Growing up on three different Indian reservations in Arizona and one in New Mexico, I early on developed a comfort with and an appreciation for the natural world’s wide open spaces, intoxicating aromas, quiet sounds of shifting sands, whispering winds under birds’ outspread wings, crawling creatures, leaves speaking their particular language, and many other subtle songs of the outdoors. I was a nature child, spending long hours every week in solitude in the deserts and forests of my backyards.
My spiritual awakenings began early, and they began in nature as I walked and played among the rocks, plants, and wild creatures of the environment beyond my warm and loving home. Though my parents brought me up in a godly manner, my strongest religious impressions of divinity and sacredness have always been enhanced by my time in nature.
Jesus often removed himself from the busyness of the social world and went into the hills to spend time by himself communing with “his Father,” who happens to also be God, our Universal Father.
Though nature can be quite brutal in its upheavals of earthquakes, tsunamis, hurricanes, tornadoes, droughts, and other extreme weather events, as well as in the animal world when observing predator and prey dynamics, nature is found to be more supportive of our human lives than destructive. That support comes to us on the physical level by providing us with a home to live upon as well as cleansing, healing water, nourishing foods, and medicinal herbs. On a psychospiritual level nature provides us an environment for rest, reflection, and rejuvenation as we contemplate on the grand beauty of many terrains, basking in the quiet of our inner, spiritual selves.
What makes any place sacred and protected from the more confusing and stressful spots that now permeate the planet?
Besides the earthly circuitry and spiritual forces found in the natural world, there are the intentions and actions of personalities—celestial and/or human—that create particle reality and energies for a place, making it horrible or simply disturbing or neutral or actually pleasant or even healing and sacred.
Think of the magnificent cathedrals and other places of worship that utilize architecture to enhance a person’s sense of truth, beauty, and goodness, which people from all of the world’s religions have built. When walking into most of those buildings, one can sense the sacredness there, sacredness due to human intention in the actual design and construction of the edifice and the daily use by people for prayer, meditation, reflection, and worship. All of that creates a place for escape from the baser things in life and protection from our lower selves as we go before divinity in humble and worshipful attitudes.
When celestials and humans purposely and consciously come together in collaboration to create a sacred place, then that spot can become one of the most Deo (godly) powerful spots on the planet. That is what happened 500,000 years ago with the First Epochal Revelation (as revealed in The URANTIA Book), which was comprised of more than one-hundred personalities—superhuman and human—who built the city of Dalamatia (often referred to as Atlantis or Lemuria).
The Garden of Eden, overseen by the Second Epochal Revelation of Adam and Eve around 65,000 years ago, was another sacred and protected area that was built and maintained by both superhuman and human personalities.
Whether humans are consciously aware of being assisted by certain unseen morontia (semi-spirit) and spirit personalities or not, usually certain Celestial Artisans and others are present to assist those humans with motives of goodwill and love. The URANTIA Book introduces us to beings like: divine builders, energy manipulators, harmony workers, designers and embellishers—all Celestial Artisans who assist in creating environments that are within divine pattern and will enhance anyone’s experience of being in the presence of truth, beauty, and goodness.
The spiritual quality of the persons who inhabit, use, and construct upon any place contributes to the level of sacredness of that location. We should all strive to create an environment of purity and goodness within our physical temple (body) so that our mere presence contributes to making a place more sacred and safe.