Indo-European pagan rituals and worship take place within sacred space. Groves, temples, frithyards, wells, stafgardr, vé, temenos. They have many names. But what do they really mean? Why are they used? And do they have to be these magnificent, pompous halls and walls? Learn more about pagan sacred space in this episode of the Hamingja Podcast.

Indo-European pagan rituals and prayer take place within sacred space. You’ve seen the Greek, Roman and Hindu temples, you’ve heard about the sacred groves of the Norse and Anglo-Saxons, and I’m sure many of you have heard Adam of Bremen’s description of the pagan temple in Uppsala, encircled with a golden chain.
But what really is sacred space, do they have to be these magnificent, pompous halls and walls, and why are they used?

As always, the best thing to do to understand native IE spirituality is to actually learn about its cosmology. If we know what’s going on at the beginning, we can also understand the spiritual practice of our ancestors and its symbolism.

After the primordial void, and after the Striker has slain the Serpent and let the waters, that the serpent was keeping locked up in his deep-set lair, flow back out again – there sure is fertility, but there is also still chaos and volatility.
Now the first man Manu & his twin Yemo are crossing the cosmos, accompanied by the primordial cow. To create an ordered cosmos, and to create the manifest world Manu speaks the words of sacrifice and sacrifices his brother. With the help of heavenly deities he forges both the natural elements and human beings from Yemo’s remains. By creating a limited, finite and measurable space he’s made the world ordered. By creating space he’s initiated sacrifice as the primordial condition for the world order.
There’s now a distinction between what’s within and what’s without, where we belong and where we don’t, between what’s known and unknown. In the immeasurable and limitless something tangible and comprehensible has come to be. This marking out is to create something graspable in the All. Borders and boundaries between what’s sacred and what is not. Order has been created.

In the founding of Rome – which basically simultaneously is the Roman creation myth, since Rome’s creation is identified with the creation of the world – Romulus marks out the borders of Rome by plowing around them. When he comes to where the city gates are meant to be he lifts the plow so people can enter and leave the city without crossing sacred ground. His brother Remus tries to jump over the furrow, and Romulus strikes him dead. Remus is of course to be compared to the sacrificed Yemo. His death is the sacrifice that will allow the creation of the world of Rome.

When Hercules is to bring back the apples from the Hesperides – their names of course meaning beings of the dying light – the world tree is surrounded by a wall, an enclosed space, just like the cosmos, and protected by a serpent. Hercules kills the serpent with a club, sword and arrow.

In Norse mythology the monstrous Jörmungandr encircles the realm of Midgård. Thor kills him with his hammer. Both Midgård and Asgård are limited space, creating a barrier towards chaos. Separating the known from the unknown.
Both Hercules and Thor stem from the PIE god Máworts (later called Mars), and one of his aspects Perkwunos – the striker. Another of Máworts’ aspects – Nér, which means hero, compare it to the emperor Nero – is present at PIE ritual, then as the guardian of the gates.

Remember how Gefjon plows out Zeeland, establishing a dynasty. And also that goddess Gerd is associated with the earth – the tangible, that is – and that her name literally means fenced-in. This enclosure too establishes a dynasty.

So to mark out sacred space is to create the known, something graspable and understandable in the immeasurable All. It is to cut something off from normal space.
Just like when you pass the torii gates of a Shinto jinja temple, you enter a world within the world. You enter the divine/spiritual realm, manifest in the physical world.
It is the center at which the divine power enters the universe. It is where the gods can be approached. By locating yourself there, you increase your chances of being able to commune with them.

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