Temenos — a sacred space of sanctuary.

Have you ever walked into a space and ‘felt something’? Some kind of hushed atmosphere, perhaps a sense of presence or a slowing of the mind? Maybe you wandered into a silent grove of trees and stopped, suddenly aware of a quiet watching; maybe you walked into a vaulted cathedral or a temple and felt the weight of history and hundreds of years of accumulated prayer. Some places seem to feel distinct in an indefinable way, have an aura of power and peace — perhaps of sacredness. When life is all getting too much and we crave a place separate from the crazy world we seek these spaces. When we need a sense of safety, comfort, replenishment, solace and peace we are naturally drawn to boundaries within which we can slow down.

Sacred spaces are bounded areas differentiated in some way from the mundane world. Areas within which one may feel safe and quiet. A sanctuary where you can exhale, calm the mind and possibly feel more connected to the divine — whichever way one personally defines the creative forces of the world. A sacred space could simply be a room in ones house containing some kind of altar or talismanic object or even just a favourite old chair! It could be a bower made from bent wood staves, it could be a grand cathedral or temple, or it could be a natural space differentiated in some way from its surroundings such as Uluru, starkly looming out of the Australian outback, or  maybe a simple stand of trees acting as a container for the quiet space within.

Sanctuaries need boundaries. A boundary serves to differentiate the space within from the mundane world. In Japanese Zen temples one bows upon entering, mentally preparing the individual for entering into another space, not just physically but spiritually. On crossing the threshold of a cathedral or temple door we enter a space where we begin immediately to feel different. Our voices fall silent and only whispers can be heard. We will cease rushing about and instead slow down, taking much more into our awareness. A sense of respect for the sacred is upheld by all who enter and we may feel closer to a sense of reverie — perhaps turning our minds toward the mystery of existence.

This boundary between the everyday and the scared may be diffuse, hard to define. And yet when ‘inside’ you feel different — you know you are all of a sudden inside even if there was no obvious threshold crossed. Wistmans’s wood — a grove of ancient, twisted, moss-draped oaks hidden in a Dartmoor valley is such a place. Whilst there is no hard boundary, once among the trees it feels palpably different — you have crossed a threshold. The light is low, the space contained. There is a sense of great age and a slowing down of the mind. Legend suggests is was perhaps an ancient Druidic grove, a natural place of worship and respect, the trunks and boughs replacing the columns and vaults of a church.

There is an ancient Greek word for this sacred boundary — temenos. A temenos is a piece of land separated from the everyday landscape to create a holy sanctuary. Its name derives from the Greek word temno meaning to cut — to separate this from that. The earliest examples of temenos are thought to be simple boundary stones surrounding a scared grove, spring or pool. Enclosed within these boundaries was a sacred space where all things belonged to a god. 

The Psychoanalyst Carl Jung likened the temenos to the magic circle — a space pace in which one could be safely held and so could come closer to unconscious forces in the psyche and more safely bring ‘shadow content’ into the light of consciousness. The therapeutic space of a counselling room is a form of temenos — full of boundaries; time is set aside and utmost privacy upheld to create a place where secrets, pain and shame can be gently unfolded and transformed.

But temenos is not just a therapeutic or ancient greek archaeological term — it is alive and active in the world today. Temenos can be a very personal experience: the bench under a shady tree where you go to think; your ‘special’ chair where you quietly sip your tea; any place where you differentiate from the hectic world and create space.

When I walk the forests looking for potential places to make images I look (and feel) for this sense of a special place, a place that arrests and holds me. After darkness falls light is transformed into a container. It is as if the illumination can delineate space — its presence forming a boundary between what is known and what lies beyond. The illuminated space is transformed into a stage and for a period of time it becomes a world of its own, differentiated from everyday existence. While the light abides, it is as if nothing exists outside of its reach, and my experience is held. The light acts as a temenos. My hope is that something of the quiet, peaceful, abiding spirit is also somehow contained and conveyed in the resulting photographs.