TERRESTRIAL SPACES AND CELESTIAL SYMBOLISM IN CEMETERIES: AN EMPIRICAL EXAMINATION OF SPACES OF THE DECEASED

Abstract

The open terrestrial swathes are by far the most collaborative of spaces shared by human beings as they partake of the spatial and temporal experience. Their experiential reality is shaped by the sensory experience rooted in the physical plane of existence, palpably elusive of the metaphysical. Cemeteries however hold a unique terrestrial position as not simply seeking out open spaces on earth, but also symbolize the metaphysical experience; transcending the earthly in death. This unique ambivalence of the earthly and the celestial entrenched in the cemeteries is going to be a major concern of this research article. The article seeks to deconstruct how cemeteries which command sanctity can be powerful celestial signs in contradiction to ordinary cemeteries which however are bracketed with a relatively less celebrated and overtly mundane experience of death and Thanatos. The article will dwell into the role of select cemeteries as metaphors of power emanating from the treatment meted out to the cemeteries. The centre-periphery, life-death and celestial-terrestrial binaries will be explored through the epithets conferred upon rites of death, cemeteries and phenomena of afterlife in different cultures. Keywords: Celestial, Terrestrial, Ambivalence, Juxtaposition, Binaries, Thanatos.