exploring cycles of life, death & renewal
Constance here. Welcome to this sanctuary for the creative, contemplative and curious. Put on your goggles. We’re diving deep into the Mystery.
In ancient times, people would travel hundreds of miles to visit a temple. To reach this remote holy site one had to pass through a buffer zone, such as a wide meadow or sacred grove. This consecrated area was called a fanum.
Mystics and devotees who spent a lot of time in the fanum were called fanatici, from which we get the word fanatic. It used to have a more noble connotation, until a smear campaign painted them as “too much,” extremists and zealots.
Our common word fan is an abbreviation of fanatic. You become a fan of something because it brings your awareness to the holy place. You can reach it from any direction — anything that gives you a whiff of the Divine: exquisite beauty, deep peace, a profound level of mastery, even a garden, or a baby’s innocence.
The modern word profane comes from this: pro meaning before + fane, rooted in fanum. Profane means “everything before the fanum.” It wasn’t that people had to go a great distance to reach the holy place, it’s that they weren’t attuned to the sacred until they came to the fanum.
This site, then, acts as a digital fanum: a place to remind us to connect with and attune to the temple within us.
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