Luscious Soulful Beauty: June 12, 2015. Altars and Soul Devotions
Hello Love,
***Soul Devotion, a 6 month intuitive, spiritual coaching journey is here! I've been hinting and now it is official. Imagine a personal mystery school tailored to your soulful, creative, life expression. Details and links are below, but first a story about how I lost and then found my own Soul
Devotion.***
When I was little I made an altar by my bed. It included various precious things to my little girl heart but the shining focus was the plaster Jesus given at my baptism and a small bowl of holy water I made myself.
I loved that statue, I still do. It is a bit chipped and missing the satin cape, but
it brings me peace.
Oh, and holy water, that was the most magical thing ever to my young imagination! I looked forward to reaching up and dipping my fingers in the bowl at the entrance to church for Sunday Mass, making the sign of the cross and feeling special, more holy. I wanted that feeling all the time. The calm the nuns had and the peace I saw in the Holy Mother tenderly
looking down over the rows and rows of flickering candles at her feet. One day I snuck the little Jesus from my mother’s things and a bowl of water from the kitchen. I said my version of a blessing over the water, more of a wish really, and arranged my special things on the table next to my bed. In the
morning I knelt in front of my altar, crossed myself with my magical, holy water, gazing at a Jesus that was a child like me. Then off to school I went, feeling close to God. Feeling like the kind of person who could become one of the nuns that lived in a special house and wore special robes and had a special life.
I felt what it was to touch the sacred
within. When I got home my altar was gone. My mother had taken it down. She told me I shouldn’t have gone into her things and taken the Jesus statue (true, but I felt the spiritual nature of the act would absolve me), and why did I have a bowl of water in my bedroom? I told her it was my altar like at church and it wasn’t just water, it was holy water. Surely she would let me
have everything back when she understood. “No it isn’t holy water" she said, "Only a priest can make holy water.” She went on to explain that I couldn’t just make an altar, I was a child, didn't know what I was doing. Only a priest could make holy water and no I could never be a priest, and that what I had done was wrong. I could not pretend at these things.
I was hurt, confused and angry. Why couldn’t I be a priest?
Why was it wrong to have my own sacred place? Why couldn’t I be holy? Why, because I was a girl, could I not be as close to God and as magical as a priest who could make water holy?
I had my first hit of spiritual shame.
That day I became separated from my organic spirituality. Spirituality became
something outside of me, something that needed sanctioning by someone with the right power and authority. Something I could be punished for if not done right or agreed with. Fear replaced curiosity and dogma replaced devotion.
But my Soul, my desire for true communion with the Divine, knowing myself as a part of the sacred mystery, continued to seek Her expression. After my mother broke up with Catholicism, there was
her immersion in born again Pentecostal Christianity and then in my late teens my rejection of organized religion altogether. Too many rules, too much fear, too much shame. What fallowed was a mixed bag of experiences and inner understanding. I began professionally reading Tarot. The concept of a Goddess was discovered in collage feminist spirituality classes. New Age workshops, channels, psychics, astrologists, meditation, therapy, books, books, and more books, personal development seminars and
more followed. Decades of seeking to find the natural connection and trust I had as a child creating and kneeling before that altar. But I still didn't feel myself. I didn’t start feeling whole and holy in my spirituality, in myself, until I stopped seeking and started deepening.
Deepening into my own body and wisdom. My creativity and desires. My truth and my questions. When I stopped trying to find the right beliefs to steer by and began going where my intuition and desire led me I found my spiritual authority again. Along with it came more wonder, deeper joy, more courage and bolder confidence, wilder creativity- my elemental nature. This is not to say that profound moments of divine connection did not happen at every step in my
path, because they did. Profound, ecstatic, beautiful, transcendent moments!
But, as long as my authority was outside of me, out in the world waiting to found, I could never fully settle into myself. Because someone could take it away if they didn’t approve.
Now my path of devotion is led by my soul and heart,
navigated by my intuition. It didn't happen all at once, and is always deepening into new layers of trust and expression. But it is inner sourced. No one outside of me can take it away or tell me I am doing it wrong. They may question or tell me I am wrong according to their ways, but they no have authority over my beliefs. I love and include wisdom and teaching from many different places including my past religious experiences. However, now it is all about why
I follow, learn, embrace the teachings and experiences I do rather than acquiescing to them.
My devotional journey is as unique as my fingerprint and as intimate as my heart beat. It is my teacher and challenger as well as my deep well of nourishment and radiant expression. It is Tarot and oracles. Writing, painting, intuition, my body, knitting and making. Luscious Life, ceremonial cacao, Dr. Who, Coach and Tami Taylor and Tim Riggins, deep conversations with out time limits, Goddess and God, laying on the earth, flowers, tea, gardens, incense and smoke offerings, my marriage, girl friends,
champagne, good purses, the ever changing perfect color of lipstick. A good cry, whether from sorrow or joy. Beauty. The moon. Ritual. Altars.
Because your devotional journey is as unique to you as your fingerprint, as your heart beat, Soul Devotion was created. A 6 month intuitive, spiritual, coaching journey customized to your deeper longings. To bring you back
to your organic spiritual, elemental self. Whether your path leads to a more eclectic or traditional form of expression, whether you label it spiritual, creative, or something else, if you are longing for more embodied devotional life, a return home to your self, this may be perfect for you. Has your curiosity has been aroused? If you feel a pull to know more even if you don't know why, you can get the details here on my website, or please be in touch. Click the button below and send me note. I would love to explore with you what your Soul Devotion might be. With love for your expression of Soul Devotion,
Sandi
A bit of oracle wisdom:
Sea Rocket- Adaptive Power from Plant Ally Deck by Lisa McLoughlin
Can you feel the change in tides?
The inevitable shift in energy and flow that carries us from one stage to another. The Solstice is so very near, the time when the tipping point of energies is tangible.
In the Northern Hemisphere were are in the full glory of the light and sun, while the Southern Hemisphere is in the depth of the dark, potent mysteries of the night. Two sides of the same earth, polarity, yin and yang. One necessary for the other. There is powerful magic and strength in your willingness and born ability to adapt to the shift and change upon you. To do so you must be current with the season you are in, the tides as they are. Not where you were or where you want to be but knowing
the yang to your yin is supporting you. Being here, now, dark or light, is the essence of adaptive power.
I love sharing my musings with you. If you know someone who might enjoy these words, would you share? I am ever so greateful! :
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