Quotations About Place that Inspire Us

photo by Amy Lenzo

"There is a language beyond human language, an elemental language, one that arises from the land itself."
~ Linda Hogan, Chickasaw Writer

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“Every place is given its character by certain patterns of events that keep on happening there…The more living patterns there are in a place—a room, a building or a town—the more it comes to life as an entirety, the more it glows, the more it has that self-maintaining fire which is the quality without a name.”
~ Christopher Alexander, The Timeless Way of Building

“Each of us has an eternal self—a best self—an “I” that goes beyond what we normally see. This is what allows us to contact the “living centers” in ourselves, in others, and in spaces that come alive for us. This field of centers, that appears in things, people, events, places shows us our interconnectedness…and can be called God or Spirit manifest. Everything we do and make, then, is a gift to IT. Good things grow and unfold out of our understood wholeness. ”
~ Christopher Alexander, Luminous Ground

“A landscape is a series of named locales, a set of relational places linked by paths, movements, and narratives. It is a cultural code for living… ”
~ Christopher Tillev, A Phenomenology of Landscape

“Sacred places are open spaces to which we interact with the Other. From an ecospiritual standpoint, the Other has something to teach us and with humility this openness can be kept in play, yet over time may lead to traditions about the place. Access points such as mountains and high places facilitate the generation of insights via visions and unusual encounters; sacred wells, caves, river canyons may produce a more “depth-directed” inward encounter which has more to do with the rootedness of self and one’s society.”
~ Adrian J. Ivakjhiv, Claiming Sacred Ground

“How can we ever know the difference we make to the soul of the earth? Where the infinite stillness of the earth meets the passion of the human eye, invisible depths strain towards the mirror of the name.

In the word, the earth breaks silence. It has waited a long time for the word. Concealed beneath familiarity and silence, the earth holds back and it never occurs to us to wonder how the earth sees us. Is it not possible that a place could have huge affection for those who dwell there?

Perhaps your place loves having you there. It misses you when you are away and in its secret way rejoices when you return. Could it be possible that a landscape might have a deep friendship with you? That it could sense your presence and feel the care you extend towards it? Perhaps your favorite place feels proud of you.”
~ John O'Donahue, Beauty: Rediscovering the True Source of Compassion, Serenity and Hope.

“Sacred places are not empty vessels and people coming to them continue to build on what’s already present and layered in the landscape, culture or activities of the place.”
~Adrian J. Ivakhiv, Claiming Sacred Ground

“God Himself is called Place, for He encompasses all things, but is not encompassed by anything.
~Philo of Alexandria

“There are…places where one breathes in spirit, places where a man can steep himself in it, or if you prefer, where he quickens the sense of the divine in himself. This is the greatest gift of Earth and Heaven to man.”
~Louis Charpentier, The Mysteries of Chartres Cathedral

“Place is something the soul makes for storing images.”
~Albert Magnus

“It’s not down on any map; true places never are.”
~Herman Melville

“There’s something about the desert. It’s very hard to stay on the road. You keep wanting to drive off into the mystery. What you want or what you need is off the road, in the desert itself. That’s where all the life is, in the desert, not in the road.”
~Clarissa Pinkola Estés, Bloomsbury Review

“Each blade of grass has its spot on earth whence it draws its life, its strength and so is man rooted to the land from which he draws his faith together with his life.”
~Joseph Conrad

“When a man leaves home, he leaves behind some scrap of his heart…it’s the same with a place a man is going to. Only then he sends a scrap of his heart ahead.”
~Frederick Beuchner, Godric

“The soul of a landscape, the spirits of the elements, the genius of every place will be revealed to a loving view of nature.”
~Karl Jaspers, Philosophy

“Wisdom sits in places.”
~Apache proverb

“Mount Horeb, where Moses saw the burning bush, was declared to be a sacred place by the voice of Yahweh which said, “Take your shoes off your feet, for the place on which you are standing is holy ground.” (Exodus 2:5)”
~J. Donald Hughes

“Go where thou canst find happiness, Where’er the place may be; Forest or village, there the wise both Home and birthplace see; Go where there’s life…”
~From Stories of the Buddha’s Former Births

“Earth’s crammed with heaven/ And every common bush afire with God: but only he who sees takes off his shoes.”
~Elizabeth Barrett Browning

“If my soul could get away from this so-called prison…I should hover about the beauty of our own good star. And I should go to the very center of our globe and read the whole splendid page from the beginning.”
~John Muir

“Spirit of place! It is for this we travel, to surprise its subtlety; and where it is a strong and dominant angel, that place, seen once, abides entire in the memory with all its own accidents, its habits, its breath, its name.”
~Alice Meynell, “The Spirit of Place”

“As soon as a man stopped wandering and stood still and looked around him, he found a god in that place.”
~Eudora Welty