A sacred space in Place Flagey

A gigantic square with no center. A peripheral point in the midst of pure periphery.  A tram station where people only stop to wait so that they can keep moving. A crossroads. A group of self-declared atheists were asked to contemplate in silence an improvised shrine and relate to it as a sacred space. Give it a religious meaning (what is religion anyways?) and project onto it their sorrow, their sense of loss, their mourning if any. Could we relate to each other and the shrine through simple existential aspects such as sorrow, loss and mourning? Would we be able to focus all of our energy into making a wish? Guarded from the rain, the shrine consisted of a lamp with some candles and a mirror instead of an image. Yet another invitation to project on it whatever meaning could help each one connect with it. Around it, a few pieces of wood, some more candles, and a flower.

As soon as we began to set up the shrine and light the candles, we created a point of focus in an otherwise unremarkable place. Looks of curiosity, anxiety and skepticism (especially from our group) all gathered around the little space and the activities we were performing around it. People who walked by it seemed to slow down and keep quiet. Some approached us and asked questions: what is this? Who died? A shrine originally meant to be for something like “our lady of sorrow” did, in fact, convey an idea of mourning. Those who had experiences to compare it to saw it as a memorial for a dead loved one. A black man stood in front of it for some time and did the cross sign. Offerings were made and the pigeons were the first to take advantage of them. All the pigeons in the square. Our little corner had become a center, a place of gathering, if only for the pigeons. The birds and the weather made it hard to keep the shrine in shape, so the task was to care for it, re-light every candle, re-place every object. All of a sudden we were all involved in an act of care.

We stood there for half an hour. Some of us looked restless, not knowing what to do or how to relate to this little sacred space in the middle of no-one’s land. As the time to leave came, Claudia suggested we left the shrine there to see what would happen. Stef generously agreed to leave his lamp and mirror there, acknowledging the different risks of damage, stealing, disposal…

Close to midnight, on my way back home, I stopped at Place Flagey again to see if I could recover some of what we had left, especially Stef’s mirror, which means so much to him. As I walked down Chausée d’Ixelles, I could see some lights on the floor of the tram station. As I approached it, I found out that not only the shrine was still there, but it had been kept by other hands. Stranger hands had come, repositioned the flower, and kept the candles lit. Someone else had been taking care of it and as the passersby diminished in quantity, the few that were left were still contemplating it. I leaned down to pick it up, so that I could return it to its home, and as I was rearranging everything a young black man approached me to ask me who had died there. In my rudimentary French, I replied that nobody that I knew, but that I had wanted to create a sacred space right there, with the aid of a shrine, and leave it so that each person could relate to it in their own personal way and give it a new meaning. He said he liked it very much, and that he liked the “ritual” aspect of it. He was upset that I was taking it away. We chatted for a few more minutes until his tram came. Then he turned to me, took my hand, looked into my eyes, wished me “bon courage” and left.

As I walked home, shrine in hand, I kept thinking about the anonymous hands who had kept the shrine in place over the day. I kept thinking about their individual thoughts, their individual prayers, their individual mourning. Robin had assured me it would still be there at night. Robin, the believer. She was right. Our collective effort had effectively inscribed a sacred space, a little center within so much periphery.  We had re-created a space with a purpose, constructed a scenography that ended up overpowering us and stopped depending on our presence, our thoughts and actions. It wasn’t ours anymore, it belonged there.

The shrine at midnight