Admittedly, I am a person who likes to meditate. I like to pray, too – a lot, but I really like to meditate. I like setting aside the time and space to put my mind on hold and let something else besides busyness fill me up – something still . . . and calm . . . and beautiful to me. I also like the little ceremonial things that go along with it – lighting the candle, burning the incense, settling into my special chair – all of these little rituals. They begin quieting my mind before I even close my eyes and center myself. It feels good to me. I just like it.
As a child I loved going to mass, especially high mass with the incense and Gregorian chant. All that pageantry captured the spirit of my child’s mind and heart, and put me in an altered state. As a teenager I got my entire family to pray the Rosary nightly during Lent. Something about saying the prayers out loud together in rhythmic repetition created that same ‘transporting’ effect.
But, like so many Catholics, I became disenchanted with the church and left it when I was in college. Fortunately for me, I saw past the inner politics. I never lost that sense of connection to divinity that was so enhanced by the ceremony of Mass. So I sought out spiritual communities that understood that value – or created them myself when I couldn’t find one. They all incorporated a degree of ritual, or ceremony. With some, it might be simply lighting a candle. With others, it could be a complex, daylong or weeklong ceremony, as with the Cherokee priest I studied with. And . . . they all made use of altars.
Until recently, I had only one home altar that was set up for my spiritual practice. But now I have another idea about how to use them. I had been mentally struggling with something for several weeks when I got the notion that maybe I could set up an altar to deal with it. Maybe there could be different kinds of altars. Maybe not every altar had to be spiritual or religious. So, what prompted this thought? Here is what was going on at the time:
I was not progressing well with a project I wanted to complete: to make a vision board. [For those who have not heard the term ‘vision board,’ it refers to cutting and pasting pictures, images and words onto a poster. The images and words are to represent something(s) you want to manifest in your life.] I was having trouble because the things I want in my life are not the typical American Dream kind of things. I’m not particularly caught up in wanting an expensive car, designer clothes, the latest iPhone, etc. Now, don’t get me wrong, I like those things, and, were they offered to me I would not turn them down. But they are not high on my priority list.
However, the images you’re going to find in the magazines are the expensive cars and designer clothes. What you don’t find is a lot of pictures of women teaching Shiatsu in classrooms throughout America and Europe. You do not find a lot of pictures of people being led on Shamanic Journeys, Soul Retrievals, encounters with their Animal Totems and Spirit Guides. You do not find a lot of pictures of people my age dating and/or falling in love. I spent several hours looking through so many magazines trying to find something I could use. When I did, it was disappointing, at best.
I finally figured out that I could Google ‘shiatsu classes in Europe’ – and the other topics that mean something to me – and find images that better fit my sensibilities. I could print them out and use them to cut and paste onto the vision board. So I did that. Months ago. But . . . I could never find a satisfying layout so I still hadn’t pasted them on. At some point I realized that I was missing the point.
After all, the whole reason for making a vision board is to hang it up or put it somewhere where you see it all the time. The purpose is to keep your dreams alive and at the forefront of your consciousness. Recognizing that, I came up with a solution that I could do. I could simplify the whole vision board thing by setting aside a small space on a bookshelf or coffee table with one or two objects that would cue the feeling of having that desire manifested.
I folded up a scarf to act as an altar base, and printed out both the name of the school where I wanted to teach and a picture of it from their brochure (Zen Shiatsu Chicago). A couple of months later I was asked to give a weekend workshop there, and a few months after that, I moved to Evanston, IL and joined the ZSC faculty.
Currently, I have three altars up in my home. I’m feeling the need to refresh them. So . . . I’m getting some new insights. Can’t wait to see what happens next!