A sacred place is a site that has a spiritual significance for a nation, a people, a community, or even an individual. Sacred places often inspire awe, mystery, and a reverential connection with a charismatic figure or with a key moment of history. Some sacred places are well known in major religions, such as the holy cities Mecca to Muslims, and Bethlehem to Christians. Some public sites become sacred to a community because they were the scene of an enormous catastrophe, such as the site of the destroyed World Trade Center or the battlefield at Gettysburg that Lincoln regarded as hollowed ground; or the scene of a great moral achievement, such as the site of Martin Luther King’s 1965 civil rights demonstration in Selma, Alabama.

One person’s sacred space may be far different from another’s–for example, one person may feel a sense of awe in visiting Elvis Presley’s Graceland mansion in Memphis, Tennessee, while another may experience a similar emotion in visiting Emily Dickinson’s house in Amherst, Massachusetts. But sacred places need not be public sites. They can be places we privately consider sacred–where we go for solace, serenity, transcendence, or perhaps sheer isolation from the world.

Read Stephen Dunn’s “The Sacred.” And then think of your own sacred space, a place that has the beauty, and mystery of a poem. Perhaps it is a place where you achieved an epiphany. Describe your own sacred space(s). Why is this your sacred place? Have you ever photographed this place? What part of the sacred space would you photograph if you had to choose?