John Nelson talk

A Talk on “Sacred Space and Time”
Professor John Nelson, University of San Francisco

Sacred space and time have largely been understood as substantive and consensual categories
“The sacred” is thought to manifest itself at specific places, making them sacred for all time
However, “the sacred” usually affirms elite meanings over popular, and marginalizes alternative views
“The sacred” is not beyond the domain of culture: it is imagined, defined, and articulated within cultural practices
Sacred geography is relevant only in so far as it illustrates an authorative “text”
Sacred space and time are . . .
a. cultural concepts which set boundaries and negotiate human and transhuman relationships
b. not fixed categories agreed to by all people
c. connected to place and human memory through the organizing, institutionalizing, and elaborating processes of ritual

Adapted from: Hecht, Richard D. 1994. The Construction and Management of Sacred Time and Space:
Sabta Nur in the Church of the Holy Sepulcher. In Now Here: Space, Time, and Modernity. R. Friedland and D. Boden, eds. Berkeley: University of California Press.

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How to acknowledge special places?

        A. Enact kashiwade (adapted from Shinto practice)
                1. Bow twice towards place: “Beginnings and endings . . .”
                2. Clap hands twice: “Alpha and omega . . .”
                3. Bow again: Yin and yang, balanced and beginning . . . “
        B. Make a chorten / each layer represents five elements of East Asian cosmos (air, fire, water, earth, metal)
        C. Make a mini-shrine based on Shinto’s earliest form: himorogi / seichi (characters mean “listening to the voice of
             the kami/deity in a sacred place")
                 1. Make a rectangular clearing, four corners marked & linked by vine or string.
                 2. Then fill the space with little tones, and make a high marker in line with point on horizon, giant tree, waterfall,
                     unusual boulder, etc.

Online references (for images rather than scholarly content):

Kannagara Jinja (near Seattle) http://www.kannagara.org
Tsubaki Shinto Shrine in Stockton, CA http://www.csuchico.edu/~georgew/tsa/
Photos of Shrines http://www.kiku.com/electric_samurai/cyber_shrine/index.html
Party Line Intro to Shinto http://www.mii.kurume-u.ac.jp/~leuers/informal-homepage.htm

See also: Nelson, John. 2000. Enduring Identities: the Guise of Shinto in Contemporary Japan. Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press.