Sacred Sites of evolution are places that are locally, regionally, nationally, or globally significant for commemorating an event in the Great Story of cosmic, geological, biological, or cultural evolution.

    

1. Invite children/youth to explore this page.
2. Have them research where to find a local site.
3. Make a field trip to the site with cameras/videos.
4. Create a photo-essay or post video on YouTube.
5. Submit it to the webmaster and see it posted here!

   

How are Epic of Evolution sacred sites different from religious sites?

Because the Epic of Evolution embraces all human stories, including all religious and sacred stories, sites that are traditionally held sacred by a particular people or faith are automatically sacred sites of the Epic of Evolution too. This long-term Sacred Site project is intended, rather, to expand our sense (into the biological, geological, and cosmological) of what constitutes a sacred site.

PHOTO-ESSAYS OF ACTUAL PILGRIMAGES to Sacred Sites of the Epic of Evolution

  • Great Unconformity of the Grand Canyon

  • Arkansas River Pleistocene Dreamtime

  • Spotted Salamander Pond: Gaian Symbiosis in Miniature

  • Back to the Ediacaran in a Pool of Ophyridium Blobs

  • A Mammoth Memorial Service (South Dakota)

  • Lake Missoula / Scablands / Columbia Flood Basalt

  • Cretaceous Interior Seaway, KS

  • America's First Dinosaur Discovery (Haddonfield, NJ)

  • Dinosaur Ridge, CO

  • "Wall of Diversity", American Museum of Natural History, NYC

  • Little Colorado River, AZ

  • Passenger Pigeon Monument, Wayalusing State Park, WI

  • Sand Path at Down House, Darwin's Home in England

  • Ice Age Refuge: Apalachicola State Park, northern Florida

  • Archaean Encounter at Yellowstone

  • NASA's Apollo Flight Center, Houston TX

  • Type Specimen of an Ancestral Whale

    • GREAT UNCONFORMITY
    Grand Canyon
    Arizona

    		   

    ARKANSAS RIVER
    Pleistocene
    Dreamtime

    		   

    LAKE MISSOULA,
    SCABLANDS,
    COLUMBIA BASALT

    		   

    CRETACEOUS
    INTERIOR
    SEAWAY

    		   

    SYMBIOSIS
    in a
    SALAMANDER POND

    		   

    FIRST
    DINOSAUR
    DISCOVERY (NJ)

    		   

    WALL OF DIVERSITY
    Museum Nat Hist.
    New York City

    		   

    ARCHAEAN
    ENCOUNTER
    at YELLOWSTONE

    		   

    BACK TO THE
    EDIACARAN
    with OPHRYDIUM

    APOLLO
    FLIGHT
    CENTER

    Other Examples of Sacred Sites not yet written about

  • The Mammoth Site, Hot Springs SD
  • La Brea Tar Pits, Los Angeles CA
  • Coelacanth, Museum of Comparative Zoology, Harvard, Cambridge MA
  • Meteor Crater, Winslow AZ
  • K/T Boundary exposures (various places)
  • Galapagos Islands
  • Rhynie Chert, Scotland
  • Big Bone Lick, KY
  • Sue (T. rex), Chicago Field Museum
  • Waingara Fossils, Australia
  • Living Stromatolites, Shark Bay Australia, Gulf of California
  • Ginkgo trees (wherever planted)
  • Metasequoia trees (wherever planted)

    • Pilgrimage, Not Tourism

    In addition to identifying sites, we are looking for the creative assistance of those who know and love a site to introduce us to it during our travels. A visit to a sacred site of any kind is not intended as tourism but pilgrimage. How does one prepare to make such a pilgrimage? What does one read or meditate on in advance? And, when there, what ways of being are appropriate? Rituals? Chants? Reverent play?

    For example, Connie felt called, while visiting the preserved Coelacanth fish at Harvard's museum, to "circumambulate" it, as it stands in a glass container in the center of a room. Circumambulation, walking, commemorates this ancestor of the first vertebrates that came out of the sea onto land and invented vertebrate walking.

    At Down House in England, Connie walked meditatively the same Sand Path that Darwin would walk to ruminate on ideas while working on his On the Origin of Species. She first thought of a natural history question she wished insight into, then walked the path reflecting on the question.

    PLEASE HELP US EXPAND THIS WEBPAGE BY SUBMITTING A PHOTO-ESSAY OR YOU-TUBE VIDEO
    OF YOUR OWN FAVORITE SACRED SITES OF THE EPIC OF EVOLUTION.

    Photos (JPEG format) are very important, as is attention to how to make a visit a pilgrimage: a way to deepen one's relationship with Earth, Life, and Cosmic evolution. Contact Connie Barlow and title your email "Sacred Sites."

    Please feel free to download, print, and use any and all of these resources, without seeking permission, for all purposes other than publication. (Contact us if you wish to include them in a book or magazine.) And please hotlink our site to yours.

    Contact:

    		  

  • For a terrific and image-rich website of traditional (religious) sacred sites, visit http://www.sacredsites.com.

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