We are separated from the ineffable by the thinnest of membranes. Several times I've stood and seen its shimmering surface moving as if in a silent wind. Though often seen as the passage to sacred experiences, this liminal surface itself is a hierophany. This, I think, is often overlooked in descriptions of religious experience, especially in the west, though here the Catholic and Orthodox Christian churches have already produced some important thinkers dealing with the metaphysical status of things like icons.
The trouble with these approaches is that they're often too narrow in scope, theologically limiting their understanding of the holy/sacred to a particular tradition. The actual experience is more universal in nature. It allows for interpretation from multiple viewpoints, none of which ultimately represent the meaning of the experience. It is a very human tendency to claim that my particular experience must be the only correct one and all the others are merely derivative or false. This kind of claim has a very old and illustrious history in the Church, where the Fathers once claimed the worship, miracles, and signs of others were in fact demons at work.
We, the seekers and lovers of the earth, have no need to take this approach. We recognize our experience of the ineffable in those liminal spaces is open to interpretation and that universality is one of its marks. Arrogance, self-assured aloofness or elitism, should not be its outcome.
