Altars for Altering Consciousness
Portals to the Infinite
Being the Web of Light for Planetary Transformation
Context
Not so very long ago we lived in close proximity to nature. Our lives were intwined with the life of many other forms of life. Rivers, Trees, Animals. They all informed our lives. Home, then, meant not just the people but the place, and the place was all the nature that made up that world. What Monotheism did was to take the Altars: Places of worship, from it’s multitude of place to one place, the church. Prayer still existed that was the direct communication from one mans heart to the heart of God but recognising the Sacred in all things and revering nature ceased to be the main focus of spiritual practice, officially at least.
The Web of Life a Web of Light
The greatest illusion, is the story of separation. The shallow values of the dominant culture leave many feeling bereft and alienated from the source of life-force.
Pantheism is an approach of being in relationship with nature. The web of life shimmers in my minds eye, it is the energetic tendrils that span out from every human, every bird, every animal, every rock, every molecule of water, every rainbow, every dark cave, every forest, every tree in the forest, every insect, every rat, snake, squid or tadpole.
The web of life, modern science and ancient cultures will agree is interdependent systems made up of infinitesimaly small to globally huge that all affect and rely on each other for their own health and wellbeing.
What mainstream Science does not appreciate is the great mystery within the Web of life, in this one principal they cut themselves off from the spirit of the Web of LIfe, the essence, of which we are all a part.
So I invite you to
Breathe
Allow yourself to receive fully
the nourishment of this breath
as it fills your lungs to capacity
Knowing that this breath
Is taking in the out breath of plants that are all around you and much further beyond
We share sacred breath with all of life on earth.
We share presence with all that shares presence on this earth.
Breath is life, Presence is energy. Both connect us to the Web of life in ways that are beyond our ability to fully comprehend. Because we don’t have the full picture. (And actually it is unlikely that such a picture could ever be reached or shared in simple words). So instead we have to come to our understanding by observing the effects, the results of our being gives us an idea how to be in harmony with the web of life.
Acknowledging it exists and visualising it. When you accept the web of life as being a dynamic process of which we are all a part then you start to understand it is the most important relationship you will ever have in your life.
Have gratitude. Prayers, song, dance. When we reflect on the web of life, gratitude naturally follows in response to this miracle of life/light
Do these two things and notice how your life starts to flow in new and unexpected ways.
The web of life is an inner as well as an outer experience. Our reality, our experiences that have meaning for us weave in and out of our lives over time, making us aware of new connections.
What we do in the personal ripples out through our words and actions into the global and beyond.
An urban shaman once told me that we could all be magicians if we could only focus our energy. This stuck with me, as a novice on the path, as an inspiring call to the potential in all of us to be powerful agents for change if we only follow some simple rules. The first and last, the most important is intention. To embody it to have it planted in your field of being as you perform a task, trusting in the cycles of creation to do their part in manifesting it with you.
Primarily Altars connect us to the web of life and our appreciation, reliance on it but ultimately our place in it as agents for change in our lives and in the global family.
A Prayer
For there to be altars everywhere
Aligned with the purpose
of bringing light to earth
So we may see
The potential
That lives in our hearts
May we call in the allies
To help us in this sacred work
Reminding us
To walk the way of great care
For this beautiful planet
and every being
in harmony
A Vision for Altars for Altered states of consciousness: Altars all around the world opening for peace and love and harmony, truth simplicity and love.
What would it be like to create altars and to join in prayer for the water, the spirit and the earth, In service to love and the health of spirit in all things?
Planting the seed of spirit in your life. You plant it not just in your life but in your community, your country and this world. When enough of us do this we create a resurgence of spirit to heal the damage done.
So each time you do a sacred act remember those all around the world who do the same and stand in solidarity with you.
We are all one earth being
Smudging
Letting go of one way of being in order to embody a new consciousness
This is the price of admission to altered states of consciousness.
Therefore there is ritual to mark this threshold when opening up the altar. Whether it be a small personal altar or a large group altar.
Smudging is this wonderful connection to the plant allies through their aroma. White Sage purifies and transforms energies as does Bay Leaf. Find the herbs that grow where you live and cultivate them with love for your sacred work.
What is truly wonderful is having someone aligned with spirit, centred and grounded and clear smudges you, and with their breath and presence and intention they bring to the smudge their own magic which can greatly enhance the experience of being cleared of unwanted energies for ceremony.
Smoke Holy Smoke
I ask you to purify me
Coming from the Earth
This sacred Herb
Breath of the fire
Carry my prayers
Altars as the heart of ritual. Symbolic acts with deep significance that reach into the deepest and highest parts of ourselves. At one time or another the ancients used altars for everything. Because everything required spiritual care. Altars are the integrating function between us and the infinite. Between our inner and outer worlds. Energetic parcels of meaning anchoring the energies that are there, in so doing observing what is there.
Imbibe the spirit of things and places and people and animals and weather systems into ourselves into our being; in words, in song, in actions and silence. In such a way we welcome to intimately know what was not known before. We enter into sacred relationship, as student, as acolyte to the impulse of creation, as co-creator . Altars provide light where there is darkness. Clarity where there is darkness, care where there is destruction, hope where there is no-thing.
The Druids take their name from the word for Door and Oak. For them trees were living altars. Doorways to the infinite.
So altars are doorways and as we know it doesn't matter where you start, which doorway you take, when you go deep enough you arrive at the same destination.
The Centre of the altar is like a great funnel of energy like you see at the centre of a torus structure. It is the trunk of the world tree. It is the interplanetary doorway. It is the spiritual elevator through which we can send and receive. We as light beings on earth communing with light beings in ranges usually out of outside of our ability to perceive. What is beautiful in every day life is dazzling when the veil is lifted.
The Heart-self as Altar
The Heart Vortex is analogous to this concept of Altar. Re-ognising the heart-self as being at the heart of who we are and the door-way through which we can connect to other dimensions. The dimensions of nature spirits and earth energy vortices. Connecting to spirit comes through open hearted communion. The open heart is our greatest desire and our greatest fear. Some may go on endless journeys to find ‘the one’ when what they really seek is someone to be open hearted with.
The heart altar is like a precious flower that showers abundance into our lives when it is fully open and generating loving energy effortlessly and it receives, feels gratitude and emits love in a self generating cycle or lemescat. As the mainstream culture only concerns itself with the mind and only values ‘critical’ mental thinking. The heart gets ignored and devalued again and again.
The Heart, The Hearth, Living Altar of the Self
An altar is the shining light to inspire, ground and anchor energies.
When I light my altar I am making an external action that represents an inner alignment to those values that I hold dear, truth, openness, vulnerability, healing & connection.
As a place of prayer, Altars can be thought of as cosmic telegram systems sending out messages to the source of creation where they may be manifested.