This paper examines two such sites in Perthshire, Scotland. The first is a small town, Killin, that has a centuries old tradition of healing related to the cult of Saint Fillan. The second is a newer, late twentieth century site at the Bield, Blackruthven, developed specifically for retreat, prayer and healing. Both sites are Christian but neither is exclusive to those of the Christian faith. In order to explore the spiritual dimension of these sites, the paper first examines the conceptualisation of spirituality, particularly in relation to healing.
Particular emphasis is placed on the work of Gesler This is the focus of the main section of the paper in which I explore the history of these sites and their significance as sites of healing in a spiritual context. The spiritual dimension of therapeutic sites involves teasing out understandings of spirituality.
Healing In The Landscape Of Prayer
In examining therapeutic landscapes of spiritual significance, this paper defines spirituality as person- and place-centred, a means of interdependence, mutuality and connection. Such imaginations are contingent upon connection. Spiritual experience is not necessarily religious nor is it always faith-based, and what we might call spiritual experiences of place are often perceived as traversing body and land. Spiritual dimensions of human experience range across faith-based systems of belief, ethical and moral beliefs in standards of human behaviour and heightened sense of purpose.
This may also include cultural understandings of what constitutes goodness and strong feelings of compassion and love. Spiritual experience can also include momentary levels of heightened awareness of well-being induced by a variety of physical and non-physical actions, from meditation to evangelical, performative acts of prayer. It is possible for a strongly religious person to have a spiritual experience that does not directly involve any faith-based activity.
Similarly, those with no faith-based practices or beliefs may be moved by participation in religious activity. Tanyi examines understandings of spirituality through a discussion of nursing practice and the spiritual needs of patients. Her conclusions are that spirituality:. It entails connection to self-chosen religious beliefs, values and practices that give meaning to life, thereby inspiring and motivating individuals to achieve their optimal being.
This connection brings faith, hope, peace and empowerment… and the ability to transcend beyond the infirmities of existence. Although the above definition is largely based on religious experience, the concept of spirituality as a personal search for meaning and purpose in life is useful in that it connects with ideas about hope and the value of life beyond mere existence. Those who seek greater meaning in life may look for this by engaging in practices that promote ethical behaviour, compassion-focused volunteering, environmental campaigning and physical labour used to improve the lives of others or the natural environment Muirhead ; Gesler Such activities, beliefs and values encompass a spiritual and spatial dimension, a desire to move beyond the everyday, to live those values in particular ways that may be of benefit to other humans, animals or the environment.
None of these practices may be connected at all with religious beliefs, but they have a spiritual dimension. The environmental volunteers experienced spiritual awareness through their physical labour and emotional engagement with particular sites. The performative nature of pilgrimage and the spiritual practice of seeking a sacred space beyond the everyday Stump , allow for an expression of spiritual practice that gives access to spaces beyond the limits of daily life.
Travel to particular sites in a quest for healing can also involve action as a belief or hope in the value of that site. Motivations and lived experience are expressed in multiple ways from spiritual or medical need to the recreational aspects of the journey Williams Anne de Beaupre in Canada examines the multiple connections and outcomes for pilgrims to the shrine.
Williams identifies the complexity of the material, symbolic and social aspects of the therapeutic experiences of the pilgrims. The landscape itself offers retreat from daily routine in similar ways to the experiences of the environmental volunteers described above. Spiritually significant experiences can occur in a number of ways, then, as identified in the literature and in many different forms and settings.
5 Powerful Prayers for Healing and Strength
Common threads among spiritual experiences are the recognition of some greater meaning or dimension to life, emotional engagement at some deeper level, even if momentary, a sense of purpose and the connection of all of these elements with well-being, whether physical, emotional or both. That such experiences are often connected to place and indeed, particular places, are of interest to a spatially sensitive medical humanities.
That such connection may also be related to an experience of physical or emotional trauma such as illness, bereavement or disruption in some way has led humans to ascribe meaning to particular places for the possibilities they may promise in alleviating these problems: It became a well-established concept for geographers and social science researchers Williams , ; Rose ; Foley In these circumstances, the fictional therapeutic landscapes are a conduit for writers, a quest for healing that is served by developing imagined worlds.
For some writers, their fictional therapeutic landscapes are retreats from emotional and psychological difficulty, and their landscapes, while therapeutic, may also be landscapes of turmoil. They may be imaginary landscapes, but they are no less complicated than actual, physical landscapes Philo The nature of the therapeutic landscapes may vary, but the performative nature of the quest in each case has some similarity. Just as the pilgrim sets out on a journey, reaching particular stages leaving behind, setting out and return writers, too, journey through differing stages, performing different acts.
Writers leave behind and set out as they commence their work, journeying and arriving at their new world, their created place and returning once the work is complete Schmidt There is, then, a range of ways we can understand therapeutic landscapes. It is spirituality, however, that Williams identifies as the most challenging aspect of therapeutic landscapes, owing to the subjective nature of spirituality and the need for critical reflection on it.
As the concept of the therapeutic landscape has extended beyond mainstream health settings such as hospitals so has the concept of what constitutes healing. Those associated with the cult of sainthood offer healing attributed to particular historical figures. Healing can also be sought in alleviation, not only of bodily symptoms but also of grief. Memorials and shrines offer comfort and sites of meaning-making to the bereaved. Miller and Crabtree ; Maddrell All of these examples are ones bound up with spirituality of some form or another.
Sacredness, spirituality, faith, religion and belief are all terms that jostle about in work by geographers. It is hard to separate these out when puzzling through the significance of such concepts in relation to healing and place. Spiritual beliefs need not necessarily have formation under the umbrella of organised religion, but they may do so or may have their derivation from personal experience of faith-based communal worship in a number of ways, from attendance at various communal rituals to a loose, childhood connection with church-going.
It is impossible to separate the strands of individual belief and worship from communal practice and institutionalised ritual. At therapeutic sites of spiritual significance, even for those who have no particular belief or adherence to a faith tradition, they may see spiritual benefit from the site or from the activities enacted there.
Meaning-making and place in the form of religion, particularly organised religion, is another aspect of belief that has led to renewed investigation by geographers. And while the study of religion is not necessarily the study of spirituality or of the sacred or the divine, it is nonetheless an important aspect of geographical enquiry and the same could be said of spirituality. While these concepts belief, spirituality, religion are not interchangeable, they are relational.
For Kong, sacred places are also contested spaces, where it is the making of a particular place into a sacred space that is worth investigation.
Assumptions about spirituality and particular faiths may not stand up to the evidence to be found at particular sites or practices. As Brace, Bailey, and Harvey explain, the taken-for-grantedness about the interplay of power and religion as tools of the state is often in evidence without deeper exploration of the complexities of individual and collective spirituality and ideas about sacred space.
It is the locational and relational interplay of such meanings that contribute to the significance of a site. Such webs of meaning allow for complex and nuanced responses to the landscapes. Spiritual landscapes, as Dewsbury and Cloke identify them, are slightly different from sacred spaces. For the authors, spiritual landscapes have the capacity to develop a sense of community while not necessarily being sites regarded as sacred.
The use of a term such as spiritual landscapes in this paper is envisaged as a broad vista in which unbelief and perplexity share space with past and present practices, with wider manifestations of what it means to experience spirituality. Sacred spaces are part of the spiritual landscape. The spiritual landscape of a monastery, for example, or a place of retreat, such as the Bield, introduced below, may be religious in derivation and even sacred but the response of visitors may vary.
While they might relish the stillness and peace, visitors may not be particularly touched by the sacred in these settings. What follows is an attempt to provide a framework for perspectives on therapeutic landscapes of spiritual significance. Using participant observation over two to three days in summer , two sites in Perthshire were visited.
The two sites are introduced and described with the subsequent section a summary discussion of key emergent themes from both. The sites explored for this paper are both in Perthshire. The first site, Killin, has a long history of healing associated with Saint Fillan and the second site, the Bield, is a contemporary venue, an older house and environs recently developed as a site of retreat. Both sites attract visitors and guests and both are associated with both spirituality and with healing.
Saint Fillan is said to be the son of Saint Kentigerna and is often credited with bringing the two ethnic groups of the Picts and the Scots together through religious conversion. Perthshire abounds with places associated with Fillan Taylor who is thought to have founded a monastery in Strathfillan close to Kirkton Farm near the falls of Glen Dochart. The site at Killin that is of particular focus in this research is the village of Killin.
In Killin there is an ancient mill that houses the healing stones of Saint Fillan [see Fig. The mill is now the Breadalbane folklore centre, housing a display upstairs devoted to Saint Fillan and his life. The healing stones, located on the ground floor, are available for use upon request and comprise eight, river washed stones laid on a bed of river wrack and straw. Traditionally the stones were selected by those seeking healing to match the particular part of the body that was ailing. Although use varies, staff at the centre have indicated that the stones are usually passed three times one way around the affected area and three times the other way.
People continue to visit the centre to use the stones and come from abroad as well as from the village itself. One of the features of healing associated with Saint Fillan is the distinctiveness of its location. The site of Killin is for bodily ailments, and the Holy Pool near Glen Dochart is associated with illnesses that are psychological in nature. Although both places form part of the cult of Saint Fillan in the area, their therapeutic value remains distinctive. Those who seek healing at either place need not necessarily profess Christian faith. The components of health performance are shaped here, as Foley has asserted in his work: While the site is small and the folklore centre struggles to stay open each year, the economics of Killin are intertwined with the mill and the presence of the healing stones.
Additionally, there is renewal enacted through repeated visits and a continuity of practice that is played out in the ritual use of the stones and in the particular rituals in place for caring for the stones. There is also the public element of healing as enacted in these spaces devoted to Saint Fillan for each location is open to the public. The mill site is embedded in the everyday. Staff routinely use the stones, as do local residents.
The geography of the area has played an important role in the continuity of the cult of Saint Fillan and the healing associated with his presence in the area. As Taylor points out, the medieval parish of Killin was on the main thoroughfare between the Western Highlands and the central belt. Travel through the area and endorsement from King Robert I ensured the continuation in seeking healing from the healing stones of Saint Fillan and the holy pool, as well as diffusing information about their presence in the area.
As a therapeutic landscape of spiritual significance, Killin demonstrates continuity of practice. The association with Saint Fillan and his ability as a healer as well as the cult of Saint Fillan in the wider area of Perthshire is embedded not only in the form of the healing stones and the cultural display at Breadalbane mill but also in the bodies of those who use the stones and those who visit the site.
The openness with which the healing stones are displayed and allowed for use by visitors and local inhabitants is important to the experiences of healing at the mill. As the tourist literature at the Mill suggests, people have been visiting the site for centuries in order to use the stones. Staff at the centre claim that they themselves use the stones regularly with frequent success, while they also recorded regular local visitors calling in to use the stones and reporting back a therapeutic outcome.
The Bield at Blackruthven is a much more modern site, having been open as a place of retreat and healing for little more than ten years. Although Christian in its ethos and practice, the Bield is open to all visitors. Bield is a Scots word meaning shelter, refuge or place of protection.
It also values nurturing of both soul and body, encouraging learning and reflection. There is a range of options for guests who may visit for a day or for longer periods. There is no expectation that all visitors participate in Christian worship on the site, but it is open to all with two prayer services each morning and evening.
Healing In The Landscape Of Prayer
There are also courses that run on a regular basis on many aspects of spirituality, healing and personal development. There are resources such as prayer rooms and books are on offer at the site, as well as specific and individual spiritual direction. For healing there is art therapy organised by a qualified art therapist, prayer, counselling and psychotherapy of various types, gardening, massage and aromatherapy.
The community includes people with learning disabilities, mental health problems and social difficulties.
Sacred Spaces, Healing Places: Therapeutic Landscapes of Spiritual Significance
The smallholding runs an organic box scheme to the local community. The Bield also has its own organic garden and sustainable energy supply.
- 5 Powerful Prayers for Healing and Strength?
- Sweetly Broken (The Sweet Life Book 2)!
- Remembering Survival: Inside a Nazi Slave-Labor Camp.
- See a Problem?.
It endorses a simple, community approach to living together, similar to that practised by the Iona Community. Residents make and change their own beds and clean up after meals which are simple and nutritious in the Iona tradition. This is not a luxury retreat, nor is it ascetic.
The aim is to balance the needs of the individual with those of the community and its focus on spirituality and healing. The bedrooms for guests are simple as are the eating, recreational and spiritual areas. This place is neither remote nor in the heart of a village. Those coming to the Bield may seek stillness Conradson , retreat from daily existence, spiritual direction and enlightenment. This is a site of renewal, a place where people can come for restoration or repair through attendance at a course, through prayer, silent contemplation or by undertaking spiritual retreat exercises.
The site offers a continuity of Christian worship and prayer. It is a new site, developed to fulfil a spiritual purpose and the holistic aims of the community in providing healing experiences on many levels, an engagement with sustainable practice in conjunction with healing, and Christian worship. There is no border where healing is enacted outwith the spiritual ethos of the site, nor one where spirituality is seen as a separate entity.
As a therapeutic landscape of spiritual significance, the Bield is a site where individuals and groups as well as the more permanently based community are invited to enact and embody spiritually significant therapeutic practice.
Living the Good News
Various practices are enacted daily such as common worship, art therapy, counselling, private prayer and meditation, as well as voluntary work in the garden and grounds. Through work, worship and contemplation, visitors and staff perform acts of spirituality and healing through the course of each day. Having introduced the sites and identified key thematic perspectives within the literature review, I expand here on their significance both as locational and relational perspectives and develop an analytical framework with which critically to understand the two sites under scrutiny.
In essence, four broad themes emerge from the sites and these are listed in turn below. Individuals and groups experience connection with a place of healing or with others whose presence has similar meaning. The process of connection is complex, involving social, emotional and spiritual engagement with others. Culturally specific beliefs, personal, emotional needs and desires may foster connection that is place-based or expressed as a spatial, even recreational connection Williams Pilgrims may experience such connection from a joint motivation or experience of pilgrimage to a site of healing.
Communal worship both on the journey and at the site, prayer, sharing of meals and other activity may engender a sense of shared, spiritual purpose. That shared purpose may be centred on the site itself due to the cult of the space or its dedication. In Scotland, the saints Brigid, Columba, Cuthbert, Ninian and Fillan have particular meaning, and certain sites associated with the life and work of the saints will have significance for those who find spiritual connection with them and with other visitors who share their beliefs or experiences.
Shared experiences of illness may engender connection with others and with particular sites. That connection may come in the form of the particular healing associated with the site. Specific holy wells and pools have significance for certain disorders such as skin conditions or mental health problems where healing has been historically recorded and observed. Want to Read saving…. Want to Read Currently Reading Read. Refresh and try again. Open Preview See a Problem?
Thanks for telling us about the problem. Return to Book Page. An introduction to healing prayer for mainline congregations. Brooke outlines steps for designing a healing service in the context of the parish eucharist and provides prayers, litanies, and suggestions for further readings. Paperback , pages. Published by Cowley Publications first published August 1st To see what your friends thought of this book, please sign up.
Lists with This Book. This book is not yet featured on Listopia. Kari Meyer rated it really liked it May 12, Ptaylor rated it liked it Sep 06, Jennifer rated it liked it Mar 27, Wanda Cuniff rated it it was amazing May 30, Edgar rated it liked it Nov 10, Patti Wilson rated it liked it Jul 05, Jack Mitchell rated it really liked it Apr 18, Seth rated it liked it Feb 07, Mary rated it really liked it Jul 18, John Forman rated it liked it Jul 02,