power of sacred places that same power the sacred beings who
reside there possess. Here we return to those places sanctified by the
transmission of sacred knowledge to participate again in their power. Established at the beginning of time by the presence of deity and perfected men and women who, descending from the limitless expanse that is their original home into the world of men, form a bridge to its unconditioned and eternal power. Sacred geography is as much human as it divine. It is more than physical, social or cultural geography. It is the geography of the land in which we live. It is not just space or places, it is our home. Places locate us. They personalize the landscape, transforming it into a familiar place where we are free of the fear of the unknown. It becomes a place where we belong and which belongs to us, recovered from the anonimous expanse or from those who had been there before us. From as far back as man trod the earth conscious of himself and his surroundings, he needed to know at least in which direction he was travelling. First a nomad, the ancient Indian roamed the face of the earth invoking the deities not of place, but of direction. Wherever he went he would call them to offer them what he could and receive from them sustenance, offspring, vigour, power, and all the good things of the world in which he moved. He called his gods from their distant homes in the sky, the wind, the fire, the waters, in the dawn, in the rivers, in all the limitless and sacred landscape that enveloped him and through which he moved with his kin and comrades. He carried with him the sacred fire with which he cooked his food and that of the gods, the fire which, wherever it was placed, became his home and shelter. In this fire he made his offerings, the same fire with which he cooked his food and was, in his ever changing world, the centre where he found nourishment and life-sustaining warmth. Then, with the passage of time, his life became more sedentary and he delighted in a land in which he lived where the rivers and the clouds where like fat milch cows, flowing with nourishing milk.10 10 I do not wish to enter into the controversy concerning the original home of the so-called Indo-europeans. There can be no doubt that the Vedas