Made One At A Time,  the Old Fashion Way

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A personal home altar can be a point of focus for your spirituality.  In these increasingly perilous times the only real defense is a mind well grounded in compassion and love. 

 An altar can be used for healing, manifesting or meditation.  They symbolize an area where you honor wisdom, providing you with a profound, illuminating dharma teaching.

 We might consider our formal altar space to be the most sacred of all places in our home.  These altars were made so you can close the it for privacy.  Also the drawer is large enough to store small offering bowls, incense, or other altar supplies. 

I am a disabled individual and building altars is a work of love on my part.  Each altar is hand made with pride, one at a time, the old fashion way, in my woodworking shop.

Like the tree from which it comes, wood is associated in many cultures with the sacred, for the tree was often the dwelling place of the god or goddess. In China, wood is one of the five elements. It corresponds to the east and to spring, to nature and manifestation. In the Celtic tradition, wood signified learning in all of its aspects, the Irish alphabet, therefore, was carved only in wood. In all the Celtic languages, the words for “learning” and “wood” share the same root. (not a pun)
Many people build their altars out of wood or on wood simply because it is of nature, its presence gives testimony to the greater cycle of life.
 

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Creating Home Sanctuaries with Feng Shui: Sacred Spaces, Altars, and Shrines   by Shawne Mitchell, Stephanie Gunning Using this book, you will discover how every room in your home can become a place to increase serenity, mindfulness, and expression, reduce stress, and build harmony. It provides an easy-to-follow, seven-step process for building personal retreats, altars, and shrines. You will learn how to identify a location, cleanse and sanctify the area, evaluate the balance of energy, assemble materials, and energize their intentions. Specific chapters are devoted to communal rooms, intimate spaces, zones of creativity, and contemplative environments. Hundreds of practical tips and suggestions, insightful stories, and life lessons are included.

Altars Made Easy : A Complete Guide To Creating Your Own Sacred Space  by Peg Streep Altars are everywhere. In executive suites and private homes, in restaurants and gardens – whether religious in focus or not – people are reinventing the altar in new and imaginative ways. From a simple cherished photo surrounded by candles and shells that serves to attract the eye and draw the mind into gentle contemplation, to a more elaborate expression of personal style, altars bring peace and a place of beauty into daily life. In this first complete handbook on altars, Peg Streep shows readers how to use specific materials, colours, symbols, imagery, scents, crystals, music, and more to create their own personal altars. Streep covers the history, symbolism, and different types of the altar and provides detailed and fully illustrated guidance for anyone to create and enjoy sacred space. A discussion of offerings and rituals, along with a handy resource section, make this volume definitive, Altars Made Easy, makes the process simple and fun.

Tibetan Buddhist Altars : A Pop-Up Gallery of Traditional Art and Wisdom by Tad Wise, Robert Beers, David A. Carter Wise, who brought us Tibetan prayer flags in a gift box with "Blessings on the Wind," offers another treat for grownups who are interested in Tibetan Buddhist practice. This pop-up book features five colorful Tibetan altars, such as might be found in a home or monastery. Wise and Beer encourage readers to use the book as a devotional tool, finding a quiet space and spreading the book (which opens with two "doors" from the center of the cover, like a temple) to the appropriate pop-up for meditation. Each pop-up page includes a mantra to recite as well as a glorious three-dimensional image of Green Tara, Shakyamuni Buddha, Avalokiteshvara, Manjushri, or the Medicine Buddha. All five embody different spiritual qualities and can be called upon in various times of need--Medicine Buddha in case of sickness, for example, or Green Tara to protect the devotee from fear, Shakyamuni Buddha inspires morality and reflection, Padmapani Avalokiteshvara teaches compassion, Manjushri inspires knowledge and wisdom. This gallery of art and wisdom offers unique, multidimensional meditation. Traditionally, meditation on Tibetan Buddhist deities allows the practitioner to assimilate their divine qualities. This colorful collection of three-dimensional renderings of traditional thangka paintings and brief histories. Both practical and whimsical, this one-of-a-kind gift book is sure to be a hit with both followers of Buddhism and lovers of art alike.

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