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Altars
    #6071819 -

Who here has an altar in their house or apartment? Show it off, and talk about what it means to you.

Here's mine:



I started building it piece by piece as soon as I moved up to Portland. The first parts of it were the candle in the center and the sage wand, which I brought with me. Then, at a festival, I bought the purple tapestry on the wall, and the altar cloth, which the seller told me was made by a tribe in North Vietnam. Last week, I bought the cross and the inner two candles. Today, I bought the green tapestry(not shown), the bench, the meditation pillow(not shown), the outer two candles and their candle holders, and some Tibetan prayer flags(not shown).

Throughout the process, I've prayed at my altar every night. I've found that having the altar reminds me to pray and also creates a more spiritual atmosphere, which enhances the experience of praying and meditating. Lighting candles and burning sage helps me visualize my prayers being lifted to heaven. I think that much like psychedelics, prayer is highly influenced by set and setting.

So lets see your altar. Or if you don't have a camera, describe it, and what it means to you.


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Re: Altars [Re: Silversoul]
    #6072145 -

Thanks for sharing that. :cool: It looks nice-Inspirational. I like the idea of creating personal spaces for refocusing and re-centering. Everyone should have one of their own making when they get around to it.

I'm moving into a new home soon and plan to create such a space. I can't say it will have a traditional alter. It will have items that work with frequency healing modalities related to color-chromotherapy, sound-toning, and scent-aromatherapy. A water feature, some live plants and candles too of course!

Something I am looking forward to adding to my essential "items table" is a toning bowl.

I'm not into crystals and don't own any, though I love the sound/feel of crystal toning bowls when I hear them.

Click on this link and play the sample tone where the note is at the bottom. It plays for about 23 seconds. Just FEEL it out and take note of where you start feeling pressure somewhere in your body if you do. The tone is busting up energy blocks if there are any. If you felt one, re-play that tone until that feeling goes away to fully clear it out.

Its intense for me just off the internet. I wonder what its like to feel it in person or what happens with some water it. (Water amplifies frequencies)

The basic principle related to healing with it is resonance, like working with tuning forks.

http://www.equinoxbooksandgifts.com/html/crystal_bowl.html

It sucks these things are so expensive. They've been used in Tibet, well, all over Asia for centuries. Brass bowls are more common.

For now, and it will continue, spending time in my out door gardens, tending to them, is the best meditation zone I get into. Could be because the essentials are already out there, sun light, floral scents and the soothing sounds of nature.

:peace: :heart:


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Ahuwale ka nane huna.

Edited by gettinjiggywithit (09/17/06 08:48 PM)

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Re: Altars [Re: gettinjiggywithit]
    #6072646 -

I like the tibetan prayer bells. You hit it and roll the sttick around the edge. The bell resonates through your whole body.

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Re: Altars [Re: gettinjiggywithit]
    #6089610 -

Wow, those singing bowls look awesome. Too bad they're way out of my price range.


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Re: Altars [Re: Silversoul]
    #6091099 -

I know :sad: they're pricey, even to me and I can afford them. Even the brass ones from Tibet are still pricey. I'm going to break down soon, and just get it once and for all. I have been eye balling them for years wanting to play arond with them.

I love the sounds they make. I get high off that stuff.

It is sweet, did you play the note sample a few times? Intuitive feelers will have an easier time appreciating it and knowing how to work with them.

You can keep playing the sample note when you feel like it.

I'm going to go play it again now. :smile:

:peace: :heart:


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Ahuwale ka nane huna.

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Re: Altars [Re: Silversoul]
    #6091148 -

It doesn't look exactly like this any more, and I don't have a digital camera yet (any suggestions up to $300 welcome). The green figure is the 'Woman with the Alabaster Box,' ostensibly representing Mary Magdalene. The figure next to it is Mary the Mother of Jesus. A mushroom sits between them. The pink figure is a winged feminine Sophia [Wisdom] - the Divine Consort of Elohim (The Two-in-One, Plurality-in-Unity suggested by the Name Elohim). Magdalene and Sophia are now painted gold. Sophia's face, hands and wings are red, halo white.

The ruby chalice candle votive has been replaced with a brass cauldron filled with sand, for incense, and there are two smaller brass candlesticks with white Sabbath candles added, within the taller candlesticks. The Latin crucifix represents one symbol of the Tree of Life, the Kabbalistic Sephira symbolizes another form. The Menorah has been removed to a cabinet with Judaica.

The figure of Jesus on the altar is painted within a frame that is also a demonic cat-like mouth (the maw of Hell). I added a mushroom at the top and two emerald eyes. He stands surrounded by planets in space. Beneath His feet is a tiny Ten Commandments pin from my childhood. I've intended to paint the two columns on the piece Black and White or Gold and Silver for Boaz and Jachin (the pillars of Solomon's temple, the Kabbalistic Pillars of Judgement and Mercy).

An 'Eternal Light' hangs above - its chain holder has numerous 'eyes' like the 'evil eye' amulets common in the Middle East, and the candle flame symbolizes the Eternal Light of God glowing in the ruby chambers of one's Heart Center. The eyes symbolize the Divine Omniscience and Omnipresence. It reminds me of the first time I asked what "that red thing is" of my Father when I was 4 or 5 years old at a Jewish High Holy Day service. Below the altar is a clay jar holding stalks of rye grain - symbolizing not only the Mystery at Eleusis but the home for the fungus ergot from which LSD is derived. Both Entheogens. The mushroomic cross on the altar cloth has grain within it as well (a vestment symbol for Eastern Orthodox priests, and my avatar) - perhaps a reference to the pre-Christian Mystery Religion of Eleusis unconsciously reproduced on a Christian symbol.

Jewish Christian (Kabbalistic-Catholic-Orthodox) Gnostic. The crowdedness and complexity are unfortunate for one who really understands simplicity, but like Eastern Orthodox christianity (or Tibetan Buddhism, or Hinduism for that matter), important Archetypes are symbolized even though the central Archetype is Christ - the Immanent Light of God.


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γνῶθι σαὐτόν - Gnothi Seauton - Know Thyself

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Re: Altars [Re: MarkostheGnostic]
    #6118973 -




znot the best picture.


Also, here is a link to an article I wrote a couple days ago about Altars:

http://americanrevival2012.blogspot.com/

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Re: Altars [Re: tekramrepus]
    #6124706 -

The picture is fine, what about a description of the chosen symbols? A Buddha figure seems to be sitting beneath a mushroom rather than the traditional Bodhi tree.


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γνῶθι σαὐτόν - Gnothi Seauton - Know Thyself

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Re: Altars [Re: MarkostheGnostic]
    #6124737 -

To those who have posted pictures: Why use altars at all? What is their significance in your spiritual practice? How do they relate to your psychedelic use?

Just curious; my dad has what I suppose could be called a 'meditation altar' for his Buddhist practices, but I'm not sure why aside from tradition. I've never been a fan of ritual, but maybe that's a shortcoming, not a strength...


--------------------
“Strengthened by contemplation and study,
I will not fear my passions like a coward.
My body I will give to pleasures,
to diversions that I’ve dreamed of,
to the most daring erotic desires,
to the lustful impulses of my blood, without
any fear at all, for whenever I will—
and I will have the will, strengthened
as I’ll be with contemplation and study—
at the crucial moments I’ll recover
my spirit as was before: ascetic.”

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Re: Altars [Re: Lion]
    #6125333 -

bug said:
To those who have posted pictures: Why use altars at all? What is their significance in your spiritual practice? How do they relate to your psychedelic use?


While I don't use an altar regularly, altars serve an important part of many magical practices and paradigms for a wide variety of reasons. In many, it serves as a focus point, or an area of operation. Some forms of magic would advocate the formation of a circle around the altar - the altar being the area from which the practitioner is doing his or her work. It houses the tools, and sets them apart from mundane objects.

Others use it as a point of religious focus - the altar is consecrated (if only in the mind of the practitioner) and therefore serves to remove distraction.

It may also be used as a simple assembly point for tools. When engaging in shamanistic work with Salvia divinorum, I set up a small altar in front of me with the pipe, plant, and (when necessary) a focus to allow me to hit the target accurately in the spirit world. As such, the altar is just a staging ground.


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"Reality is that which doesn't go away when you stop believing in it." - N. Bohr
"The world is ruled by letting things take their course. It cannot be ruled by interfering." - Tao Te Ching, 48

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Re: Altars [Re: Lion]
    #6125499 -

I refer to my set up as a votive table. No ritual is conducted at it other than the occasional lighting of Sabbath candles and the regular lighting of incense. It stands in the south-east corner of our living room facing east. It exerts a very tangible symbolic presence in the central room (a mini great room with a 12 foot woodbeam ceiling). The living room also has a cabinet with Judaica to the left of the 'altar' with a fireplace between them. Opposite to those there is a set up of Egyptian deities, canopic jars and sphinx candle holders. Also a large winged solar disk. To the right of that there are a couple of Greek deities in bronze (Hermes-Mercury and his son Pan). Pagan masks look down at you from the walls, and gargoyles are perched on other tables, but the votive table clearly defines the spiritual attitude of the room and therefore of its main inhabitants - us. It manifests the care and thoughtfulness of our spiritual considerations - the various facets of the One Philosopher's Stone or Diamond Body that indwells us.


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γνῶθι σαὐτόν - Gnothi Seauton - Know Thyself

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Re: Altars [Re: Lion]
    #6125655 -

bug said:
To those who have posted pictures: Why use altars at all? What is their significance in your spiritual practice? How do they relate to your psychedelic use?

Just curious; my dad has what I suppose could be called a 'meditation altar' for his Buddhist practices, but I'm not sure why aside from tradition. I've never been a fan of ritual, but maybe that's a shortcoming, not a strength...


What's the cardinal rule of tripping? Set and setting. Well, the same applies to prayer and meditation. If you create a sacred space for yourself, it will help facilitate the right mindset for these things. I used to have trouble remembering to pray or meditate, but now that I have that altar there to remind me, I do it every night, and it enhances the experience.


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Re: Altars [Re: Silversoul]
    #6127783 -

It's also good Set and Setting for everyday life. It adds spiritual substance to the environment, as well as reminder to keep one's distance for the barnacles of daily living.


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"Have you found the beginning, then, that you are looking for the end? You see, the end will be where the beginning is. Congratulations to the one who stands at the beginning: that one will know the end and will not taste death."

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Re: Altars [Re: Lion]
    #6132863 -

I would add that 'Life is a trip,' and inasmuch as I Know this, I would say (although this is actually redundant) that my life is a spiritual trip. As Silversoul said about set and setting, physical objects, artistic representations, constantly remind me. The garden Buddha and prayer flags in the back yard, the mushroomic faeries and masks on the front of the house, and all the doo-dads mentioned inside serve to keep me mindful - sometimes of specific mythic or archetypal themes, but always against the backdrop of the ONE.


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γνῶθι σαὐτόν - Gnothi Seauton - Know Thyself

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Re: Altars [Re: Silversoul]
    #6133457 -

Great thread. This just reminded me of something I read. Do any of you incorporate geometric proportions in your alter to reflect the universe? You know, to make it like a microcosm of the universe? Maybe like 1.618:1 height to width..or is that attention to detail way overkill?

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Re: Altars [Re: Catalysis]
    #6133519 -

Catalysis said:
Do any of you incorporate geometric proportions in your alter to reflect the universe? You know, to make it like a microcosm of the universe? Maybe like 1.618:1 height to width..or is that attention to detail way overkill?


It sounds like a good idea, but I just don't have the patience to worry about that. Maybe I would if I had a whole room set aside as a sacred space, but that wouldn't be feasible in my one-bedroom apartment.


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