THE MEANING OF SACRED
Established patriarchal religions have defined sacred as being separate from nature. It is no coincidence that the word sacred is related to the sacral region of anatomy; the sacrum the triangular bone at the base of the spine. The Greeks called it the "hieron osteon", "hieron" not only means sacred but also "temple." It is a temple in the sense that the sacrum creates the dorsal wall of the pelvis. In the female the sacrum protects the ovaries and uterus, the organs of creation.
The Romans called the bone the "os sacrum," which literally meant the "holy bone". "Sacrum" relates to the Latin word "sacer" meaning "sacred", or "sacra" meaning "holy, consecrated". The sacrum is the last bone in the body to decompose therefore it was believed that someone could be reassembled in the afterlife from its remains.
The sacrum consists of five separate vertebrae that fuse together between ages 18 and 30, to become one bone. The last sacral vertebra sits just above the coccyx, which in many animal species is the beginning of the tail.
The sacrum is also known as the vertebra magna. The closely related words of "magma", referring to molten rock within the earth, and "magnus", meaning great, can be of interest, especially when thinking about "from dust you came, to dust you shall return." We can obviously summarize that the sacrum is an important "root", a seat of special power that stems back to stories of origin.