little altars everywhere

I'm not sure I even remember exactly when I began to consider keeping an altar as something other than a heathen and graven-image-bowing thing to do. But once I did, it became a primary spiritual practice.

This is the altar upstairs which we face for our daily meditation practice.

Protestants generally tend towards the spare, quiet, and restrained. There is usually only a cross at the front of the church. The emphasis is on faith, aligning one's deeds as closely as possible to the words of the Bible, and one's personal relationship with God; God being defined as one / all of the Holy Trinity: Father, Son, Holy Ghost. Nobody and nothing else.

The Catholic crucifixes were seen as maybe a bit showy. Jesus was supposed to be inside our hearts. And images of Mary? Well, it had been made clear to me that she was not part of the Holy Trinity, and therefore not to be specifically prayed to, let alone all the saints for whom Catholics have altars, light candles, and say specific prayers. Since I did not grow up within the Catholic Church, I did not have any such relationship with religious iconography, and in fact, had some mistrust of it.

This is our wooden statue of Mary,
acquired when we were searching for a spiritual home,
and practicing with St Andrew's Catholic Church --
a congregation fiercely focused on social justice.

Looking back, I find the root of that mistrust in the versions of the Bible that I heard from the pulpit and in our Bible stories.

Exodus 20 (King James Version)

1And God spake all these words, saying,

2I am the LORD thy God, which have brought thee out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage.

3Thou shalt have no other gods before me.

4Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth.

5Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them: for I the LORD thy God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me;

Then specifically regarding images of gold and silver, or even carved stone altars or stairs:

23Ye shall not make with me gods of silver, neither shall ye make unto you gods of gold.

24An altar of earth thou shalt make unto me, and shalt sacrifice thereon thy burnt offerings, and thy peace offerings, thy sheep, and thine oxen: in all places where I record my name I will come unto thee, and I will bless thee.

25And if thou wilt make me an altar of stone, thou shalt not build it of hewn stone: for if thou lift up thy tool upon it, thou hast polluted it.

26Neither shalt thou go up by steps unto mine altar, that thy nakedness be not discovered thereon.

I read all this to my spouse, who grew up Catholic. He was a bit horrified, being unfamiliar with this "jealous God" I had come to know in childhood.

This is Patrick's little statue of St. Francis.
He watches over the animals' food area in the kitchen.

His transition to Buddhism was quite smooth. This makes sense to me: The similarity of the liturgy continues to be quite striking -- the smells and bells, the standing sitting and kneeling, the chanting, even down to the mala / rosary beads.

Before this would ever be possible for me, I required a feminist intervention in my 20's. I made several rounds of critical inquiry into the patriarchal underpinnings of the Christian church before I could even begin to look at different forms of spirituality. While it was painful to see the religion of my childhood from this different perspective, I was able to question many of my beliefs and assumptions. It helped me see why I was having so much difficulty in some areas, and Christianity began to prove inadequate to my spiritual needs. This questioning, as I recall, was fueled by no small amount of anger. I had had enough of the white-guy-in-the-sky. For me, it was balancing to learn about the Divine Feminine from the writings of feminist theologians like Starhawk, books like The Feminine Face of God, and The Laughter of Aphrodite.

At some point in my tumultuous twenties, I saw a photograph of the Venus of Willendorf.

Circa 20,000 - 30,000 BC

By then I had already logged no less than a decade of body image problems, and if not self-hatred, definitely self-mistrust and downright fear of fat. To see this large, round, undeniably, unapologetically womanly figure referred to as a "Goddess," and imagining a culture actually venerating this form -- even if that was just speculative -- this caused a shift so strong and powerful, and led to a sense of inner knowing. I knew deeply that the veneration of this female form was safe. Not just safe, but necessary.

Ah, my twenties. During a fiery breakup of a three-year relationship with a guy who was addicted to pornography, having reached the very end of my willingness to engage in the contortions required to fit into the iron maiden of the Beauty Myth, and having no idea what would come next but entirely willing to make that leap,

This is an actual iron maiden -- a medieval torture device.

I birthed this Venus figure of clay:

I seem to recall already having some semblance of an altar upon which to place it. I think it was was an orange crate next to my futon. Or maybe it was my paternal grandmother's coffee table. I was not unaware of the irony since she was the most pious of all the relatives I knew.

Here is a recent sample of what is on my grandmother's coffee table altar.

It was Kwan Yin who helped me make the transition from Goddess-based spirituality to Buddhism.Kwan Yin, Kannon, or Avalokiteshvara is a Bodhisattva. A Bodhisattva is kind of like the Buddhist equivalent to a Saint. One understanding of a Bodhisattva is that it is a human person who forgoes their own enlightenment, remaining to assist all other beings until they all reach nirvana.
The embodiment of compassion, Kwan Yin is known as "she who hears the cries of the world." She is usually depicted with a bottle, either holding it up, or pouring it out, which is a symbol for her tears of compassion, or pouring out the waters of compassion. As a mental health therapist, I readily identified with her. Taking inspiration from Kwan Yin in the daily work of listening compassionately has been such a source of strength and relief.

I learned of her at my first meditation retreat-- a women's Vipassana retreat at Breitenbush Hotsprings. Before even stopping at home, once I had returned to Portland, I acquired this statue of her from a store called Healing Waters and Sacred Spaces, which I happened to learn when I got there, that Kwan Yin is kind of their "patron" Bodhisattva.

Here she is on my dresser. The painting of eggs is by my mother --
it was just a simple still-life she was practicing with
when she was taking a painting class, but I love it.

Once I was able to begin the practice of keeping an altar, it became an important part of my spirituality. Altar practice, for me, is just a beautiful reminder. It is a way to infuse sacred into everyday.

This is the Buddha who lives on our living room mantel.

Patrick spontaneously created this altar
which I walk past every day on the way to my car.
He is the one who usually freshens the flower offering here.

This is in our kitchen right above the sink.

Here is Bodhidharma,
currently greeting all who come through our front door,
and hopefully not scaring people away!

I like to change the altar cloths to reflect the seasons. I like to dust the statues, and dust around them. I like to freshen the flowers. Taking an ikebana class (Japanese flower-arranging) has inspired many beautiful flower offerings. Often, the state of my altars reflects the state of my spiritual practice.

I like the fact that we maintain evidence of our spiritual journey in the various little altars around the house. I read somewhere that regarding religion and spirituality, you can't subtract; you can only add. I like the idea that perhaps the Christian God is not actually jealous -- that implies insecurity. I am working with the idea that God or the Goddess or sacredness or Buddhanature is actually in everything. Altars are just a gentle reminder of that.