Sacred interesting word isn't it, and so very fraught with peril to define. It is kind of like god or the goddess different to everyone and in that difference is the beauty and ugliness of humanity. I want to explore this word as it has to do with me and the didge as well as my work as a witch. Let’s say before we get too far into this that I am using my definition of sacred which I will outline. My definition today is going to be "having religious value and or significance". So my writings will be using this definition not the dictionary or your own but mine.
As a pagan and a student of Yoga I have a hard time with this as the precepts of my faith dictate that everything has religious significance. So I will limit myself to those things that are sacred to me without effort. I have to work at finding shit and mean people sacred but something’s are a lot easier. I find nature sacred trees, river, ocean, soil, plants, animals, wind, fire; things of nature have a beauty and purity that I find appealing and inspirational. I want to expand on this for a second as I think it is important. I find nature appealing for a number of reasons. You have just the aesthetic value how can you look at a tree or a river and not be touched by the beauty. You also have the significance of the thing a river is important for everything. All the way from us down to the tiniest mouse. Rivers are the life blood of all living things without water nothing lives, pretty simple. With trees I think enough has been said about the importance of trees. Spiritually I think of rivers as the life giving fluid of the Earth Goddess and as such to drink from one is to drink from her breast. Something similar to mother’s milk. As for trees I consider them great souls that have been reincarnated to support life on this world. Something similar happens in Buddhism when enlightened people come back to earth to guide other souls to enlightenment. I have a hard time understanding people who can sit inside a red wood and not be awed by its grandeur. These are pretty simple examples but I think you can understand the general idea. I also like nature for the simple idea that I like a lot of people put my own idea's on nature. Ask any five people what nature is about and five different answers. So here is mine I think that nature shows us that the construct of good and bad are a human invention. This is not new it is common on a lot of religious thought. What it means is that things are not good and bad just our idea of things and how we perceive them are that way. Life just is, not good, bad, or indifferent just the way it is. Like karma people get hooked on the whole good and bad karma when in affect karma is just karma. You have to let go of the construct of good and bad only then can you really get out of your ego. As you can see with this digression that I could go on for a long time.
Now for my practices I find meditation, ritual circles, incantations, and a whole plethora of esoteric exercises to be sacred. I also find the people I love to be sacred my fiancée, friends, family, coven members and those that have special significance in my life I look on these people as sacred. Let me explain this for a second those who have big parts in my life I look on as spiritual teachers it does not really matter what religion they are. What they have to add to my life and what they teach me about how to be a better person or just helping me work through some problems. I do not separate what kind of person I am to how spiritual I am. So do I consider work sacred or cleaning the house well there is one branch of Yoga called Karma Yoga that takes service as a path to enlightenment however I find this hard to do and as I am only talking about those things I find easy to find sacred I would say no. But the question is do I consider didge playing sacred?
I will start with the cons of why I shouldn't think of didge playing sacred. First off it is hard to consider something that is so frustrating to be a sacred practice. I mean sometimes it is easier to decode a Gematria problem than it is to play a string on the didge. I have had times where it took all I had to not start banging my stick against the nearest piece of furniture in frustration. I mean sometimes it is times like these that you can feel the frustration as a palatable thing. And all you can do is sit and wait for it to pass. The other part of it is the envy of hearing another person playing. I can't say that I have often seen a person and been envious of their spirituality "okay the Dalai Lama does not count". But when you hear a great player you just can't help saying to yourself "damn I wish I could play like that". Then you have practical part of just that as much as you like the sound at the end of the day it is still just a musical instrument.
So seems like there are some good reasons to not consider it a sacred thing. Now to go with the reason why to consider it sacred. Well I think to start you have the way it has always been used as a sacred instrument. Now that is a mediocre excuse since the way we use it cannot really be compared to the way the indigenous people use it. So here is a better one, the way it makes you feel. When I play not practice but really play from your heart and soul. When I play I feel such ecstasy, pleasure, joy, and just a transcendent joy that I have only ever felt when I was in the midst of a ritual. There is a feeling that will come over you sometimes a feeling of place. As if no matter what you are doing this is the place you belong, that this is the place you want to be. It is hard to put into words this sense of place it is a feeling that this is exactly where you should be. This is accompanied by profound feeling of well being and even protection as if you can genuinely feel the love of the divine. Now some may say that if the feeling can come when you are at work than it cannot really be attached to a specific thing. But here is the deal I do ritual to get that feeling of connectedness all the tools that I use are to get that feeling these tools I use circle,athame,chalice so on are sacred tools that help me reach that feeling. They have presence that when I pick them up I know in my mind and heart that we are connected by the goal we will reach together. In a strange way I love my athame, we all attach meaning to unliving matter and I know people will say I am just attaching meaning to something that is not alive. But does that make my feeling for my athame less real, does it make my joy at picking it up less real. I bring this up because I genuinely love my two didges when I am playing sometimes I will just hold them even kiss them. I love them probably not because of themselves really but more for what they bring to my life. If I was no longer able to play would I still love them? There was a time when I thought I would no longer play I had severe throght problems. I really thought I would no longer play and the sadness I felt was profound. During this time I could kind of play but it sounded so bad that I just could not continue. It would sometimes almost bring tears o my eyes, yes I will admit it. During this time I would not even hold my didges, they just stood there and collected dust. Now is this the way you would treat a sacred and loved instrument? Yes I would say, I had a friend one time who did not speak to me for awhile when I talked to him he said that he had to work on himself for awhile. The only excuse I could give to my didges was that I had to work on myself awhile. I may go months without using my athame but I still love it.
I would like to talk about music as it plays crucially to the idea of the didge being sacred to me. Music can be recreation either hearing it or playing it. It can be cerebral and be a thinking process, a message to change political thought. Or it can be made to change moods good and bad. How often have you heard a song and felt more confident? Music can also be spiritual it can come from the place of peace it can be about that feeling of connectedness about trying to allow others to feel that. Or it can be used as spiritual healing as many do continue to use it. I think no one plays one type, sometimes I play just for recreation other times I play to try to give others the experience I am having. It all depends on intent, when I use an athame I have intent, I try to have the same conviction of intent when I play the didge.
Some people have said that it is not the playing that is sacred to them it is the instrument. They say that certain instruments speak to them or touch them in sometimes profound ways. Certain things can have a lot of meaning and can be there as teachers to lessons of life and spiritual living. To have one of these things enter your life can be akin to meeting a new best friend. These things are spiritual in and of themselves as it really is you communing with a spirit. A spirit that just happens to inhabit a thing many would consider non-living. I know a guy who is not a witch and he was talking about how weird it was to see people taking to rocks and if I did that. I answered with a question if he ever talked to his car. He declined to answer, everyone talks to objects sometimes it is only when they are stressed like when your car is almost out of gas and you just really need to make it to the next station. So I can understand this on more than one level personally I have two didges both of which I am very connected to. But for me it is the both the music and the instrument for me.
Kind of like the way I look at sex. Sex is a sacred practice no matter how you have it and yes that includes S and M. Crowley once said that everything is about sex he did not mean sex but really the conjunction and joining of the generative and the formative to put it on a real basic level. All of life is this joining but it is easier to see in sex. Be that as it may it is still far more sacred when it is with someone you genuinely love. This is how I look at it that playing is sacred but when you do it with an instrument you love then it is taken to another level.
I touched on a lot of my personal views in this that I hope you elaborate on in the future.

Namaste