magic – Page 2 – Alison Leigh Lilly

I've created many altars, shrines and ritual spaces over the years. Each expressed the unique needs and aspirations of who I was at the time of its creation, and each balanced the limits of my living space with the potential for aesthetic and spiritual engagement. For these have all been living spaces — spaces that were alive with their own energies and moods, spaces that shaped my understanding of myself and sculpted me into new forms even as I organized and cleansed and decorated and invariably made a mess of them in an ever-repeating cycle. House-hunting in Seattle has put me in mind of these many different sacred spaces, and what new altars I will craft as I make a home for myself on the shores of a new ocean. So, while I'm nursing my jet lag and scrambling to pack, I thought this week might be a good opportunity to take a look back at some of those altars of old as I dream of inspiration for new ones yet to come.

My first customer of the morning was a disheveled-looking woman with suitcases and overflowing canvas tote bags piled up around her in the tiny booth where she sat sipping her coffee and fingering an unlit cigarette back and forth across her knuckles. The waitress from the midnight shift shrugged and shook her head. "It's not like she's out of her right mind or anything..." I glanced at the woman grinning dreamily across the dining room. "When she came in, she threw up her arms in the air in a bear-hug," my manager chimed in, "I thought she was going to attack you!" I walked a fresh pot of coffee over and topped off her mug. The woman winked. "It's cold enough out there to shiver my timbers!" I smiled. "That's what we're here for," I said, gesturing gently with the steaming pot.

Tag: magic

Altars: A Showcase

These Holy Days