Max Cornett- Landscape of the Sacred and Places of Permanence

    I grew up as a competitive dancer. I spent anywhere between 15 and 25 hours in a studio at any given week from the 8th grade to my senior year of highschool. My life was made up of a series of combinations, choreographed moves, expectations, pressures, that became so chaotically comforting. The walls of that studio, the smell of fresh wooden floors mixing with Clorox and sweat gave me a sense of comfort, belonging, understanding. In the walls of the studio I was seen. I grounded my entire reality in those walls, marked my belonging in the floorboards and carved my soul in the mirrors. I worshiped those around me and learned more about what it meant to be myself and what it meant to exist in the world than any other place has ever taught me. My last night in the studio, I was 18. Looking behind me, I could see the reflection of my childhood and young adult years staring back at me. I could see the tears, the laughs, the aching, the sacrifices, the pain, the growth. I could see me. A piece of me will always live inside those four walls. 

     “Human beings are invariably driven to ground their religious experience in the palpable reality of space (pg.7).” Being a dancer in that studio was a religious experience for me. I had many raptures in my time there, elevated experiences that pulled me out of darkness and placed me in light. I grounded myself in that place, much like a church or a Holy Land. The sacred nature of pushing my body to the limit in an effort to better my understanding of it, the holiness of stripping away every piece of me and giving it to music, flowing and carrying me. I ache to go back there just one more time, I ache to have that feeling of intense comfort wrap around my soul and ease my tension once again. But it is impossible to go backwards. Humans tend to ground their belonging in a place, their whole soul in the walls of a building. A childhood home, a place of worship, a loved one’s apartment becomes a piece of us. That studio will always have a piece of me, a piece of my soul living in between the walls. But what I am starting to come to realize is that, while I have grounded my religious experience in that place, I have carried and will always carry that place with me no matter where I go or how far away I am from the studio.

    I carry with me a sense of comfort knowing I was so safe for so long, I carry with me a confidence that I gained from learning how to trust myself and those around me. I carry with me a passion for expression and individuality that I gained from being part of a homogeneous group. I carry it with me, even if it’s grounded in a place of worship. It stays. It will always stay.