and designing a stone circle or other monument to use it and increase its power.
According to Pettis, a place of power is not automatically sacred; in Chapter One, which sets forth some basic definitions and describes the variety of monuments people have built over the centuries, he defines sacred space as "an artwork in a consecrated space; it is a place set apart as holy and devoted to spiritual use." A place is only sacred if someone makes it so.
Chapter Two explains what spiritual practices are, and why one would perform them in a sacred space. Chapter Three delves into the conditions that make a place of power and how to find such a place. This chapter introduces the ideas of ley lines, water lines and dowsing, and contains quite a bit of information, some of it quite daunting to a skeptic like me. But it's basic to the concepts Pettis is presenting. He says on page 49, "At every point where ley lines enter the earth (inshoot) and at approximately seventy percent of the nodes where ley lines leave the earth (outshoots), there is an underground water spring. The ley-line inshoot or outshoot and accompanying water spring are the universal prerequisites for power centers. It is not just the water spring or the ley line, but the union of the two that determines the site selection of monuments and sacred spaces [author's emphasis]."
Secrets takes the next two chapters to discuss first devas, or angels, and how they can be contacted for useful guidance, advice and energy, then more malign spirits, ghosts and local influences that need to be neutralized or released from the place of power. Chapters Six and Seven detail Pettis' own experiences in building stone circles in New England and dowsing for ley lines in Seattle, the latter as part of a Seattle Arts Commission-funded project.
Chapter Eight begins to get technical in describing a step-by-step process in designing a sacred space. Subsequent chapters cover more specific design issues: holiday symbolism (using the Celtic quarters and cross quarter festivals), astronomical alignments (sun and moon rise at significant times), building in cosmological symbolism (representing such ideas as dualism or transcendence), sacred geometry, and the symbolism of number and measurement. Some of this material I found daunting, not from skepticism but from mathematical bafflement. A more technically minded reader might take it all in stride, or even whip out paper, compass and calculator, and being happily following through with their own design.
I did not find some information I'd hoped or expected to find. There's no practical advice on how to deal with huge stones that are beyond most people's abilities to move or position, for instance. How do you get those upright stones to stay upright? How do you place them on top of one another? Where do you get them in the first place?
I had some questions about land issues that also were not addressed. If you don't live on a large property with a place of power on it, what do you do? If you buy property that's suitable, how do you deal with local zoning laws or other land use regulations? How about neighbors or casual visitors? I know there are pagan groups that have dealt with these issues, as Pettis must have done himself with the Mutiny Bay circle. A chapter of general remarks on these subjects would have been helpful.
Another issue for many readers of Widdershins will be that this is not a book for the specific needs or point of view of pagans. I would describe Pettis' approach as New Age, with a great admixture of Buddhist spirituality, and as such it focuses more on using the sacred space as a launching pad into transcendence than as a way of celebrating the seasons, merging with nature or performing magick. Widdershins readers who use Secrets of Sacred Space will have to take from it what they find useful, leave the rest and supplement what is missing by consulting other sources. It's a good starting point, but for many people it will be only that.
(For further information on the Seattle Ley Line project, earth energy, stone circles and related matters, visit Pettis' Web site, www.geo.org.)
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