Altars

Here's a snap of my own altar at home. It's got my white orchid, a gift from my daughter. A painting of a window by my nephew, with one on the wall by my other daughter's tattooist friend Scott. It's a blue door that I imagine opens to a great and sacred space. Sea glass from the west coast of Spain, a wooden Buddha draped with my student-beads from Kripalu, all those years ago, and my stone elephant which I bought from my friends at Merkabasol in Augusta. But it's the east morning light that makes my altar complete. Facing the east when meditating in the morning supports alignment for the whole day, I find.

 

An altar is said to be where sacrifices and gifts are left to a god, goddess or God. It could then be said, an altar at home is a place to honor and remember the higher self--the divine aspect of a human being, too. For me, it is a place of holding the energy of goodness, wholesome well-being, and my place for bringing in symbols of growth, love and nature's unique shapes. Maybe it's a reminder of holiness, solemnity and prayer for meditation time. I know that I can tap into my center very quickly with this altar in my home. 

 

I've also kept an altar of beach findings and small figures, large gourds, and branches picked from woods-walks on the stoop of my front door. I love seeing children look at the little Buddha, the white conch from Florida, the red berries from Belfast when they're out walking with their families. When I'm traveling, I often bring to the car, some branch, flower, or stone to set inside the key cubby.

If these things we gather really do carry the energy of the earth or the people who brought them to us, then they bring a living remembrance to our awareness and meditations, and remind us of who we are when we are centered, thoughtful, aware of our selves in the world. 

 

--What makes us feel holy, better than our lower impulses like greed, jealousy, fearful scarcity of love? The symbols or items that catch our imaginations and hearts are signs of ourselves at center, markers of our experiences in which we've been touched by the holy, a loved one, the divine self. An altar is ever changing but always energetically higher than our lowest thoughts, and steeped in the vibration of love and reverence. It is a balm in a loosely cast world.