Sacred Space

I personally feel no home is complete with out a little altar, a special corner of the house, a place of beauty, of calm, and of spirit. For some this may be filled with religious items from their faith, for others a collection of spiritual items that inspire them to live closer to earth. Whatever it is, a space like this will add so much to your home and your life. I hope to encourage you, dear readers, to create one! Allow me to share with you my own sacred space.

I have always had a little altar in every home of mine. Sometimes it is just a handful of seashells and some rocks, at other times it is an entire fireplace mantel filled with images, statues, candles, and incense. My sacred space is now currently a ROOM! Isn't that amazing? I am very blessed to have my own office and I love it dearly. While I have decorated the entire room to be a sanctuary for me away from my role of wife and mother, I have a special alter space in there as well.

I recently re-designed my altar for the first time in about 5 years. Even after moving into this new house I simply recreated the same alter space and it felt wrong. Stuck. Stagnant. NOT SPIRITUAL. It felt robotic and predictable, there was no flow or spirit to it. So I took everything down, cleaned the shelves, burnt some white buffalo sage and looked inwards for what I felt my heart needed to be remind of: Love, nature, mother, beauty.

I added a picture of me from when I was about 5 or 6 years old. I don't remember very much of my early childhood but I do remember always feeling very connected to spirituality, to the earth, and loving First Nations culture. My family was not religious in any way, yet I started collecting images of the Virgin Mary from a young age and read everything I could on native earth based religions. I think I looked to Mary as a mother figure, because mine was so absent. I saw in her the divine mother, mother earth, and connected her to the books I would read on the healing powers of nature and animals. The lovely Buddha statue was from a trip to Bali, my husband sneakily bought him for me while we were wandering in a public market. The other wooden statue was a gift from a dear friend and reminds me that I love yoga....so why the hell don't I do it more!?! LOL. The rocks are balanced to remind me to be calm, steady, focused, and zen so that I can connect and recharge.

I am a cancer and very much ruled by water, although ironically I am a horrible swimmer but I love the ocean and I love being in water, I have collected sea shells from all of my travels and have added some here to bring water to my space. The vertebrae bone was found in George, Washington while camping with my friends at a Dave Matthews concert (whoa that is like overload hippy isn't it?). We were exploring the canyon and found two of these bones, my best friend and I each took one home with us. For me it is a reminder that life is beautiful even in death, we all go back to the same source. The collage you see was a bit of a milestone moment for me. In college I used to make very ANGRY art, I would do collages on woman's rights and environmental/political issues that made me feel helpless and raged. The day I created this one was a turning point for me, I realized I could still care but still see the beauty in the world. Still love and laugh, that laughter would get me farther then anger.

The little apple you see there is my nod to Eve, the original rebellious wild woman! The crystals and rocks I have collected over the years and the spirit stone was another gift from my dear husband, to remind me that I am strong.

 

You will also see my abalone shell for smudging with sage, this is a very purifying and holy act. It cleanses the mind, body and soul and is very grounding. There is also my growing collection of herbs, essential oils, and healing supplies. 

This small little space has had a huge impact on me. I have placed it so that it is the first thing I see when I walk into my office, a daily reminder of the path I am on and why. When I feel the need for peace I light the bees wax candle and have a silent moment appreciating beauty. For someone who has spent most of her life being angry and fighting demons from her past, simply BEING is very healing.

Wander

source

Do you hear that?

Your soul is calling you

She is asking you to run like a wolf

Walk barefoot in the woods

Contemplate the way the sunlight
filters through the trees

Watch some birds

Gather some moss

Make a soft comfy spot

Sit

Stay awhile

She misses you

My Womanifesto

I am a warrior woman
I wear my battle scars on my body
With pride

source

My battle scars are the stretch marks
from creating life
My war paint is the bags under my eyes from comforting my child by the light of the moon
My battle cry is the howling of a she wolf
Who calls her children back to her through the tangle of the trees

source

My spirit is left wanting
By the 'girl' culture of our current society
My soul is left hungry
For a WOMAN culture where we can be ourselves

A place where I can raise my daughter without fear
Fear for what she is going to inherit from us
Or the lack there of

source

It took me 32 years to feel comfortable to write this
To think this
To LIVE this

source

32 years of trying to be the woman other people expected me to be
32 years of shoving my soul into a corner,
Telling it to be quiet
Then I became a mother
And I came into my true power
I heard my soul calling me for the first time

Now is the time to let my soul free
to listen to my guts
My womanly instincts

I want to live the true life I was meant to live
As a warrior woman
For my daughter
For myself
For all women

Learning About Sage: Part Two

If you read part one you will know I plan on cleansing my new house with sage, and a few other little tricks and treats I have up my sleeve. In part one I gathered my herbs (sage and lavender) and lay them out in the sun to dry and be blessed by the suns warm rays. Today we are going to make a smudge stick! I know, I know, so exciting: you must be jumping up and down and clapping your hands! No? That's just me? Well anyways...

The first step is to gather your herbs in a bundle and trim the ends to an even length.

 Gather them in a way that is easy to hold in one hand, as the other will be doing the wrapping. Wind some thread around the base, do quite a few rounds to get it all nice and secure.

Once you have a strong starting point you are going to wind the thread from BOTTOM to TOP like this:

When you get to the top turn around and do the same thing back down to the base, like this. You can do this step as many times as you want, in order to get the desired look you want. My first attempt was a little loose looking so I plan on doing a few more wraps of thread, it will burn better if it is nice and tight. Here is how it currently looks

Now you lay it out to dry for 4-5 days (I will wrap mine a bit more first), as you wait for Part Two where we learn how to use a smudge stick!

Many blessings,

Kami

Learning About Sage: Part One

Some of you know that I am in the process of moving into our first HOUSE! Very exciting (albeit stressful) times for this little family of three. Our current home is lovely, but sadly we have outgrown it and need more room for Claire to run and play. Neither Ryan nor I have lived in a house of our own before, so this is very exciting! A big step up from basement suites and apartment rentals. This move symbolizes a lot for me: a fresh start. It reminds me of when we picked up all of our pieces and moved halfway across the country to a city I had never even been too, Toronto. That was the scariest decision we ever made as a couple and it turned out to be one of the best. I am hoping this step will be the same.

I am however a much more spiritualy inclined person then I was back then, and I want to start of on the right foot. Our first month in Toronto was pure and utter HELL, we were really put through a lot of tests and trials. To help ease this transition for the sake of my sanity (which at times is questionable) and Claire's happiness I have decided to 'bless' our new house by doing a smudge ceremony.

For those of you that don't know, smudge is basically a bundle of sage, tied together, dried, and then lit on fire to a slow smoulder. Its sweet smelling smoke is used by First Nations people to cleanse away negativity and evil spirits: be it a persons body or a sacred space. I'm not really one to follow anyting to strictly, I kind of like to do things my own way so I have made up a Kamika version to meet my needs.

The first step in this process is to gather herbs from my garden, of course sage, but I have also decided to use some lavender for its peaceful and calming affect. Theses herbs are currently laying out in the sun getting all nice and warm and blessed by the suns rays before I bundle them into a smudge stick.

I will post a little tutorial on how to make your own one soon

Many blessings,

Kami

Inspiration for Your Day

(I'm afraid I have had this picture for so long I cannot remember its source)

Today I challenge myself (and YOU) to be happy no matter what comes my (your) way. To breathe deep, go with the flow, and spread joy to others around me. Happiness is contagious after all, perhaps by using the law of attraction I can bring some more joy to this hectic life of mine. Give it a try, what have you got to loose? It takes more muscles to frown then it does to pass on a smile

peace, love, and pickles

When Life Bitch Slaps You, What do you Do?

I truly believe everything happens for a reason. Even the horrible stuff. When life throws its worst at me I often find myself asking why? What am I to learn from this? Or in this case....what is the cosmos trying to tell me? Why is it yelling at me, and why didn't I listen sooner? Today is my birthday, I am 32 years young, yet I am stuck on my couch because my body is falling apart one me. AGAIN. The past 4-6 months has been an up and down cycle of pain and illness. Every time I get sick or hurt my back/neck I say to myself that is it! This time I will change. I start out with noble intentions of doing yoga, walking more, going vegetarian, and drinking lots of green smoothies while reading books on health, spirituality and inspiration. Then a few days later I find myself sitting on the couch, glass of wine in hand, watching the food network.

I know I am not alone, we all do this. BUT WHY? Why do we not give ourselves what we deserve? Why do we not honor the temple that is our body? This life, this body is a gift we have been given? Why don't we honor that?

And so today, on my birthday, as I sit here in pain on the couch unable to move I make a vow: ENOUGH. It is time to truly start living, it's time for this blog to live up to it's name as I begin my search...I hope you will all follow along, encourage me, and maybe join in.

Peace, love and pickles