When I first embarked upon this spiritual path – I was obsessed. I’m not even kidding! I was obsessed and crazed by spirit and wanted to share everything I was experiencing with everyone. The only thing more important to me than sparking up spiritual conversations – was my alter. I made sure to have my alter, or puja, set up wherever I was living at the time to ensure I had a place to pray daily.
Mind you – during this time I was out of school and my only responsibility was to teach enough yoga classes to make my loan payments each month. So, I had time each day to sit and pray in the same spot on my meditation cushion without fail. Since then, things have changed...
Not for the worse, but things have changed in my life where it’s not always possible that I make it to that same spot on my meditation cushion each day. I have responsibilities, a household to maintain, multiple jobs and clients that need tending, and my own self-care practices. So when do I get to talk to spirit?
It’s been an adjustment and it’s taken a lot of spiritual maturing (that is still going on), but now I talk to spirit always – in all things that I do. I’m sitting here right now on my couch in the study, looking out the window at the golden glimmer of a winter sunset as it rests on the grass across the street – and I took a moment to feel the love I have for spirit and the gratitude I have for all of its creation – for us to witness and marvel at.
I’ve finally realized that spirit doesn’t only live on my alter, and in fact, it never did. Spirit lives in my heart and I can keep an open-ended conversation with it always in every flutter of inspiration, warming insight, gratitude, and joy. Feelings that spark from the heart. So, anyways, this past weekend I took the pieces that made up my alter and scattered them about my house. Little prayer cards of la fatima, hand-made ceramic crosses from Portugal, rose-quartz crystals, and incense now live in different rooms as reminders to pray and give thanks. Sticks of palo santo, magnolia essential oils, buddha statues, and rosewood carvings of the Qilin usher me back to that place within my heart.
I used to cry when it felt like the world wanted me to grow-out-of my spirituality – now I know it was nudging me toward a life where spiritual practice was incorporated into everything I do, everywhere.
Thank you, Spirit, for always being with me. “There are two ways of spreading light; to be the candle or the mirror that reflects it.”