Editor's note: "All of the places of our lives are sanctuaries," wrote Robert Benson in Between the Dreaming and the Coming True; "some of them just happen to have steeples." Place is intimate yet extensive, mental as well as spatial, a point of observation, a safeguard for privacy, an incubator of creativity, and so much more. We tend to think of place as being outside us, and truly it is, yet even before it exists, it comes alive in us. We hope that these quotes will remind you of that aliveness always available for you to access, no matter where you find yourself.
PLACE IS:
Alive in Us
"Every person we have ever known, every place we have ever seen, everything that has ever happened to us — it all lives and breathes deep in us somewhere whether we like it or not, and sometimes it doesn't take much to bring it back to the surface in bits and pieces."
— Frederick Buechner in Secrets in the Dark
"I was once in South Africa with a community organizer. She took me to a place she said was a beautiful lake. She showed me all its secrets and described the nature of its blue color. I saw nothing. She kept saying, look deeper. I did and realized I was looking at her dream, not her reality. She was trying to get irrigation and local water. After several more years of touring pilgrims through her desert, she did. Visualizing the lake was part of her campaign."
— Donna Schaper in Grass Roots Gardening
" 'Local shrines' tend to carry intimate spirits. A young boy in our community was killed a year ago when he was struck by a car. It happened on a causeway over the water, and within days after the accident, friends left a cross and wreaths on a pole near the spot where he was hit. When cars pass, many toot their horns. From that act grew a chain of reactions, all focused around the keeping of a memory. Now the place and its artifacts hold the sentiments of a community."
— Shaun McNiff in Earth Angels
"Return to some scene in which you felt deeply loved. . . . How was this love shown to you? In words, looks, gestures, an act of service, a letter? . . . Stay with the scene as long as you experience something of the joy that was yours when the event took place."
— Anthony de Mello in Sadhana
A Call to Responsibility
"Stewardship means, for most of us, find your place on the planet, dig in, and take responsibility from there — the tiresome but tangible work of school boards, country supervisors, local foresters, local politics, even while holding in mind the largest scale of potential change. Get a sense of workable territory, learn about it, and start acting point by point."
— Gary Snyder in Hunting for Hope by Scott Russell Sanders
"We, the Indigenous Peoples from all parts of the world, reaffirm our relationship to Mother Earth and responsibility to future generations to raise our voices in solidarity to speak for the protection of water. We were placed in a sacred manner on this earth, each in our own sacred and traditional lands and territories to care for all of creation and to care for water…. Our relationship with our lands, territories, and water is the fundamental physical, cultural, and spiritual basis for existence. This relationship to our Mother Earth requires us to conserve our freshwaters and oceans for the survival of present and future generations."
— The Indigenous Peoples' Water Declaration in Troubled Water by Anita Roddick
Circled on a Map for You
"This place where you are right now
God circled on a map for you."
— Hafiz in The Subject Tonight Is Love by Daniel Ladinsky
"We have all come to the right place.
We all sit in God's classroom.
Now,
The only thing left for us to do, my dear,
Is to stop
Throwing spitballs for a while."
— Hafis in I Heard God Laughing by Daniel Ladinsky
"The core message of all the great spiritual traditions is 'Be not afraid.' Rather, be confident that life is good and trustworthy. In this light, the great failure is not that of leading a full and vital active life, with all the mistakes and suffering such a life will bring (along with its joys). Instead, the failure is to withdraw fearfully from the place to which one is called, to squander the most precious of all our birthrights — the experience of aliveness itself."
— Parker J. Palmer in The Active Life
"Emulate the masters. Draw inspiration from saints. But remember that the way to Truth begins with the truth of right now, and where you are is the only place you can start from."
— Philip Goldberg in Roadsigns
A Dimension of Prayer
"The places I have lived have always become dimensions of my prayer. The desert wind in Texas reminded me of the biblical image of the breath of God. The rains and firestorms of northern California, evoking awe and fear, suggest the pillars of cloud and fire in the Sinai desert. My childhood sense of place became the first ground for exploring my soul."
— Suzanne Guthrie in Grace's Window
"The older Brothers told us that when they began to work in the kitchen or in the bakery, they would make the humble gesture — they would get down on their knees and kiss the floor and dedicate their day to the work at hand. We were considered somewhat more modern and began our day in the bakery by kissing the ties of our aprons as we put them over our necks, and dedicating our work to the Lord while we labored putting out the meal or in the bakery with this prayer: Lord, make me a new man as I clothe myself with the apron of your love. It was a small ritual that led us to believe that the work we were doing was sacred and that the space that we were working in was a sacred space."
— Brother Rick Curry in The Secrets of Jesuit Breadmaking
Enhanced by Beauty
"Beautiful surroundings inspire people to live more fully and to appreciate the preciousness of our world and each other. The beauty of art and nature also reminds us of the inner harmony and splendor that is every human being's birthright. The Japanese understand this very well. Every house or noodle shop, no matter how humble, contains a tokonomo — a niche to hang a painted scroll and exhibit a small flower arrangement. It's a small thing, but it uplifts the spirit and adds dignity and grace to everyday life."
— Bernard Glassman and Rick Fields in Instructions to the Cook
Found in Rocks
"The first thing about rocks is, they're old. Rocks are in time in a different way than living things are, even the ancient trees. But then, the other thing about rocks is that they are place. Rocks are what a place is made of to start with and after all. The stone is at the center."
-- Ursula Le Guin in Place of the Wild
Full of Treasures
"If you belonged to the Ojibwa or some other rooted people, when you returned from a long and perilous journey, your family and neighbors would ask if you learned a new song, met a new animal, come upon a healing herb or a source of food or a holy place. What vision had you brought back for the community?
"The prime reason for traveling, after all, was to enrich the life at home.
" 'What did you find?' my father would ask when I returned from a camping trip or an after-dinner stroll. And I would show him a fossil or feather, tell him how the sun lit up the leaves of a hickory, how a skunk looked me over; I would recall for him the taste of elderberries or the rush of wind in the white pines or the crunch of locust shells underfoot. Only in the sharing of what I had found was the journey completed, the circle closed."
— Scott Russell Sanders in Writing from the Center
Incarnate
"I have come to be suspicious of any religion or form of therapy that focuses exclusively on cultivating the interior life or saving the soul and that does not include a celebration of the senses, an ecological vision, and a concern for social justice. We can aspire to care for and transform this world only if we trust that spirit is incarnate in flesh and dirt. This world is our home. We are in the right place."
— Sam Keen in Hymns to an Unknown God
"Better a single moment of awakening in this world
than eternity in the world to come.
And better a single moment of inner peace
In the world to come than eternity in this world.
Why?
A single moment of awakening in this world
is eternity in the world to come.
The inner peace of the world to come
is living in this world with full attention.
The two are one, flip sides of a coin
forever tumbling and never caught."
— Rabbi Jacob in Wisdom of the Jewish Sages by Rami Shapiro
An Incubator of Creativity
"To live in a sacred space is to live in a symbolic environment where spiritual life is possible, where everything around you speaks of the exaltation of the Spirit.
"This is a place where you can simply experience and bring forth what you are and what you might be.
"This is the place of creative incubation. At first you might find that nothing happens there. But if you have a sacred place and use it, something eventually will happen.
"Your sacred space is where you find yourself again and again."
— Joseph Campbell in The Temple in the House by Anthony Lawlor
"How marvelous that a nest of papers can be a place where new things come to be."
— Gunilla Norris in Being Home
Intimate yet Extensive
"Heaven is my father and earth is my mother, and even such a small creature as I finds an intimate place in their midst. Therefore that which extends throughout the universe I regard as my body and that which directs the universe I regard as my nature. All people are my brothers and sisters, and all things are my companions."
— Chang Tsai in The Boundless Circle by Michael W. Fox
An Invitation to Commune with Nature and Others
"We should all have at least a nodding acquaintance with most of the plants in the landscape. The fact that we don't even realize that knowing plants is part of what most people know when they live somewhere is an indication of how far removed we are from understanding our place.
"This is what I call nature literacy. Because the word literacy is a popular word, and it's considered a bad thing to be illiterate. I say this to make people aware that maybe they are illiterate about nature."
— Gary Snyder in Talking on the Water by Jonathan White
"Most children today are hard-pressed to develop a sense of wonder, to induce what [Bernard] Berenson called the 'spirit of place' while playing video games or trapped inside the house because of a fear of crime. Asked to name their special favorite places, children describe their room or an attic — somewhere quiet. ... So finding wonder outside of nature is surely possible. But electronics or the built environment do not offer the array of physical loose parts, nor the physical space to wander."
— Richard Louv Last Child in the Woods
"When I put my hand on the bark, I can feel the tree's story. I can hear the knowing of this place, a knowing that comes from years of growth, change, and time that coalesce in this singular life."
— Wayne Mulelr in How, Then, Shall We Live?
"I think I could write an interesting memoir of significant walks I have taken with others, in which intimacy was not only experienced but set fondly into the landscape of memory. When I was a child, I used to walk with my Uncle Tom on his farm, across fields and up and down hills. We talked of many things, some informative and some completely outrageous, and quite a few very tall stories emerged on those bucolic walks. Whatever the content of the talking, those conversations remain important memories for me of my attachment to my family, to a remarkable personality, and to nature."
— Thomas Moore in Soul Mates
A Link between Generations
"When a Zulu child is born, his or her umbilical cord is buried in the ground of that birthplace. Ever after, a Zulu will refer to his native ground as 'the place where my umbilical cord is.' This cord is not only a link between generations, it is a direct bond to the mother, the Earth."
— Brenda Peterson in Sister Stories
Love's Home
"Each person, whether sober or drunk, seeks the Beloved;
every place is love's home, whether synagogue or mosque."
— Hafiz in Love's Alchemy by Daniel Ladinsky with Sabrineh Fideler, translator
A Manifestation of the Mystery
"In India, I've seen sacred places that are just a red circle put around a stick or stone in such a way that the environment becomes metaphoric: when you look at that stick or stone, you see it as a manifestation of Brahman, a manifestation of the mystery.
"Sacred space is a space that is transparent to transcendence, and everything within such a space furnishes a base for meditation."
— Joseph Campbell in A Joseph Campbell Companion by Diane Osbon
"The realm of the sacred is about enchantment that really exists, a feeling of magic one can find by being in the world. ... Jacob felt the magical touch of sanctity in a place he thought was ordinary."
— David J. Wolpe in Teaching Your Children about God
Mental as Well as Spatial
"Through the years I have panned for gold in other ways, trying to sift out what is true and good and pure and beautiful doing graduate work in philosophy was one of the ways I panned for gold. Studying theology was another. Delving more deeply into the arts enriched the whole realm of my experience. In all these places I found my share of fool's gold, yes, but I found the real thing too."
— Patricia Adams Farmer in Embracing a Beautiful God
Multifaceted
" 'I am not seeking an escape from dread,' wrote Czeslaw Milosz, after fleeing the shadows of his native Poland for the open spaces of California, 'but rather, proof that dread and reverence can exist within us simultaneously.' "
— Pico Iyer in Sun After Dark
"We need thresholds in our daily lives, so that we clearly move from one sphere of life to another. The soul needs a variety of places where it can retreat and disappear from life, and it needs places of effective separation. Parks, clubs, restaurants, beaches, trails, and chapels on the material level are of great importance, as are meditation, contemplation, daydreaming, night dreams, distraction, memory, and many things that fit in the category of rapture, on the spiritual level. Each requires a temenos that is created with imagination and protected fiercely and aggressively if necessary."
— Thomas Moore in The Re-enchantment of Everyday Life
Not Limiting
"We need to cultivate the habit of multicultural deep listening that provides for an ecology of cultures, and we need to ask the right questions: How do Africans think, walk, dream? How do Chinese understand the nature of Tao, the flow of things? How do the Eskimos see complete models of inner imagery, and the Balinese develop such remarkable capacity to perform and perfect many artistic forms? Our growing multicultural awareness is giving us perspectives and learnings that are no longer limited to a particular place and culture; they are becoming available to the whole family of humankind."
— Jean Houston in Manual for a Peacemaker
"Two people who live in different places, or even in different generations, may still converse. For one may raise a question, and the other who is far away in time or space may make a comment or ask a question that answers it."
-- Rebbe Nachman of Breslov in God's Echo by Sandy Eisenberg Sasho
Not about Things Being Swell
"When things fall apart and we're on the verge of we know not what, the test of each of us is to stay on that brink and not concretize. The spiritual journey is not about heaven and finally getting to a place that's really swell."
— Pema Chodron in When Things Fall Apart
"When we go on a quest, we usually set out imagining that we will find beautiful things — treasures, and power, and magic visions. The truth is that when you enter unknown territory, and you carry with you a map that has only beautiful places on it, you are bound to face some ugly mudholes somewhere."
— Burghild Nina Holzer in A Walk Between Heaven and Earth
Often Denied to the Poor
"In Millennium: Winners and Losers in the Coming World Order, French economist Jacques Attali describes a chilling picture of a global economy divided into two classes of people. The first group are 'rich nomads,' who are extremely mobile and whose resources give them access to virtually anything on the globe. The second are 'poor nomads,' denied any land or place to call home, trapped in the abandoned sectors of the world economy, and having access to almost nothing."
— Jim Wallis in The Soul of Politics
"Trust does not make us forget the suffering of so many unfortunate people across the earth. Their trials make us reflect; how can we be people who, sustained by a life of communion in God, search with others for ways of making the earth a better place to live? Trust does not lead us to flee responsibilities, but rather to remain present in place where human societies are in turmoil. It enables us to keep going forward even in the face of failures. This trust makes us able to love with a selfless love."
— Brother Roger of Taize in Brother Roger of Taize: Essential Writings by Marcello Fidanzio, editor
An Opportunity to Just Be
"I have merged, like the bird, with the bright air,
And my thought flies to the place by the bo-tree.
Being, not doing, is my first joy."
— Theodore Roethke in Finding Deep Joy by Robert Ellwood
"Sanctuary is a place of safety. An emotional sanctuary is, by design, a place that allows us to fully experience dangerous feelings. Effective sanctuaries appear in many guises: the comforting quiet of the chapel, the privacy of a counselor's office, the safe shelter of a hospital room. We find haven in a support group's acceptance or in the solitude of confiding our thoughts in a personal journal."
— By Evelyn Eaton Whitehead and James D. Whitehead in Shadows of the Heart
Our Standing in the Community of Beings
"So many stand silently with us at every meal, and we are indebted to each and every one as we partake of the gift of nourishment. To feel their presence and be thankful for their many gifts to us is to be more accurately aware of our place in this large and generous community of beings."
— Wayne Muller in How, Then, Shall We Live?
"The greatest challenge of the day is: how to bring about a revolution of the heart, a revolution which has to start with each one of us. When we begin to take the lowest place, to wash the feet of others, to love our brothers and sisters with that burning love, that passion which has led to the cross, then we can truly say, 'Now I have begun.' "
— Dorothy Day in Dorothy Day, You Will Be My Witnesses by John Dear
"You gave me those words in a sermon of Father Huvelin's which are now so indelibly engraved on my soul: 'May you so truly have taken the lowest place that no one will ever be able to take it from you.' "
— Charles de Foucauld in Charles de Foucauld, Writings selected by Robert Ellsberg
"The community I desire is not grudging; it is exuberant, joyful, grounded in affection, pleasure, and mutual aid. Such a community arises not from duty or money but from the free interchange of people who share a place, share work and food, sorrows and hope. Taking part in the common life means dwelling in a web of relationships, the many threads tugging at you while also holding you upright."
— Scott Russell Sanders in Writing from the Center
Paradise
"The only paradise I know is the one lit by our everyday sun, this land of difficult love, shot through with shadow. The place where we learn this love, if we learn it at all, shimmers behind every new place we inhabit."
— Scott Russell Sanders in Writing from the Center
"Everyone has an inner room. Deep inside every human being there is a bridal chamber where only the bridegroom comes. We all have within us a secret place, a locked room, an inner paradise created for love. But most people do not know it is there."
— Ernesto Cardenal in Abide in Love
A Point of Observation
"A park bench is a good place to watch the world go by, to enjoy the variety and spectacle of life around us. ... Behold your family walking by."
— Philip Toshio Sudo in Zen 24/7
A Potential Source of Peace
"There is no need to go to India or anywhere else to find peace. You will find that deep place of silence right in your room, your garden, or even your bathtub."
— Elisabeth Kubler-Ross in Awakening to the Sacred by Lama Surya Das
A Safeguard for Privacy
"One significant function of childhood hiding places is the creation of a place to be private — be it a blanket 'fort' in the playroom, a tree house at the bottom of the garden, or an area of flattened-out grass in the middle of a meadow. If our dwellings in adulthood are those settings where we are most at liberty to be ourselves, where we don't have to put up any facades, then this process clearly begins in childhood. Such strivings for a place to be private become especially urgent in the years just prior to puberty."
— Clare Cooper Marcus in House as a Mirror of Self
The Same to the Motionless Witness "This is why Zen will say, 'A man in New York drinks vodka, a man in Los Angeles gets drunk.' The same Big Mind is timelessly, spacelessly, present in both places. So drinking in New York and getting drunk in L.A. are the same to the motionless, spaceless Witness. This is why Zen will say, 'Without moving, go to New York.' The answer: 'I'm already there.' "
— Ken Wilber in One Taste
Sometimes between Destinations
"Gatha for flying in an airplane: Putting my faith in those who will carry me from one place to another, I look at the road as home. Reaching my destination, I am grateful."
— Barbara Ann Kipfer in 201 Little Buddhist Reminders
Soulful in Cities
"People's attachment to cities, even when they are full of problems, indicates that a city is a soul place and that people relate to it as family."
— Thomas Moore in The Re-enchantment of Everyday Life
"When a street is cordoned off, refreshments provided, music and games offered by the neighbors to each other, and people are given an excuse to mingle for a few hours on a summer evening, then the street takes on new and more hospitable meaning. Do it often enough and that street becomes a place where people pass each other with warm memories and hopeful expectations rather than unawareness and suspicion."
— Parker J. Palmer in Soul Feast by Marjorie J. Thompson
A Source of Yearning
"Like E. T. in the Spielberg film, the acorn seems nostalgic, sad, silent, and filled with yearning for an image of 'home.' Loneliness presents the emotions of exile; the soul has not been able to fully grow down, and is wanting to return. To where? We do not know, for that place the myths and cosmologies say is gone from memory. But the imaginative yearning and the sadness attest to an exile from what the soul cannot express except as loneliness. All it can recall is a nostalgia of feeling and an imagination of yearning. And a condition of want beyond personal needs."
— James Hillman in The Soul's Code
A Summoning of Significance and Power
"Athletes feel the effect of a playing field in their bones. Fenway Park or an Olympic stadium or a famous golf course like St. Andrews can bring a quickening of the spirit, a concentration of energies, a connection with heroes past and future that give performances in these places a heightened quality. And even when there is no stadium or arena involved, sport implicitly creates a sacred time and place. A mountain to be climbed, an ocean to be crossed, or a stretch of countryside to be raced on can summon up significance and power for us simply by being designated the field of adventure."
— Michael Murphy and Rhea White in In the Zone
"But the meaning went deeper: the mountain was a mirror and any itinerary up its paths was a diagram of spiritual progress. Nor was the mountain a single, simple place. It was a center of power whose weathers and textures kept changing, a trope for ongoing transformation."
— Gretel Ehrlich in Questions of Heaven
"We want to learn to become sensitive to what the land wants to express and to assist in this expression. In feng shui the Chinese had a very complex understanding of the harmony of earth and heaven. Other peoples have also had their own understanding of geomancy, and some still do. The Native American traditions recognize and respect as sacred certain places and especially certain mountains."
— Richard D. and Patricia C. Wright in The Divining Heart
A Taproot for Reverence
"What we need, all of us who go on two legs, is to reimagine our place in creation. We need to enlarge our conscience so as to bear, moment by moment, a regard for the integrity and bounty of the earth. There can be no sanctuaries unless we regain a deep sense of the sacred, no refuges unless we feel a reverence for the land, for soil and stone, water and air, and for all that lives."
— Scott Russell Sanders in Writing from the Center
"Most of the time we forget to notice this place where we live . . . but every once and so often maybe we notice and are filled. ... For a little while the scales fall from our eyes and we actually see the beauty and the holiness and mystery of the world around us, and then from deeper down even than our hunger, restoring comes, nourishment comes."
— Frederick Buechner in The Clown in the Belfry
"In the [Ignatian] exercise known as the application of the senses — a method of private prayer that can be used in contemplating any scene from the Bible — we are to see the persons, hear what they are saying, to embrace and kiss the place where the persons stand or are seated, to 'smell the infinite fragrance and taste the infinite sweetness of the divinity.' "
— Nancy M. Malone in Walking a Literary Labyrinth
"I want to trust that with reverence for place and awareness of my foibles, I can grow to be more present and a better steward of my small corner of the earth."
— Gunilla Norris in A Mystic Garden
A Training Ground for Character
"It takes character to stay in one place and be happy there."
— Elizabeth Dunn in Frederic Brussat's Twitter Collection
Varying in Mood
"It is essential to experience all the times and moods of one good place."
— Thomas Merton in Thomas Merton by Esther de Waal
Vital to Soul Nourishment
"Each of us has to find the place of our soul — in our memories, our imagination, or in the material world. For some people, this place of soul nurturance may not be in the home at all; it may require spending time in another place or — over a lifetime — in varying soul-nourishing places, each appropriate to a particular stage of emotional development. When we start to feel not totally at home in our dwelling or, conversely, when we seek a broader home in another place, it is likely that the soul is demanding recognition."
— Clare Cooper Marcus in House as a Mirror of Self
"Just as the heart becomes carefree
in a place of green, growing plants,
goodwill and kindness are born
when our souls enter happiness."
(Mathnawi II, 1095-6)
— Jelaluddin Rumi in Rumi Daylight by Camille and Kabir Helminski, translators
"There should be at least a room or some corner where no one will find you and disturb you or notice you. You should be free to untether yourself from the world and set yourself free, loosing all the fine strings and strands of tension that bind you, by sight, by sound, by thought, to the pressure of other[s]. Once you have found a place, be content with it, and do not be disturbed if a good reason takes you out of it. Love it, and return to it as soon as you can."
— Thomas Merton in The Wonders of Solitude by Dale Salwak, editor
"Just as we fill our houses with desired spirits by the way we arrange the environment, we also try to live in places that correspond to the deep longings within our souls. If we have the freedom to choose, we select countries, regions, cities, neighborhoods, house lots, houses, or apartments that resonate with the aesthetic needs of the soul. It is as though the inner angels long to vibrate with the spirits of a place."
— Shaun McNiff in Earth Angels
Where Everything Comes to You
"I live in the open space where everything comes to me. Reality is a very fine place to be. And guess what? Any time you question your mind, you discover that that's where you are, too."
— Byron Katie in A Thousand Names for Joy
Where the Source of Life Dwells
"You are a dwelling place
for the Source of all life."
— Macrina Wiederkehr in The Cup of Our Life by Joyce Rupp
"An object, a place, a time, a person, is holy because it evokes the presence of God. We cover our heads, remove our shoes, look away in reverence. Unlike some spiritual traditions that see the world divided ontologically and irretrievably into sacred and profane, here we are told that, by our actions, we can realize the holiness in everything."
— Lawrence Kusher in Five Cities of Refuge by Lawrence Kushner and David Mamet
"All of the places of our lives are sanctuaries; some of them just happen to have steeples."
— Robert Benson in Between the Dreaming and the Coming True
"The Holy may speak to you
from its
many hidden places
at any time.
The world
may whisper in your ear.
Or the spark of God in you
may whisper in your heart.
My grandfather showed me how
to listen."
— Rachel Naomi Remen in WomanPrayers by Mary Ford-Grabowsky
"God is to be found in less likely places: around the meal tables in hostels for psychiatric patients; in the shining eyes of an old woman as she allows a memory to touch the surface of her mind; in the quiet and contented babbling of a baby. Those who are blind to divinity will see nothing other than what is obvious, while those who are enlightened will be overwhelmed by mystery and meaning."
— Mike Riddell in Sacred Journey
"Devotees look for sacred space to pray,
but the friends of Unity find sacred space anywhere.
For them the whole world is God's meeting place.
While still veiled, they find the world dark, but
when the veils lift, they can see that
the Beloved lives everywhere."
— Al-Hujwiri in The Sufi Book of Life by Neil Douglas-Klotz
"Wherever you live is your temple if you treat it like one."
— Buddha in Frederic Brussat's Twitter Collection
"Our homes can become sacred places. … We do not need cathedrals to remind ourselves to experience the sacred."
— Gunilla Norris in Inviting Silence
Where We Become Ourselves
"Now I become myself. It's taken
Time, many years and places;
I have been dissolved and shaken,
Worn other people's faces ..."
— May Sarton in The Courage to Teach by Parker J. Palmer
"The more I believe my nature comes from my parents, the less open I am to the ruling influences around me. The less the surrounding world is felt to be intimately important to my story. Yet even biographies begin by locating the subject in a place; the self starts off amid the smells of a geography. The moment the angel enters a life it enters an environment. We are ecological from day one."
— James Hillman in The Soul's Code
