ALTAR-ed

So much happens in the two weeks between my posts. Heart-breaking and heart-opening events strangely coexist, stretching my capacity to abide with such extremes and turning me inward towards the only shore that makes a holy difference … that of my heart. One of my anchors is making and tending altars, a practice I have done ever since I was a child. I have different-themed ones in my study, most rooms of our home, a receiving altar in our entryway where I put gifts the first day they are given to us, on my car dashboard, in the apiary, and on the land. All of them are beautiful reminders of what is in my living field of focus and sacred intent.

My bee sanctuary is a place of solace and renewal for me. From the time I was first with-bee in 2005, I have found refuge there, soothed by the smell of new comb and the thrumming humming soundscape. I have read the bees poetry and played Karsilama and Masmoodi for them on my frame drum; I have shared stories and brought the news … and I have emptied my mind to hear theirs. I have wept over the death of friends, legged and winged, and for some of the great sorrowing in the world. I marvel as these mistresses of alchemy transmute the nectar of millions of flowers from the gardens, fields and forest into honey and also wax, the sacred sacraments of the hive. Their alchemical magic also inspires and heals me. So what some call a beeyard, I know as a sanctuary (and sometimes a sanctuario because the sound of that word comes closer to how I feel there).

I used to do public talks on women’s ways in the apiary, heart-centric practices focused not on honeybees as commerce but on our relationship with them as holy beings. Women’s yards are often suffused with beauty in the form of painted hives, little shrines everywhere, and precious things hung on posts, trees and gates … all of this an outwardly beautiful form of enlivened prayer for the well-being of the bees and all life.

I also have a central altar down by the Coquelicot¹ colony. It is presided over by a green springstone goddess carved by a Zimbabwean artist. At her feet are hundreds of specials that have accumulated there over two decades: marbles, shells, beads, rocks, glass, jewelry, buttons, flowers and the fossilized inner ear of a whale. All have meaning to me or to other people. And sometimes when bees die, I have laid their bodies to rest beside her.

The sanctuary has also been a destination for hundreds of colorful ribbons which my friend Layne Redmond brought back from Brazil. These wish ribbons are from the church Senhor do Bonfim in Salvador, Bahia. People tie the blessed ribbons (three times, one prayer per knot) onto the church gates. They flutter in the wind like thousands of tiny flags. The devoted also wear them for luck on their wrists and ankles. Many people have also come here as pilgrims to tie a wish ribbon on a trellis near the bees. Last year I also tied a ribbon on branches, bushes and plants all over our land for each day that a friend had chemotherapy and before that for another who was going through treatment associated with multiple myeloma.

When my husband Joe and I lived outside of Santa Fe, New Mexico, we became friends and family with a very beautiful Tuscarora elder named Ted Williams from New York (before we all ended up in North Carolina). He occasionally mailed marbles to me to put out on the land for the Little People² (serious magical business for both of us). I tucked them into the bark of piñon trees, in the hardy grasses beside the arroyo, and near cactus and other desert plants. I have continued this tradition on our land here in the mountains. Marbles sit beside the roots of tulip poplar and white pine trees, on moss underneath rocks and in small Turkish bowls set in the woods … all of these at Little People height.

Joe is a retired stonemason and when Covid arrived at our shores, he built what is now called Joe’s Great Wall. He was initially inspired to feature some Oriental poppies he had planted, but as often happens the project got bigger and seven tons of stone later (for real), the final creation emerged. It snakes along the whole length of our house with a curved seating area in the middle and steps on the far end. He also created four arched alcoves because he knows I am a lover of altars and little temples.

When I travelled in Europe in the 70’s, I fell in love with wayside shrines along roads, often populated by a figure of Mary or Jesus. Some were freestanding and others were nichos (which is Spanish for niches and a word I picked up from living in New Mexico) … a hollow in a wall where people put statues and relics they can take comfort in and pray to.

Over time, each of the four recessed spaces in Joe’s wall have revealed a theme, beginning with when the war broke out in the Ukraine. We have beloved friends who had a small farm about an hour from a city they could hear being bombed every day. I started to keep long-burn devotional candles lit there, a choice which has continued, candle by candle, over the last three years. What started as a focus on that troubled country has now expanded to a prayer for peace in many (and far too many) other conflicted parts of the world. At this point, it is also dedicated to healing the warring and duality that exists between and within people, including myself. What is very alive for me there is one of my favorite poems by Jalal al-Din Rumi: You’re clutching with both hands / to this myth of “you” and ”I” / Our whole brokenness is because of this … words I find especially relevant in these times.

A second alcove is home to the Hindu god Ganesha who is patron of the arts and remover of obstacles. A sculpture of him resides there, carved by a mason we met while walking up a trail on Arunachala mountain in Tamil Nadu, India. That is my Emergency Room, where I light candles for people who are sick or in crisis and for beginning new projects or chapters of life. Ganesha has long felt like a brother to me. Two summers ago, a copperhead snake chose to wrap itself around Ganesha’s head for a few days, just at a critical point in a friend’s cancer journey … a friend I am thankful to say is still with us in form.

The Virgen de Guadalupe has taken up residence in the third nicho in the form of a statue that Joe bought me for my 50^th birthday (whose chin never set in the concrete mold and gives her a look I really like). Uncle Ted always talked about the profound importance of giving thanks and this space is infused with one of his mantras: Let us awaken to our duty to always be thankful. This is where gratitude is vibrantly alive. I particularly love making offerings at Our Lady’s feet.

The last nicho is dedicated to community: to the people that live on this land (humans and others), to those who come and go … and in this moment, to you dear reader. A small wooden bird is perched there (a gift from our friend Shruthi Veena Vishwanath who I believe helps sing the world into being) and there is also a plaque that I bought in Iznik, Turkey which says: hoş geldiniz. Welcome. To everyone.

Sometimes all four wall spaces are brightly burning. More often, it will be the beyond-duality altar and one other, depending on what is going on in my life and who is asking. People come, make prayers and leave items; others, both here and abroad, regularly ask for a candle to be lit for them for pretty much every reason you can imagine, including the unimaginable.

My laptop screen is also a working altar. I have images of different animals, votives, saints, creatives (and other rascals) on my desktop that I change out over time. Project files and people’s photos are in close proximity to them for a while and for specific reasons. Right now my Holy Mischief file is sitting in the lap of Ganesha. You get the idea. If having altars could be seen as an addiction, I am that person. Happy and unrepentant.

Creating and maintaining altars is a way of fostering connection, remembering what is important, enlivening my prayers, and tending a sacred space of beauty that I can rest in.
I wonder what you do? I would love to hear from you.

I am starting to get an inexplicable but very real and precious sense of “you” in these weekly Saturday posts and it is lovely. I can’t really explain that, but it fills my heart with gladness. If you are ever in this sector of the galaxy, please come by, light a candle in one of the nichos, make your offerings, and come in for a cup of tea or coffee. The kettle is on.

Have a good week.

❤️ Debra

THE LATEST FROM HOLY MISCHIEF

• This week’s MUSEings await to inspire you. Naomi Shihab Nye teaches us The Art of Disappearing and Jacob Collier and Chris Martin sing together with a 15,000 people live choir. So cool!

• We are thrilled to let you know that our first POP-UP space will happen in March on “altar making”. Stay tuned!

To enjoy MUSEings, our monthly zoom calls and pop-up invitations, please consider upgrading your subscription ❤️

1. Coquelicot means poppy in French. I name all my colonies, as do many of my fellow women beefrienders.

2. Little People are nature spirits, similar to the fairies in European myths.