The Sacred & The Profane: Reflections from the Hermita de San Sebastián

Last Friday, as golden light melted over the hills of Castellón, I found myself at the Hermita de San Sebastián, a small rural chapel now transformed into a site of contemporary questioning, a space between past and present, earth and spirit. The art opening, titled The Sacred and the Profane, seemed to ripple with more than just aesthetic intention. It asked something deeper: What is sacred? What is profane?
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These questions hovered in the air like incense, carried in quiet conversations between paintings and visitors. They were not questions meant to be answered but lived. And perhaps that is the point—these binaries, these categorizations, are not fixed coordinates in the universe. They are stories we tell ourselves, born from our own evolving consciousness. At one point in history, the moon was a goddess. She was Inanna, Artemis, Selene—an eye in the heavens, watching over our world with divine intent. We danced under her glow, planned our harvests and rituals in tune with her cycles. The moon held mystery and power. But then, something shifted. Through the telescope's lens, she became a rock, a satellite of Earth, a celestial object subject to laws of physics rather than divine will. Did the moon change? Of course not. We changed. The sacred and the profane are not absolutes; they are mirrors of our inner world. What we deem sacred is what we choose to elevate, to protect, to give meaning. What we call profane is often what we reject, fear, or misunderstand. These are human constructs—reflections of culture, need, and evolution.

Historically, civilizations have created gods in their own image. Anthropologist James Frazer wrote about how primitive societies personified natural forces—thunder, rain, sun, moon—granting them names, faces, and wills. The gods served not only as explanations for the inexplicable, but as guides for social behavior. Stories of gods taught us about courage, justice, love, jealousy, betrayal. The divine became our moral compass. And yet, the very gods who preached compassion were invoked to justify wars. The prophets who taught humility became symbols of dominance. How many have suffered, killed, or been killed in the name of the sacred? In every age, from the Crusades to present-day extremism, we’ve seen how religion—meant to connect us to the divine—can be twisted into a tool of division. The sacred, when institutionalized, can become dangerous.

Perhaps what we are confronting now, as a modern species, is not the death of the sacred, but its transformation. We no longer need gods with thunderbolts or commandments carved in stone to teach us basic human virtues. We know, deep within, what kindness looks like. We know what suffering feels like. We are capable of empathy without divine punishment hanging over our heads. The sacred, today, may not dwell in the heavens, but in the simple acts of care between beings. At the same time, the profane has shifted too. There was a time when dancing, sexuality, even women's voices were considered profane—unclean, dangerous. Today, many of these are reclaimed as expressions of vitality, authenticity, and even healing. What was once suppressed is now embraced. We are reshaping the map of what is "holy" and what is "unholy."

In the art exhibited at Hermita de San Sebastián, I saw this dialectic play out. One piece juxtaposed religious iconography with secular intimacy—flesh and faith entangled. Another offered a stark, almost brutal representation of abandonment, as if to say: Where is God in the silence? These works didn’t preach; they provoked. They offered no answers but insisted on the question: Is the sacred found in beauty, or in suffering? In ritual, or rebellion?

To me, the sacred today lies in awareness. In presence. In the ability to stand before a mountain, a painting, or another human being and feel something stir in the soul. That stirring—that awe—is a kind of prayer, even if no god is named. The sacred is not confined to churches, temples, or mosques; it lives in the act of witnessing, of feeling deeply. It can be found in music, in poetry, in birth, in death. It is not a domain of the chosen, but of the open.

And what of the profane? Perhaps it is simply what we have not yet understood. What we fear, we often vilify. But within the profane may also be liberation. The "profane" can shock us out of complacency, challenge norms, dismantle dogma. It is the artist’s realm—the edge, the underground, the grotesque. Without the profane, the sacred loses its contrast. Without shadow, no light.

Standing under the arches of the Hermita, surrounded by artwork, candlelight, and murmurs of reflection, I realized that the building itself had undergone a metamorphosis. Once a house of Catholic worship, now a platform for contemporary exploration, it was no less sacred. Perhaps even more so, because it held within it multiple truths, multiple questions. It was no longer a monument to a single god, but a space for dialogue between gods, people, and ideas.

So, what is sacred? It is what we hold with reverence. A child’s laughter. A moment of forgiveness. A work of art that makes us weep. And what is profane? Perhaps only that which we exile from the sacred until we are ready to look again and find the divine hidden in its folds. In the end, maybe the question is not what is sacred or what is profane, but what are we choosing to sanctify? What meanings are we weaving into the fabric of our lives? What gods are we still creating, and what old ones are we ready to release? And maybe the most sacred act of all is asking the question itself—with honesty, humility, and an open heart.
 

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