Altars Made Easy: A Complete Guide To Creating Your Own Sacred Space - Softcover

Streep, Peg

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0062514903 ISBN 13: 9780062514905

Publisher: HarperOne, 1997

Synopsis

Explores the creation of the sacred place, shows how to create an altar, including choosing materials, colors, and statuary

About this title

About the Author

Peg Streep is a writer and editor who has researched sacred places, altars, and ancient mythology for nearly a decade. She is the author of many books on spirituality, including Sanctuaries of the Goddess and Mary : Queen and Heaven, as well as the editor of Spiritual Illuminations.

From the Back Cover

The art of creating sacred space . . .

The first complete book on altars and altar building. Altars Made Easy explores the creation of sacred-in the home, in the office, in the garden, even in temporary surroundings-as a powerful tool of transformation and spiritual development. What is sacred space? It is a place where, as Joseph Campbell put it, wonder can be revealed.

In a single volume, the rich background of history, humanity's first altars, sacred places, and most ancient mythologies illuminates contemporary altar building. Learn, step by step, how to create altars that focus energy and reflect the spirit, including:
Understanding the language of sacred space
Creating altars for special needs
Choosing materials, colors, and statuary
Empowering your altar with signs and symbols
Energizing sacred space with light, smoke, and scent
Using gemstones and minerals
Drawing on the power of totems and guardians
Building outdoor altars, and much, much more.

Altar building is a creative process that frees us to make use of the affirming and empowering aspects of change. Beautifully illustrated, this volume contains a full resource section and is filled with examples to help you create sacred space. Altars Made Easy offers a full understanding of the power that symbols, objects, colors, and your own unique personality can bring to the altar you can create and re-create for meditation, reflection, prayer, and relaxation.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

Chapter OneThe Spirit of Sacred Space

On top of a small table in the living room of a garden apartment in a small Eastern city sits what appears to be a random collection of objects. The bottom layer is a beautifully woven yoga mat of many colors. On it are two photographs of men and one of a woman sitting in the lotus position, an incense burner, a small statue of an angel, a representation of the Indian elephant god Ganesh, and a portrait of a female saint, Lying among these are a strand of pearls and an unset carnelian.

Because Diane's shrine is in the living room of her apartment and can be seen by anyone who enters, it is deliberately unobtrusive, because she feels strongly that her spiritual space should not be imposed on anyone. And yet, as in all shrines and altars, every object she has assembled has both personal and spiritual meaning. The yoga mat was a gift from someone whose spiritual insight was valuable to Diane; the photographs portray gurus whose teachings were important, although she has long since left the ashram where they taught. The angel was given to her by a friend so that it might watch over Diane. Diane is a musician, and both the god Ganesh, traditionally the remover of obstacles, and Saint Cecilia, patron saint of music, connect to her profession and her greatest pleasure. The pearls and carnelian were chosen for their beauty and simplicity.

This small area is a place of quiet for Diane, where sometimes she sits and gathers as much energy and peace as she needs to live happily. Usually, when she meditates here, she adds to the altar's top a burning candle, a flower, or something beautiful that has caught her attention. She follows no particular rite, nor does she meditate at any specific time. The shrine is, as she says, simply a small oasis she visits when she needs to.

When men and women talk about their altars, regardless of their faiths and rituals, the same words come up in their descriptions. Some of them refer to the process of seeking the self: energy, direction, meant ing. Still others address state of mind: peacefulness, calm, strength. Usually, too, there are words that connect to finding the sacred in daily life, focusing on something larger than the self and the day-to-day: prayer, meditation, communication. It becomes immediately clear that making an altar is not like decorating; it is a search for meaning or a process of discovering what has meaning for you.

Process is another word that pertains to the making of altars, for it reminds us that making an altar literally involves putting spirituality into physical form. It is an action that articulates an individual's spirit and energy, as well as his or her needs of spirit and energy Many people describe their altars as providing important reminders of what they sometimesA forget in the rush of the day-to-day: to remember to reflect, to remember to be true, to remember to live a dedicated life. Altars make us mindful.

Ann Evans, who trained at Union Theological Seminary and is now a ritualist dedicated to celebrating the divine feminine, has tried to make her entire home, not simply her altars, sacred space, for she feels it is her dedication to sacred space that allows the sacred to enter her life. As she puts it, "The Hebrew scriptural injunction to 'keep the Sabbath and make it holy' is so difficult in this secular world where distractions and responsibilities abound. I am gregarious and outgoing, and it is difficult for me to honor the silence and to see the rhythm of the day that allows us to appreciate the little miraculous moments." She finds that slowing down-being mindful and careful of her space, straightening and cleaning-brings the sacred in.

Energy is another important part of altar building. Many people build altars and choose their placement in the home to energize that space for a specific purpose. The altar one woman built for her home office deliberately omitted any reference to her children, because in this particular area of her life, the energy she needs cannot be deflected by other concerns. The altar provides the focus she needs. Marilyn Goldman places her altars in the rooms in which she spends the most time; they are deliberately highly visible. Marilyn began building altars after traveling throughout the Pacific Rim; she found herself drawn to the color and artifacts of the daily rituals at shrines that were part of everyone's daily life, particularly in Indonesia and Bali. Her altars are eclectic, with statues of deities and goddesses from many cultures along with personal objects, all things that have energy or personal resonance. Her altars, as she puts it, "acknowledge and remind me that there is a higher spirit."

Many people build specific altars to help them focus and clarify their thoughts and intentions, to gather up and strengthen their spiritual energies. Julie (Jess) Middleton builds altars to, as she says, 11 try to get my whole life to be part of the ritual dance." She built an altar specifically dedicated to friendship after receiving a telephone call from a formerly close woman friend from whom she had been estranged for over a year and who now lived thousands of miles away. The two women made a telephone date to talk at length, and Julie...

Edition details

• Publisher: HarperOne
• Publication date: 1997
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0062514903
• ISBN 13: 9780062514905
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 256