Sacred Communication/Journey 2022

  Blog Reflection Connecting Landscapes Of The Sacred To Our In-Class Discussions: September 14th, 2022 One of the most fascinating in class discussions we have had was our discussion about Devils Tower. The story of Devils Tower is very unique, sacred, and historic. While reading one of the books for the class, Landscapes Of The Sacred , I found a connection between both the story of Devils tower and a section of the book. First off, Devils Tower is one of the most iconic natural structures in the United States. Located in Northeast Wyoming, It has become a hotspot for both tourists and rock climbers alike. However, there is much more meaningful and historical significance attached to the tower. For centuries, the tower had been used and was known as an extremely sacred place for Native Americans in that region. Thousands of Native Americans would make the sacred Pilgrimage to the tower, and it still happens to be a spot of great significance for Native Americans today. In Landsca...

  Blog Reflection On Research For The Appalachian Trail Essay: September 14th, 2022 Reflecting on what I learned during the process of writing my first essay of my college career, I discovered lots of details about the writing process, using evidence, and making sure the essay flowed and read smoothly. However, one of the most interesting takeaways from the essay was the importance of the research phase. One major lesson I learned from everything was that the research ahead of time was about fifty percent of the essay process. After the research, it dawned on me that writing the actual essay itself was the easy part. As the topic of the essay was Covid-19 on the Appalachian Trail, the research for this led me to a website called Trail Journals. On this website, hikers who were walking the Appalachian Trail at the same time Covid reached the United States wrote about their experiences. Once I found all the information on these hikers on the website, I spent hours researching people ...

  Blog Reflection On The Appalachian Trail During Covid-19 Essay: September 14th, 2022 As this was my first essay of the year, I have to say I was definitely shaking off the cobwebs in my brain when writing it. Like all essays, the one part of this that I found the most difficult was getting it started. Even just finding the perfect opening sentence was tough. Fortunately, after lots of brainstorming and thinking, I was able to find the perfect opener. From there I established the first paragraph, and then I was on a roll. Once the opening paragraph was done, the rest of the essay was actually pretty smooth. My first draft was a little bit longer than three pages as it was double spaced and written in MLA format. Once I had finished my first draft, I took it to Jacob so he could go over it, review it, and let me know what was good and what was needed to improve. Overall, he said the essay was pretty well written, however it needed a few things. First, he wanted me to add more quote...

 I had a difficult time starting my essay due to procrastination and confusion about the whole concept of the essay. I reached out to Dr. Redick during class and he explained it which helped out a lot. As soon as I was ready to start my essay I reached out to our peer mentor who is Jacob. I met with him at Einstein's and he helped me grasp the concept of the whole thing. I then had a much easier time writing and editing the essay due to his help. I finished in about a day and a half and I had an idea. I thought it would be a good idea to consult Jacob again about my essay. I sent it over to him and he had a few ideas of what I could add to make it better. I fixed a few minor things and took Jacob's advice and added the few things that he suggested. I thought I did pretty well with writing it and PERSEVERING through the confusion and frustration that I had experienced. Connecting Landscapes of the Sacred to my time writing the essay was difficult, but I found a common theme betw...

Page 4 Michael Taussig would suggest Juan's understanding of the meaning of a place emerges out of the process of an imitation of all the “differences” that we discern there. We mimic (in language and action) the full range of sounds, movements, and other sensory perceptions that come to us from the more than human world.” It’s hard to put a place that strikes us as sublime into mere words; we can try to describe it as a feeling and try to put language to that feeling, but sometimes the feeling of the beauty of nature or the power of a sacred space is too big to try to translate or make sense of. Would every place and experience be subjective, and would the discourse be the same? Would the mountain top make me feel the same as another? Or does my personal experience with the natural world and divine keep it intimate/ unique, or would my experience be relatable enough? The author uses the messiness, ambiguity, and mystery of people's deeply personal experience of place. I love t...