"Places of Peace and Power"

Martin Gray is an intrepid National Geographic photographer whose work I have been following since meeting him in 1993 at the Earth and Spirit Conference in Portland, Oregon. Over the course of 25 years, he traveled to 120 countries on a photographic Vision Quest to sacred sites all over the world. In his travels, he recognized that the sacred places he visited were repositories of many of the world's greatest artistic and cultural treasures. But because of their outdoor locations and resulting exposure to industrial pollution, these structures do not receive the protection given to paintings, sculptures, and other museum art. To draw attention to the precarious situation of the world's sacred sites, Martin published Sacred Earth: Places of Peace and Power, which bears beautiful testimony to his life's mission and to his deep connection to Spirit. Hundreds of full color plates capture the essence of these great pilgrimage shrines. Prior to taking each picture Martin offered up a prayer to the Spirit of the place asking them to, "fill my photographs with such feeling and power that people may one day look upon them and be magically transported to these places." It is more than evident that those prayers were answered. Martin says, "I personally consider these photographs to be telescopes through which you may peer across time and space into enchanted domains of sublime beauty."