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Earth Altars

6/30/2016

 
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"...beauty emerges from selection, affinities, integration, love." Louis Kahn, architect,1901-1974

Several years ago, Amber and I backpacked over a pass in Tucson's Catalina Mountains. Dropping into the top of a stream-carved canyon, we set up camp by a waterfall above an inaccessible pool. At the far edge of the pool, on a large flat rock, the makings of a fire had been laid. Bundles of twigs, broken into even lengths, neatly stacked. Tinder surrounded by the scaffolding of a fire that sat unlit. I could see no path to the rock; there were no signs of who had prepared the fire or why.

I've remained enchanted by this unexpected sight, returning to it often in my mind's eye when I need to connect to something bigger than the the stress of daily life and the distress of injustice and suffering. 

On the first day of our recent camping trip, along the banks of Oregon's magical McKenzie River, I found myself drawn to a flat rock, inspired to pause. To take in the beauty, and to reflect it back. To notice what called to me, to bring those items into some kind of relation with each other and with myself in an act of silent devotion. As I selected bits of moss and lichen, and assembled them with cedar and pine cones around a volcanic rock, I decided to create an earth altar at some point on each day of our trip.

The next day found us southbound, stopping at the Roseburg cemetery that houses the bones of Amber's grandfather, a pilgrimage Amber had made with her own Dad just a year before. As Amber cleared the matted grass from his grave marker and washed it, I collected fallen plums and leaves from a nearby tree. 

The next day, in our campsite deep in the California redwoods, I leaned into a chest-high burl to create an altar honoring my friend Marcy, at the same moment as our community was gathering around her grave back in Portland to mark the year anniversary of her death.

An altar ended up decorating each of our succession of campsites. Others, I fashioned during a pause from a hike through the woods, on a river's edge, or by the ocean.

My favorite site of all was the wild spit of sand at the mouth of the Klamath River where the salmon swim in from the Pacific, a sacred place of abundance tended since the beginning of remembered time by the Yurok People. While hundreds view this rugged place from a state park overlook everyday, we were the only ones down on the beach itself, given access by the Yurok family that operates the historic inn we'd happened upon. 

Every piece of driftwood, every water-worn rock and tattered seed pod and piece of flotsam felt alive. Intertwining those moments of my life with the fingers and toes of the natural world felt like a form of praise. In each of those settings, for the minutes I spent making an altar, I felt deeply at peace, deeply at home.



For inspiration on earth altars that are true works of art, check out morningaltars and the work of Andy Goldsworthy.

24 Points of Light

6/24/2016

 
PictureView from my desk: stars for my Dad, Marcy & Bill
When I arrived at the Orphan Wisdom School earlier this spring, my friend and classmate Carrie Stearns said she had something to give me.

Carrie knew that the lack of a funeral for my Dad 15 years ago was part of what had drawn me to my work as a Celebrant, and that my friend Marcy's death a year ago was still much on my mind and heavy in my heart.

In the envelope she handed me were two richly colored paper stars she'd made: one for my Dad, one for Marcy. She said she'd be making one for Bill too, my friend who lay dying back home as we gathered in the Ottawa Valley.

Carrie started making these window stars with her daughters when they were little, at the start of every winter. "We would adorn many windows in our home with these star-shaped beams of light and beauty and also give them as gifts at Christmas time," she says. "I have taught many friends young and old to make these and everyone seems to find joy and meaning in the process. Now my daughters are off to explore life away from home and my practice of star making has evolved to include making them as a way of remembering and honoring a beloved one who has died."

I brought the stars home to Bill's house and taped them to the window across from his bed. I wondered aloud whether my Dad and Marcy along with all of his ancestors might be waiting to gather him in, and told him that a star for him would adorn my window in time. Those stars watched over a beautiful procession of close friends and family sharing sacred time around his bed.

Two weeks later, Bill died. I left the stars on his windows for a few weeks more. One day it felt like time to bring them home to my house, just a block away. I took them off his windows and carried them with me through the business of my day. When I arrived home, I put the key in the door and reached into the mailbox. An envelope from Carrie. Bill's star, ready to join the other two on my window.

"It is said that we are made of star dust… stars evoke this beautiful sense of mystery," writes Carrie. "They call to me to wonder and to remember and to wonder some more. When a beloved one dies in our culture we are not strong in the skill of grieving, remembering, and carrying them. Making a star in honor of one who has died and placing it in a window where light can touch it is a way of calling forth their beauty and presence among us. The beauty of these stars has a way catching my attention and encourages me to pause and to follow the path of my remembering."

May the story of the stars Carrie crafted for my beloveds inspire others to make star beauty and to practice remembrance.  

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Resources for Making Window Stars
Carrie says, Sites for instructions are many. Here are a couple for a very basic star, which is a good starting place:
Wee Folk Art web-based tutorial
Duo Fiberworks web-based tutorial
Window Stars, the book Carrie most recommends

To order the kite paper (there is also a video tutorial on this page)

Read Carrie's moving account of her partner Sarah's death, The Brilliance of Dying, published on my blog in 2014.

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  • Holly Pruett Celebrant LLC – Creative Life Ceremonies from Cradle to Grave
  • Certified Life-Cycle Celebrant ® | Funeral & Wedding Officiant | Interfaith Minister
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