Last night I sat down to write, but the inner muse had other plans for me. I felt the need or desire to pray so I started looking through my books for resources. I have a mixture of spiritual books. On the so-called normal spectrum, I have a Catholic bible, Christian based devotionals and prayer books. On the eastern spectrum, I have Buddhism, Taoist, and Yoga books. Then on the so-called fringe of society, I have my pagan books from magick and herbs to pagan lore and history to specific cultures such as the Romans and Celtics.
After glancing through my books, the one that caught my eye was the Celtic Devotional: Daily Prayers and Blessings written by Caitlin Matthews. If you are interested in the Celtic lore and are tired of half the pagan fluff out there, then you might enjoy this book. The author organizes the book by season with suggested activities and morning/evening devotionals. For example during Beltane or the summer months, she suggests that you walk and meditate outdoors for at least half an hour daily. While I may not walk every day, I do get out and tend to my garden (which is another one of her suggested activities for the summer months). What makes her book stand out of the crowd from my other devotional books is that she beautifully weaves Celtic based prayer with along with areas for you to insert your own personal prayers. She also had a solar/lunar question for you to ponder on for each day of the month.
So with my devotional book in one hand and a cup of tea in the other, I sat down for some spiritual time away from the distractions of my pc. To me, spiritual time is an essential element of my life. Without it, I start to feel like I am losing myself as silly as it might sound.
During the devotion, I started to realize that I didn’t really have a sacred spot in my home dedicated to just the spiritual element of my life. I do have mini altars set up throughout my home, but they are intergraded into other parts of my life. And while I do believe that you should be able to pray just about any where, I also realize that it helps the mind to focus and center if you create a sacred spot devoted just to that activity. For example, wouldn’t you feel weird going to church if they had computers set up everywhere? Well, I take that back on second thought my boyfriend would probably love it. Seriously though, it is difficult to center one’s thoughts for spiritual time and prayer if you are busy surfing the web even if it is spiritual sites. Considering that we have a computer in both of our main living areas, I decided that the best spot would be our bedroom.
I partially think that I have been intuitively designing a spiritual spot on our bedroom in the back of my mind for awhile now. In the past couple of weeks, I have placed all of our spiritual books and our apothecary in there. Since most of our spiritual items were already in the bedroom, it didn’t take a lot of work to finish arranging the area. I lit some candles and incense to add some ambiance. I also filled my oil diffuser with purity oil to cleanse the room. As I prepared to bless the room, the cats got excited and came to see what I was doing. They both enjoy the spiritual element. Brian even took a second away from his computer to come see what I was doing.
I probably spent a good two hours just focused on the spiritual element last night, and it felt really good. I even made a list of prayer ideas (aka the ways I communicate with god): gardening, lighting candles/incense, Celtic devotional, blessing the path prayer, stretching/yoga, pastel journal, walking, dancing, tea time. While this list is not complete, it does give you an idea that I embrace my spiritual as an active part of my life. Personally, I think it is important for people to embrace their spirituality and have the ability to communicate to God in whatever way they feel comfortable in doing. God is all around us, and all you have to do is open the door.
