What is your sacred space?

"You must have a room, or a certain hour or so a day."

“You must have a room, or a certain hour or so a day, where you don’t know what was in the newspapers that morning, you don’t know who your friends are, you don’t know what you owe anybody, you don’t know what anybody owes to you. 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 may find that nothing happens there. But if you have a sacred place and use it, something eventually will happen.”

―Joseph Campbell, The Power of Myth

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Quiet Life friend and luminary

Scott Barry Kaufman

sent this video to me yesterday, and I knew I had to share it with you.

For me, the various cafes from which I write to you are my daily sacred space.

This is why I find them, and write to you from them, even on vacation.

I’ve been doing this almost daily, since I left my law firm job in 2001. I used to try giving up my cafe hours on vacation, because I labelled them as “work” rather than as “sacred.” And I knew that on vacations, you were supposed to “totally disconnect”.

But then I realized what my cafe hours really meant.

Researching QUIET at Doma cafe, in Greenwich Village, NYC. This photo was taken around 2005, by the photographer Lee Bob Black, for whom Doma was also a sacred space.

How about you?

Do you have a daily sacred place or hour?

If not, would you like to create one? (It doesn’t have to be a full “hour,” if you’re in an especially busy season of life. Try fifteen, ten, five minutes, if that’s what you have.)

What does it look like, what WOULD it look like?

P.S. Along these lines, you might also enjoy my Bittersweet: Practices & Reflections course (if you haven’t taken it yet). It’s a 30-day class that you take via your phone; every day, I send you audio teachings and meditations, reflections on art and music, and other exercises.

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