Not only are there a great many sacred sites on Earth, but when seen as a whole, they express a pattern. That pattern is a template of the galaxy and all the structures in the spiritual worlds, and it’s here for all of us to experience.

Imagine a transparent skin around the planet, like an aura. In this auric skin is a multidimensional matrix teeming with galactic life. From out of this auric matrix emerges the physical planet. The planet retains copious birthmarks, imprints of all this teeming life of the galaxy.

In fact, the galactic matrix and the physical planet are one and the same, occupying the same space, but in different dimensions. Think of the Earth’s sacred or visionary geography as lying close to the physical skin of the planet the way heat waves ripple just a bit above a hot summer landscape.

It isn’t correct to say the galaxy is imprinted on the Earth. It is present, to borrow a phrase from the Australian Aborigines, as a Dreaming in the Earth—as the Earth. Where there is a physical mountain, there is also a star; where there is a human settlement, there is an Avalon; where there is a rounded hill, there is also a dragon sitting on a horde of gems; where there is a physical temple, there may also be the home of the gods, a Mount Olympus or Asgard.

If you could see this with double vision, you would behold a galaxy and a planet occupying the same point in space. The globe of Earth is a miniature galaxy, brimming with stars and pulsating with lines of connection. Everything that is in the celestial worlds is here on Earth as part of its visionary geography, its global landscape of sacred sites.

All sacred sites feel holy, but it’s not the same thing in all cases that makes them that way. There are, at latest count, 80 different design features found at the Earth’s numerous holy sites. By this I mean different kinds of subtle temples put there for you to experience something of the spiritual worlds while on Earth. Present are many of the structures, "places," and processes found in the spiritual worlds and often described in the world’s various religious, spiritual, and mythic traditions. For example: energy canopies, miniature galactic wheels, dragons, cosmic eggs, sanctuaries of individual deities, golden apples, sun temples, cracks between the worlds—everything we thought couldn’t possibly be true, yet is.

The sacred manifests at holy sites. The gods show forth at these crossing-over points on the planet’s surface. We go to such places to get a glimpse of these spiritual presences, to have visions, to remember. And if we want to get a sense of where to go, where the sites lie in the landscape, consult the myths.

Myths encode information about the planet’s visionary geography, once you figure out how to read them. From the viewpoint of metaphysics, myths are door-openers, living keys to an esoteric understanding of the landscape. In fact, quite often myths are keenly tied to the landscape, or to specific localities, so for convenience, I use the term geomythic to indicate the myth in the landscape.

Stories about gods having forges under mountains, Cyclopes building huge walls, monsters imprisoned under volcanoes, ravening dragons inside hills, creator gods atop mountains—these are examples of geomyths, myths living in the landscape. They are guides to the esoteric landscape.
The paradoxical truth of myths is that you should take them almost literally but not as necessarily happening in our three dimensional matter-bound reality. When a site such as Montsegur, a craggy rock outcropping in the French Pyrennees, was said to be the location of the Grail Castle of the Arthurian legends, it is true, but not quite literally. There is indeed a Grail Castle at Montsegur, but it’s not a physical one, nor ever was, and it’s more accurate to say it’s over Montsegur.

Yet, the essential experience implied by the term Grail Castle is accessible there. You can definitely have a Grail experience at Montsegur inside a specially prepared spiritual space accessed at the top of the mountain. The Grail Castle’s purpose is to give us access to an inner plane temple that can facilitate recall of deep cosmic memory. This is pre-incarnational memory, pre-Fall memory, full cosmic knowledge of all the past cycles of time.

The exciting revelation is that Montsegur is not the Earth’s only Grail Castle on-ramp. There are in fact 144 Grail castles around the planet, including such unlikely places as Alcatraz Island near San Francisco, Mount Hood in Oregon, the Acropolis, Delphi, and Mycenae in Greece, Montserrat in Spain, the Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem, Mount Damavand in Iran.

All of the Earth’s 80 different types of geomantic temples have multiple copies, each giving different types of experiences. The good news is you don’t have to travel far to experience the galaxy on Earth.
All of the different types of temple structures we encounter in the Earth’s visionary geography are building blocks for creating a reality that makes sense. You could think of the variety of features as elements in a light pattern library.

Even better, and what makes the system relevant to us is that the light pattern library that comprises Earth’s subtle body is the same that structures our consciousness. This puts us and theEarth in resonance, and it puts us both in resonance with the galaxy, the even grander expression of the light patterns. This demonstrates the marvellous principle of As above, so below, and in the middle too. Let’s not forget that middle: it’s the Earth and its thousands of holy sites.

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Excerpted and abridged from The Galaxy on Earth: A Traveler’s Guide to the Planet’s Visionary Geography by Richard Leviton (2002, Hampton Roads, Charlottesville, VA 22902; available at www.hrpub.com. or www.amazon.com.

Richard Leviton has been studying and teaching Earth Mysteries for 19 years. He is the author of 10 books including the recent What's Beyond That Star: A Chronicle of Geomythic Adventure (Clairview Books/Anthroposophic Press, 2002).