Peaceful places, sacred spaces

Not that I'm exactly sure what "sacred" means, for people who don't share in full the belief system that resulted in the building concerned.

Some meditators generally try to create a quiet, calm space in which to meditate. That could be the basic requirement, beyond which you don't need to go. Others might want more sense of a spiritual apartness from the daily round, which is why I went to Swarthmoor last November, despite not being a Quaker myself.

Meditators who are Buddhists or have been influenced by Buddhism might want some things associated with the Buddha to help create - what? An atmosphere? Maybe a little statue, or a poster, some Nepali fabrics, etc. If you venerate someone's memory but don't turn that into a religious faith, are you still creating a sacred space, with your statues and incense?

I surprised myself by being able to do a sort of meditation on a train - provided there weren't too many intrusive or sudden sounds. Yet I too respond strongly to certain spaces which believers in a faith system would call sacred.

This is a (feeble, sorry!) photo of a very old Romanesque church in the Tuscan countryside. Despite tourists and someone with a Hoover from time to time, I felt at once calmed by it. It felt a very resonant space.

Maybe it's the architecture, maybe (spooky alert) it's centuries of prayer and silence that are replayed at my senses from the walls themselves! Maybe it's just my knowledge, + imagination, of human intent and practice down the ages, in which case it's me, not it, who is doing the response.

 In such a place, (even in our nearest cathedral, not the most splendid of such structures, though very old; even in that gaudy Buddhist temple near Ulverstone) I can feel part of something much wider and more profound than the usual chatter of my thoughts. I hope such spaces don't mind my using them as meditation/contemplation sites even though I'm not one of their full-on believers. 

I'm not sure, rationally, what "sacred" means, but I know it when I feel it. It can, of course, be found in the natural world around us, in if we're in the right frame of mind.