An Altar Can Transform Your Garden
by Madis Senner
During the summer season I get lots of queries from people on what they can to do transform their garden into a spiritual garden. There are many things one can do, but the easiest is to build an altar in your garden. A simple altar, whether a stone circle or a statue, will help raise the vibe of your garden and make it more inviting and healing.
You need a Sanctuary
Before I talk about building an altar, you need to consider why you should have an altar or a spiritual garden for that matter. All of us need a sanctuary, a place where we can relax, heal and contemplate life’s bigger questions.
So much of our time is spent in environments that are unfriendly—places where bad things have happened, or where negativity or pressure to perform dominates, or where technologies such as cell phones and other electrical gadgets have microwaved Mother Earth and created dead spots, or worse. Such environments deplete us of energy and even consciousness. Over time, a particularly bad environment will begin to affect your health. Dowsers talk about cancer houses where detrimental energies are found that can facilitate cancer. I believe that all illness is related to our disconnect from Mother Earth, either we are in an area where she has been damaged or we are not properly processing her energies and essences.
A sanctuary will help reverse the affects of spending time in a negative environment. It can help re-vitalize you and recharge your energy body. A sanctuary can help purge you of the negativity that you may have picked up during the day such as negative thought forms that can attach to our subtle body from the environment or others. They are places that can help elevate your mood and reduce the need to self medicate.
Creating an altar
An altar can be whatever you want: a stand with some books, a plot of garden flowers, a circle of stones, a stone prayer bench. The most important decision is the decision to have an altar area. Once you make this decision and go forward with it, you are planting a seed, a seed of consciousness that you will be feeding with your thoughts, intentions, actions, prayers and meditations. Over time this seed thought will begin blossoming and blossoming from all your intentions and grow bigger and bigger. Formally consecrating your altar with a ceremony will help develop with this transformation.
The sage Swami Vivekananda who introduced the Eastern traditions (Vedanta, Hinduism) to the west in the later half of the 19th century believed that we should have a room dedicated solely to spiritual practices. He said such a room should have flowers and pleasant pictures, and that incense should be burned there in the morning and in the night.
He said that by treating the room as holy, it will become holy, “Have no quarrel or anger or unholy thought in that room. Only allow those persons to enter it who are of the same thought as you. Then gradually there will be an atmosphere of holiness in the room, so that when you are miserable, sorrowful, or doubtful, or when your mind is disturbed, if you then enter the room you will feel peace…The fact is that by preserving spiritual vibrations in a place you make it holy.”
An altar area of a garden can become like the holy room that Swami Vivekananda talks about. Treat it as being holy. Pray there, meditate there, read scripture there.
I would suggest initially marking your altar area with a stone boundary. This will reinforce your intention through the physical action of creating the stone boundary. It will also serve as a reminder to you that you have an altar area each time that you see the stones; thought is power. It will also help you adhering to Swami Vivkenanda’s suggestion to keep it holy and have no negative thoughts or actions within it.
Location, Location, Location
Where you place your altar will have a strong influence on how it will affect you. Placing it on some ley lines (http://wisdom-magazine.com/Article.aspx/1688/) and it will help raise your consciousness and help with answers. Place it near an earth chakra or some other energy feature and it will help with your energy level and nourish your physical body.
As much as location will impact your results, I would be more concerned with creating it. Again it is the seed thought of your intention to create an altar that you will be building upon.
Secondly, your relationship with your garden and with Mother Earth will evolve over time and this will naturally lead to changes, meaning that where your altar is today may be totally different next year, or you may add other spiritual aspects to your garden. We have a dynamic relationship with Mother Earth; she responds to our ovations. Most of us have been to places where the vibe was great and that vibe developed over time. Your altar will begin raising the vibe of your altar area, your garden and even your house. ( See my Working With Stone Series Videos on YouTube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SP16L4h__wU&feature=mfu_in_order&list=UL and http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fKlNmgda4PM&feature=BFa&list=ULSP16L4h__wU&index=14 )
As the vibe of your garden rises several things will begin to happen. You will begin to develop sentience of Mother Earth and she will begin revealing herself. Just as looking within ourselves brings answers, intuitions and revelations, so too will an altar area of a garden do the same with Mother Earth, only the fruit will be a greater awareness of her and your garden.
Over time your garden and relationship with Mother Earth will evolve. Because of this I tell people not to build large megaliths or structures since you may wish to change your initial design to emphasize other aspects of Mother Earth in your garden. My garden has evolved over the years and continues to evolve and its physical appearance is constantly changing. Change and growth are one of the features of being on the path; it is no different when you are on the path with Mother Earth.
While location is not the paramount decision in choosing where to build an altar, I would try and place it on a ley line (spirit line, line of consciousness, see my report on ley lines at: http://www.jubileeinitiative.org/gaiassoul4.html) or intersection of ley lines. I say this because ley lines carry consciousness and consciousness feeds your soul while energy feeds your physical body.
Build an Altar
Summer is upon us. Think about how nice it would be to go to your garden and heal and replenish yourself after a long day. Imagine sitting there in a quiet contemplative mind and all of sudden some intuition or insight comes to you answering a question that you have been thinking about for some time. Experience joy, happiness and serenity overcoming you. All is possible within an altar area of your garden.
My website www.motherearthprayers.org has lots of information about working with Mother Earth. There you will find articles and videos on working with stone structures, Mother Earth’s cosmology and much more.
Make this a summer to remember. Build an altar in your garden.
Vivekananda, Swami; Raja Yoga; Page 32; Ramakrishna-Vivekananda Center, New York, 1973
Madis Senner provides consulting services on Mother Earth, creating sacred space, clearing space, surveys and more. He is author of The Way Home—Making Heaven on Earth (O-books) that details the mystical world, our dynamic relationship with each other and Mother Earth and how our collective thoughts/consciousness works to create our reality. He is currently leading a campaign to save Spirit House, a nationally registered historic home that was a Mecca of Spiritualism in the 19th century (www.spirithousesociety.org.) He also has a website dedicated to Mother Earth and sacred sites in upstate NY where he believes her soul resides (www.motherearthprayers.org.)
1 Comments Add Comment