Creating a Family Shrine
tiny offerings for our fall shrine
In Seattle our soulcare community, Monkfish Abbey, made a lovely shrine together. It started as an experiment in creating some sort of sacred center that everyone in our circle could feel connected to — something that would celebrate all of our varied beliefs. Neil made it out of a dresser drawer and over the years we filled it with flowers, leaves, stones, notes, treasures, photos, collages, incense and candles. My favorite way to interact with the shrine was to clean it out and freshen it up each season with new symbols from the natural world. When we moved, I left our beautiful glowing red shrine back in Seattle. I didn’t know if we’d have a living room big enough to hold it, and it felt as though it belonged to the house and the community more than it belonged to me.
A few months after we arrived in Denmark, someone in the building across the street moved out and left a funny little box on the corner with the rest of the ‘give away’ stack. I rescued it in the hopes of making a new shrine. It moved from one place another in our house, and tried filling it with this and that. But it wasn’t until our Autumn Equinox Chili Fest that it finally came together. (what we do here, recipes here). It is now filled with:
- St. Catherine of Alexandria’s card from last year’s zine
- an incense burner Emily and Iz brought back from Greece
- a pretty glass jar from Helene, and another from Yan, Kim, and Mia (a blended Danish/Chinese family)
-apples and berries from dear Barbra and Ron, ex-pats from S. Africa (they also brought me a hard-to-find butternut squash!)
-a stone from Sharon and Bruce’s dream trip from France, found at the foot of the Eiffle Tower
-little tags with words of gratitude
- the battery operated lights I bought for the ill-fated Winter Solstice tent of ‘06, now redeemed.
It’s coming together quite well now. Meaning and memories are seeping in. As Iz would say, “Melikesee.”
< How do you create sacred space for you home? What tiny objects are like holy vessels to you? Do tell!
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October 27th, 2008 at 1:47 pm
[...] Parties. Advance-schedule friends to come over once a month and beat the blues away. Ours are: Equinox Chili Fest, Soup Night, Dia de los Muertos, Danish in December (holiday craft night); La Vie Boheme Salon [...]
December 18th, 2008 at 4:53 am
My introduction to Denmark was meeting angry neighbours who wanted to cut down a tree in our garden that dusted their car with pollen. It was a very old tree. I was pregnant at the time. They were loud and angry because we didn’t want the tree to go, at all. When we told them we would keep the tree alive they threatened us and asked me why I didn’t go back where I came from, and why did I stay in Denmark if I didn’t like the way things are done here? The spray painted obscene grafitti on the tree and came into our garden without asking. The local police were aghast, but these people were above the law and did what they did, anyway.
In the end they did it anyway, they cut down the tree and celebrated the day, they said it was worth paying the legal bills, that in their minds it was right, and that there is no place for such a big tree in their street, they wanted everything tidy. They wanted their expensive cars shiny, they didn’t care that I was pregnant, they said in that case I should not fight them. Really. This all happened. When I read it, and I haven’t thought about it for a while, I am astounded.
My husband took a limb of that beautiful tree and wittled a tiny angel out of it, and angel with outstretched arms. And he made me a small shelf out of the fallen wood.
I held that angel when I was giving birth, and that angel was close to me.
The shelf I use as a sacred space. It is a very small space and can only hold items that can fit in the palm of the hand.
Today I have, on that shelf, little stones the children bring me, a small sprig of heather, a piece of worn glass found on the beach and more. I put things on the shelf that my children and husband bring me.
They can fell the trees but they cannot fell the spirit.
xxxxx