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Earth-centered Spirituality: Pagan, Wiccan, Druid, Native American, Other

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I first started making alters without knowing that's what they were. One of our Unitarian Universalist gatherings was about the ways many cultures encourage alters for many things, such as:

  • celebration
  • remembrance
  • mourning
  • setting intentions
  • acknowledging emotions
  • honoring victories won
  • releasing burdens
  • as a meditative practice
I now have several in my home though to visitors they just look like a random collection of things. a candle, feather, minerals and rocks, leaves, sticks, herbs, and pictures and so comforting to me. Pinterest has many wonderful images of people's alters. YouTube has many people talking about their alters and how they do them.

I'm so happy to find so many others here sharing. This thread is as I hoped it would be. Thank you all for that.

My favorite alter is very simple, just a statue of the Goddess, a feather, a stone, a shell. Every time I look at it I feel comforted knowing I am deeply connected to a boundless universe and all living things.
 
I used to watch Super Soul Sunday occasionally. I don't have cable now but anyway.... One of the visitor's on the show said when she talk to God she called him the endearment Boo. And I thought how interesting to make God more personal and through my mind for the next couple days I tried different endearments and nothing I tried "felt" right, yet I couldn't shake wondering even asking what would you like to be called. That night H picked me up from work and we stopped in a Chinese place for dinner. When I opened my fortune cookie there was only one word... Love.
I felt it at that moment God answered my question. God is Love.
I've never gotten a fortune cookie before or since with one word and it will go on my alter.
 
My alter has family photos (the ones who did not abuse me, of course!) and some personal items that were unique to certain family members. It is by where I eat, since I hate eating alone and would prefer to eat with family at best. So that was why I made it that way. I think I will add some other things to it, since I have not done so recently. Thanks, everyone, for the reminder!

I have a special rock collection in one of my aquariums of all my polished rocks that come from around the world. They are mostly all colorful and beautiful. I sometimes mistake one of my fish who likes to lay on the bottom of the tank for one of the rocks, but then he will move and I remember he is the true focus of the tank! :) The rocks come in at a close second though.
 
I want to share an experience I had when I was in my early 20s, which would have taken place during the 1980s or so. I went looking in an old dump with my sister for antique bottles. We were digging around when I sensed that a spirit was hovering over us watching us. I said "Hello" in my best way I knew how, which was not exactly in words and was mentally or spiritually done.

This spirit explained that it was his job to take care of the land and the area where we were doing our searching. He helped the land by giving it energy and such. He was its protector and he did not mind our looking for bottles, though often he did feel that humans were disturbing the area. (I assume by dumping garbage and non-biodegradable things into it). However, it was an old dump, not often used any longer, and so humans did not often come there. (Who knows, but maybe he was lonely).

He said that he was part of a whole network of such spirits that cared for the earth, the whole earth. They were appointed by the great Spirit and were all doing the best they could, but humans were making it difficult at best. At worst, we were destroying our world. I suggested that maybe some kind of plan could be devised that would keep humans out of the most whid areas of the planet. They agreed that this was a good idea.

I assume they are still working on that. But I have lost touch with him, so I don't know. However, more and more areas have been bought by both governmental agencies and private corporations such as The Nature Conservancy to protect wild areas, especially wetlands, so maybe they have been inspiring humans to do these things, or maybe we have just come to our senses a bit and are doing these things on our own.

The one thing that scares me the most in climate change. I have seen it where I live way out in the mountains even. Temperatures are hotter here than when I moved here even five years ago. I don't know if this is just a natural trend and revert back eventually, or if it is truly greenhouse gases, but it sure is scary! I have also suspected that the vast and widespread act of fracking by huge oil and gas companies could well be contributing to it. The release of methane gases by them into the air while fracking is something that concerns me....

The spirit gave me a gift, just to prove to me that he was real. One second it was not there, and the next it was. It was a purple tinted antique bottle! I cherish that memory and I cherished the bottle. Unfortunately it came up missing during one of my many moves. I have lived in so many places since then, now being in my mid-60s.
 
Trauma isn't carried ----in---- our genes, it's carried ----on---- our genes. That is, trauma doesn't change our genes/genome themselves/itself (i.e. The gene/nucleotide sequence) but does effect how genes are expressed------trauma effects our epigenome. These effects are shown to continue on for multiple generations in rats. It's scary to know that trauma can be passed down through generations through the epigenome------whereas the common misperception is that if you don't abuse/mistreat/traumatized your kids then the trauma effects stop with you. I'm pretty sure that I suffer effects from trauma that happened to my parents.

I didn't know trauma effected telomere length. Telomeres are naturally shortened as we age but I didn't know that trauma increased this shortening process.
 
Trauma isn't carried ----in---- our genes, it's carried ----on---- our genes. That is, trauma doe...
@EveHarrington
I have heard this life shortening theory presented on Ted Talks and others. I have difficulty believing that traumas in themselves shorten our life span. I lean more towards how each individual processes their trauma(s).
You talk to someone eighty and ninety years old and I'm willing to bet some have had some pretty horrendous traumas in their lives.
For example, there are people who survived the holocaust and travel to talk and educate people regarding that terrible period in our history. They are easily in their eighties and nineties.
On the other hand I have heard of women (there are men as well I'm sure) who during their last weeks of life, dying of cancer, confess to their daughters their physical and sexual abuse. Never speaking a word before. One ex friendship of mine, she would tell me this if I ever started to reflect on my past. Her mom died young leaving behind toddlers to be raised by older siblings. This person being one of them who raised her younger brothers and sisters. The repeated rape was by her mothers brother who this woman knew and couldn't imagine Uncle so and so doing such things. She believed her mother. She said it with such pride and awe that her mother was so strong and never discussed it before. Personally I found it so very sad. I saw a woman longing her whole life to talk about something and was too afraid and her abuser stayed in her and her children's lives. It tormented her so much she could not die without speaking the words.
I have to wonder if she did speak up and work through it, maybe she would have had a longer life.
This of course is only my speculation. But still it is something to think about.

That being said I don't totally disbelieve the gene theory. I think people who have had trauma severe enough to effect their genes could possibly make their children more susceptible to to reacting to traumas in specific ways that someone born to parents who never suffered trauma and if they experience trauma could possibly handle it more effectively.
That is just ramblings in my mind however and nothing specific has been studied or proven.
 
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My dad was 88 when he died, and he told me that his first memory was of being beaten by his father for picking his nose. Every day after that until he left home at age 18 to join the Navy, he was beaten by his father repeatedly. 88 is a good old ripe age, as far as I am concerned. He is just one person in a mountain of folks who have been abused, but we need to measure this against his father's age at death, which was 102. So my Dad died at a much younger age than did his father. His mother died young, however, I think she may only have been in her 70s. She had a brain tumor. Just some facts for you all....
 
Let's get this thread back on-topic, please.

How do you do smudging? I want to smudge my home but I have never done so.
 
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