Spaces
The spaces we inhabit are an important part of how our reality will present itself to us. After the spectacular (and unfruitful) ending of the attempt to reconcile the split between realism and individualism in 20th-century philosophy, we can conclude that our own reality is defined by the various spaces we inhabit and thus are often a subject of many different realities at the same time. This multi-layered reality of inhabiting spaces that correlates with lived experience is a theme that is often found and important to marginalised realities or not reflected in a generalised reality of being where we still seem to be running behind a unified, one-fits-all approach to the notion of reality.
This concept is also at the base of the current idea around ‘filter bubbles’ or resonance chambers, where we ourselves curate the culture, the information, news and other creations we consume and are exposed to. As with anything, this idea, however, has led us to believe that we need to find the highest possible comfort in anything we consume or expose ourselves to and that conflict or difficulty in these contents represents a failure or is a negative thing. The perfect curation of our own space, the training of our algorithms to our own personal needs (vs a feed that shows us a good representation of the world around us) is not new, but pushed to the extreme it has become a weapon that continues to be used by darker forces which eventually have led is into a realm of anti-realism, post-fact theory and a lot of ‘fake news’.
From the need to understand spaces and their importance, the need to curate whatever passes through them, I want to focus on the idea of inner spaces today.
Much as outer spaces that we inhabit in society (home, office, work, leisure clubs, fandoms etc.) that have a deep and important influence on our identit-(ies)-y, our dress, our speech, our expression, our symbols and so on, inner spaces are what we create for ourselves outside of any possible performative function. We inhabit these places for ourselves, sometimes with a specific need, sometimes without, but they will always serve an important need.
A need for space.
What is inner space?
An inner space can be a moment of meditation, it can be a spiritual space, it can be creative when you go off knitting in nature, it can be a moment of reflection where you listen to your own thoughts, or it can be a moment of still listening to the lyrics of your favourite song. There are no limits to what you do or do not do in these moments or spaces. The focus is on the creation of space. It can be as factual as a space in your calendar, or as symbolic as breathing.
When, Jeongkwan Smim published her book about her personal flavour of Korean Temple Cuisine in 2025, she asked a Swiss photographer, Véronique Hoegger, together with Korean Hoo Nam Seelmann to help her and do the project together. She invited both women to visit her on the mountain, in her temple kitchen in 2024.
In the introduction, Seelmann writes about her first ascension onto the mountain space:
“The transition happens almost unnoticeably, just like an inner change happens without notice. Walking like this, I noticed that spirituality needs her own space, to offer the possibility to be present… in order for it to unfold deeply.”
The introduction to this book is well worth reading for anybody interested in any kind of inner work, but this sentence in particular has stayed with me. In it, the writer describes the path that leads her away from Seoul and the high-velocity life into a slower rhythm of approaching a temple mountain over a path that is difficult and demanding to navigate. This description addresses the changes in her outer space and temp. She describes how that reality also offers a change in her inner space. The change is so soft that she almost misses it, so small is the notice.
Why?
While there is always a certain level of satisfaction when things in the outer world and the inner representation line up in this way for me personally, beyond this, I am surprised by the conclusion wrapped up in her words, which in German are almost poetic (“Der Übergang geschieht unmerklich, ähnlich, wie die innere Wandlung vor sich geht. So unterwegs, bemerke ich, dass Spiritualität eigener Räume bedarf, um anwesend zu sein. und sich zu entfalten.”).
But does spirituality really need a place of its own to develop? To unfold its natural way of calming the mind and offering perspective?
The spiritual space
As with many things, this is another way of prolonging the idea that spirituality and the self can be understood separately and thus have to be lived separately. What started out as a better way to look closer at both, understood by many philosophers, theologians and metaphysicists, has been forgotten, and the technique has become a reality. Especially in a world that does not allow for the mixing of said identities or spaces (as mentioned in the beginning). This idea that we can be considered separate from our own experience, that we can live a spirituality that could be separated from ourselves as its subject, or that spirituality needs a dedicated space to be lived (rightly), is deeply rooted in the most important disconnect between us and our environment. In many ways, we can consider that this disconnect is responsible for our issues with climate change, the failure to understand the impact we have on wherever we go, our inability to accept our history as a destructive force or our current issues with the dissolution of reality as a given structure.
In framing the need for a specific space as a spiritual need, the performative nature of any act is maintained, but so is the separation of whatever it is that we are doing when we are not in the dedicated spiritual space. It introduces a two-space (or more) attitude, and so introduces our need for identity.
Who am I in any given space? What code do I have to use here? What do I need to project?
To be completely honest, this is the beginning of an autistic script for social interaction and much less a start of an experience that will be remembered by the individual as a spiritual moment or a mystical experience.
Going back to the idea of a spiritual space and the need for it and the initial idea of nature as a spiritually dedicated space, the immediate question is: what for?
Outer space and Inner space work together
In many ways, we are still all operating under the same reference images and concepts as our ancestors, no matter the time and space we are all in at any given time.
One of these old principles is the ‘as above, so below’. This idea that any higher, larger or wider structure, system or law can be applied to the smaller unit contained within it.
In more explicit terms, it means that the circling of the moon as an influence on the water bodies of the world, such as tides in the ocean, but also on us as bodies containing water. (yes, yes, I know that science will not validate this, but this is not a scientific concept either, but a concept of interplay and interaction between principles, so follow me along, please.)
This principle, found written about in many texts, is a simple one, and it can be used in many modern settings that we are today familiar with, such as states of consciousness, mood states, but also wider ideas about social structure and interdependence, or even psychological ideas around co-dependence.
Bringing it down to a simplified version, then, this concept tells us to look to influence the outside space in order to elicit a change in the inner space.
And in this sense, this idea that spirituality needs a specific space starts to make more sense.
Our world has become so devoid of spiritual dimension, and we ourselves have lost the sensibilities to see this part of reality around us, that creating intentional space, dedicated space becomes a practice in its own right and with its own rules depending on the practitioner’s needs and ideas.
And yet…
We have forgotten ourselves in this process while forgetting that this was just a helpful round about way, we have started to use this as the only way to practice any kind of personal practice, or spirituality. Or why else would we think that the Christian God can only be found in churches (and some US citizens are convinced that there is a Muslim God in the Mosqs today) or that Yoga can only be reasonably practices within the sets of a modern dance studio?
Druidry sees only space, not spaces
In the context of nature spirituality, druidry, or Goddess spirituality, or any variation of an animistic way of life or mindset, the demand for a dedicated space is a curious one. Most ancestral spiritualities, folk practices, or said animistic views would see this as a flawed concept.
See, the request for a special space, let alone a spiritual one, dictating our own personal (or collective) human view onto a space that is already inhabited by spirit (genus loci), various other natured spirits (take the kami from Japanese lore or Shinto animism), the ancestors in the soil and the air, animals, insects and various wildlife etc. etc. is a deeply colonialist attitude.
A rude word, isn’t it? Colonialist. Invasive. Taking over and defining something while at the same time assuming that definition is something purposeful, modern and refined, when in most cases it is limiting and degrading to assume that the world has waited just for us to define whatever lives in it.
With this in mind, going back the initial quote and question: does spirituality need a specific place to become present and unfurl itself?
For me, the question is not complete. There is an important omission there: “… to unfurl itself…” into what? An experience?
When in truth, we need to start to force ourselves to see that a spiritual space is spiritual because it lives in the way it is and is filled with presence that is independent of human consideration. It would still be filled with presence, even if nobody would ever see it or experience it.
And so we come back to our initial quote and request: “…that spirituality needs her own space, to offer the possibility to be present… in order for it to unfold deeply.”
What if here, spirituality is not something outside of us, but rather describes our own need within ourselves to create this space? Not outside of us, but within us, deep, deep down. We create the outer space to feel, to quest and to discover what spirituality can occupy as a space within.
Seen this way, nature becomes not a vessel or a sacred space for our performative lived experience of spirituality, but rather an outside reflection of our inner space. A mirror, a companion and a friend showing us in direct relation that we are already fully what we are meant to be.
Thus, we start to walk with nature together, being reflected and seeing the reflection of ourselves in all that surrounds us.
To me, this is truly the only way to understand why the loss of decoration, the need for whimsicalness and beauty in today’s style, creation and architecture, is at the base of so much difficulty in our everyday lives. As within so with-out.
Where does this leave us?
In a space of curation. Of consciously taking care of our inner world and of our spaces.
All of them.
If you’re new to the Oracle Musings from the Well, welcome! Many blessings on your path today. I am Bettina Yseult, writer & thinker. At the well, I share reflections from a life lived between books, rituals, and the raw terrain of the soul while sitting among the mountain tops of the Alps in Southern Switzerland. These writings are an invitation to pause, breathe, listen for the deeper story and lessons unfolding underneath. Subscribe to support my writing work here, or consider joining my upcoming Patreon ‘The Quiet Grove’ to learn with me to listen deeper.