Welcome to Gaia! ::

1: Do you create sacred space as part of your rituals?

The notion of creating sacred space presupposes that all space is not sacred already, which is not a notion that I adhere to. I do not "create" sacred space. I spend time acknowledging the sacredness intrinsically inherent in a space. Since we can't be aware of everything all the time, I do often spend time acknowledging sacredness before doing anything at the altar.

2: Do you use a specific technique for creating sacred space?

Replacing "creating" with "acknowledging," there are some specific methods I use. The simplest is probably to just turn off the internal commentary, breathe, and exist. Feel the present moment and its intrinsic sacredness, born of the existence and interrelatedness of all things.

3: What are elements one might include in creating of sacred space?

Again replacing "creating" with "acknowledging," any implement that isn't used in "mundane" life can help. This presents something of a dilemma, however. We use these "special" items because we still in our minds hold this erroneous (to me) division between magical and mundane, spiritual and material. We feel we have to somehow get out of the mundane to acknowledge the sacred, but this really shouldn't be the case at all. These items help facilitate awareness of the sacred within all things, but really we should be able to do that for anything and at any time.

I'd like to think that I use them because it's fun, but really, the whole matter-spirit, mundane-magical/sacred split is so pervasive in our culture, it's virtually inescapable. Perhaps after enough years all the implements really will be just for fun, rather than as a method to fight against this division enforced by our cultural paradigm.

4: Is cleansing an area part of creating sacred space? If so what do you use

Even with replacing "creating" with "acknowledging," cleansing to me has always struck me as being the equivalent of assuming everybody you meet immediately needs a shower before you'll interact with them. It's rather rude to the person you're interacting with and it's rude and disrespectful of the inherent sacredness of space as well. It suggests there is something "wrong" with the space as apparently you think it needs to be "fixed" or "purified." More often that not, what I find needs washing isn't the space at all, but all the dirt the Witch is bringing to the space.

This isn't to say some places don't have an unpleasant energy to them. Reflexively purging such an area is also disrespectful to me, though, and quite arrogant of us. Who are we to say how things "should" or "ought" to be something other than what they are? Aren't we forgetting to look at the role these spaces play and the lessons to be learned? Unpleasant as they are to us, they're sacred as well. The world isn't here to serve humanity; we should stop acting as if it is or as if it should.