Personal Space and Sacred Earth: spiritual work space

Spring is here. The blossoms are showing in many places and once again we can actually head out of doors.

Just sitting, feeling the breezes and experiencing the smells of the earth are both centering and ultimately healing. There is a spiritual side to this relaxation. I have always found disturbing that the two things of nature and spirituality could not appear to be mixed in one spot. I will not need to seek a church, a circle or a shrine else where if I can but build a space here to pass into as part of my day.

So I decided to try again to capture both a sacred space where my feet meet the earth in a private spot near my back door. Finally, after much disaster in the past occurring to my small sacred space from invading neighboring dogs there is a fence being built to block off the end of this long empty space. In that space what survived were two dwarf apple trees and a climbing rose bush that the dogs did not bother with. So now the space is free of traffic that had been its focus and energy before - forcible abandoned by the disregard of others.

This space that would otherwise become over grown/abused is now ready to become a sacred area with a little work, that can be used to re-focus life and energy within. The plan is to sit out once more the Kuan Yin brass statue on the flat gray stone near the back door and plant more field roses and a dog wood. Then place a support arbor for the climbing rose, who has no where to climb. On this arbor wind chimes and even small prayer flags can be hung. The entire area will be open to birds, small animals, toads, frogs, fae, elementals, bees and butterflies. Water will be offered there. A small strips of bird seeds hung. The area becomes inviting, energized and focused.

The biggest "sacred" place I would say that inspired me was the Redwoods in Oregon and California. I could not imagine any thing better than to own a small piece of ground that these giant trees lived on. I had seen this believe it or not. There were privately owned small acreages of land with Redwood trees on them. The saddest of these pieces of land were the ones that the owners were preparing to log off for profit and then sell the bare land - I witnessed this as a child with my first visit to the Redwoods. I am thankful that there are national forests to keep safe what is found on the land. But the ultimate for me would be to own land and then live with what was present there. A beautiful example of this is found here at the "Tsubaki Grand Shrine of America" - the natural places to celebrate and practice the rituals of life.

Now back to reality. Most of us do not have wide parks and local shrines to visit. Most of us do not have time to each day draw ourselves to these places to rest, recharge and center ourselves. And there is a majority of people who don't see value in this either - these social or religious attitudes prevent the building of such needed public areas - for people who do find such places valuable.

But for those of us who do see value in it, but do not live where we can enter any of these amazing places to do our spiritual work - we must create this space. We can create this space out of nothing. We can create this space through experimenting with different areas in our homes, apartments or where ever we live. We can find a space that is not being used and create a sense of expanse and energy. So the little alley between properties will be my space to live in, work in and place objects that are important to me.

Though this space is not Redwoods or a mountain or a spring or a waterfall.... it is a space I can place things in and invite energies and beings to and keep to my self where I can think and do spiritual work.

That is my shrine, and no one else need know. You can make one too.

Ostara, chocolate eggs and Mother Goose

Ostara, chocolate eggs and Mother Goose


During our childhood, my sister 'Julie' and I celebrated every Easter time together by seeing which one of us could consume the most chocolate eggs in the shortest amount of time, (hopefully before my parents awoke).

I can still see my younger sister now, surrounded by shiny wrappers with her face covered in chocolate holding her tummy; and me having to call my mum because she was about to be sick everywhere.

Our family, friends & neighbours all gave eggs to us. Throughout the neighbourhood it was a pretty standard practise, most families to indulged their offspring by purchasing a wide array of Easter eggs.

The eggs were proudly displayed upon the shelf like glittering jewels; until that special sunday when the chocolate fest commenced.

On reflection, I can’t think why we were allowed to just munch our ways through mounds of choccy, but I remember how excited we got as children at the prospect of which eggs we were going to unwrap & eat first.

We talked about it for weeks beforehand, and got up as early as we had on xmas morning with the same level of anticipation to be the first to get our hands on those brightly coloured boxes of our hearts desire.

One of the other peculiar practices foisted upon us as children at school consisted of the annual ‘Grande Easter Bonnet parade/competition’.The lucky contestants were lined up like embarrassed Carmen Miranda’s’ along the length of the playground all wearing the offending home made articles that had taken many of the more competitive mothers weeks to construct; prior to the event.

The winning prize (normally an Easter egg) usually went to some child whose father was a set designer for ‘Crossroads’ or of similar ilk.

Later on in life I learned that the word ‘Easter’ derives from Germanic Goddess of Spring called Ostara or Eastre she also has connections with the Greek Goddess of Dawn/Springtime named ‘Eos’. The word for the direction ‘East’ also stems from Eos.

The ancient word for the springtime was thought to be named ‘Eastre’.

Christianity campaigned to win over Pagan holidays through fostering the celebrations themselves and pilfering our more ancient symbolism, finally staking claim to its truer meanings & origins.

Ancient Egyptians held a widespread belief that the universe itself was egg shaped.The womb of the Great Goddess was seen to be an egg.

Creation stories of Gods and Goddesses being born form eggs were well known, Hathor the great goddess of nature shape shifted into a Nile goose called ‘The Great Cackler’ and gave birth to the sun.

Today’s remnants of the old creation stories linger with us still in the form of the pantomime character ‘Mother Goose’ the goose that laid the golden egg.

A common practice which greatly predates Christianity was the painting of eggs by the Anglo Saxon folk who buried the brightly coloured eggs as offerings to Mother Earth buried in the hope that prayers be answered.

The Christian resurrection of Jesus Christ takes also stems from more ancient stories of the birth, death & resurrection of the Isis’s husband Osiris, God of renewal.

Many similar creation stories have been adapted by various cultures/Pantheons throughout the ages with an element of spiritual truth running through each.

The Spring-time symbolism of eggs/ Easter egg hunts/egg decorating/hares/rabbitsand rebirth filter through the ages globally and in time honoured fashion continue to do so from a more ancient nature based religion.

This year when I hand over Easter eggs to my children I shall be pointing out that theirs more to the humble choccy egg than meets the eye.

Hopefully before the ‘choccy fest’ commences they may be interested enough to take some time and learn a little more.