Early Morning August Blooms

In my front yard, I've been working on this circular flower bed for the past seventeen years. Some years I have fantastic flowers that bloom from early spring to early autumn. Other years, due to my hectic schedule, it's only full of weeds with the occasional daffodil or lily blooming for a short time.

This summer, this flower bed has provided many beautiful flowers I'd like to share in pictures. When I woke up this morning, the sun was beginning to rise, bathing the pedals with fabulous light. During July and early August, butterflies, bumble bees and one lone hummingbird were fluttering among the pink hibiscus and butterfly bush. This, one might say, is my first successful attempt at a prayer garden.

Enjoy the pictures.



My little garden facing west


The last flowers of my gladiola


The pink hibiscus


Red and yellow blooms of the dahlia


The little bird bath that needs water

One of the pleasures I've had was to bring fresh flowers from my garden to mass on Sundays. It's also been nice to have flowers from my yard on my table. I'm hoping next summer that I'll have more flowers to share.

In Serenity and Joy
Andrea

My Sacred Morning Routine

We all have our morning routines. Whether it is waking up, getting dressed and hopping in the car without breakfast, that is a routine. The previous is my husband's routine.

My morning routine is more time consuming. I wake up and make coffee. While the coffee is brewing, I pour myself a bowl of cereal or toast an English muffin and watch about 15 minutes of the news. After I eat and find there is no major catastrophe on the highway I drive to work, I sit in my green rocking chair that has a view of Lake Washington. This is when I read my daily reader from Al-anon, write my gratitude list of ten ways I've been blessed and write two and half pages in my journal. Afterwards I get ready for work. This routine, for the most part, puts me in an attitude of serenity, peace and joy.

I would like to hear about your morning routines and rituals. The way we begin the day can be important on how we handle stressful situations or help us see blessings we normally do not acknowledge, such as the car starting in the morning and getting us safely to work.

Below are pictures of where I begin my day.










My green rocking chair where I write, read, meditate and pray.


A view of Lake Washington. What a wonderful way to begin the day!

In Serenity and Joy
Andrea

One of My Altars

For the past two years I've been working with this particular altar. This altar is on the eastern wall of my living room. I've created it mostly feminine and my west wall, which I'll take pictures of at a later time, is mostly masculine. I like to have a balance of feminine and masculine around my home.

All of my spaces are works in progress. I'll always rearrange and tweak the various statues, icons and candles. I finally brought home my Meditating Mary from the Hagia Sophia Chapel yesterday. She was there a year sitting next to the Sophia. Now that I am claiming the living room from my male family, I thought it would be good to bring her home again. She seems happy to be back.

I realize that the icons and statues are made of material things. But it is what they represent is what is important to me. When I look at my Meditating Mary, I am reminded to have a mind of peace and serenity. Above my alter is a wall sconce I bought at Illuminations in Bellevue. This represents the tree of life, but it only has nine candles, not ten. However, this sconce reminds me of my spiritual journey that I am on. Towards the left I have two pictures with Asian characters, one says serenity and the other says happiness. This helps me to travel the road with right mind and attitude. And then to the right is a cross, which reminds me that I am a Gnostic Christian using all the tools available to me.

For me it's important to have things around my home that reminds me of my divine spark within. And I hope when I have friends over, they are reminded of the same thing, that they also have a divine spark within.

So I leave you with my photographs of my east wall.

In Serenity and Joy
Andrea







My Altar


Tree of Life


Meditating Mary

Purge, Purge and More Purge

The first process of creating a sacred space is to purge the home of items that cause clutter and disorganization. The challenge with purging is number one, time and number two, the illusion that someday one will need that broken espresso machine because someday it will be fixed. That someday never comes, throw it out. I deal with both of those issues constantly. With going to school and working, time is illusive and during the school months I rest rather than purge. And I hate the thought of getting rid of items that I MIGHT use someday. But I need to be honest with myself, I will never use the tray you can put family photos in that has cluttered my bedroom for the past nine months. Yesterday it went into the garage sale pile.

The issue about time, I don't have a solution for. I am a firm believer that things get done when they are suppose. I listen to my intuition. Yesterday, I did purge my bedroom of stacks of paper that had cluttered my home for years. I just happened to move the clutter that were in baskets to different areas of the house. The beginning of summer all the small stacks of paper landed in our bedroom, and became a huge mountain that took a good portion of floor space. I let it sit there all summer, until yesterday. Then I took all the paper and made three piles. The file pile, the recycle pile and the shred pile. Then I spent a good hour shredding. Afterwards I felt much lighter in body, mind and spirit.

For me purging my home of unused items is a spiritual act of cleansing. In the Matrix we are under the illusion the more stuff one has the more important one is. For me collecting stuff can be an addiction where I am trying to fill a void in my own spiritual life. It doesn't work.

Now when I buy things for the home, I have a specific place or plan for the item bought. If the item just looks pretty, but I have no use for it, I won't buy it. My other rule for myself, if I buy an item, I get rid of an item. This also helps reduce clutter.

I'd like to hear your ideas and comments about your own adventures in purging.

In Serenity and Joy
Andrea

My New Digital Camera!

We purchased a digital camera tonight. So now of course I have to experiment with it! I normally do not write two blogs in one day, but I couldn't resist. For someone such as myself who is technology challenged, I am enjoying learning how to upload images onto this blog.

Here are pictures of Suki, our cat and Rascal our dog. I did take pictures of my yard this evening, but it was cloudy and the resolution was not all that great. I'll be posting some of my adventures in both word and images onto this blog.

In the meantime I wish all of you a wonderful evening.

In Serenity and Joy
Andrea

Welcome

Welcome to "Adventures in Creating Sacred Spaces". This is the Gnostic's Martha Stewart/Rachael Ray on decorating, gardening, cooking and well being discussion blog.

If you've been following my other blog, "Spectrum of Light", you already know I've become obsessed with creating a prayer garden. That obsession has spilled over into other areas of my home and my life. My house occupies three men (my husband and two sons) one male dog and one female cat. We also have a fish tank, but I have no idea what gender the fishes are. There is probably a mixture of male and female because eggs keep appearing and hatching thus creating more fish. If the older fishes haven't eaten the younger fishes.

But I digress. The point is, I live in a very full house. And lately I've had the desire to create spiritual beauty within and without the walls of my home. This also includes creating sacred spaces with in body, mind and spirit. The sacred spaces we carry within can be invaluable in the chaos of this world.

I intend for this journal to become one of sharing ideas and discussion about all of our adventures in creating random acts of spiritual beauty to nourish ourselves, and to also share with the world. Even if the world does not get it.

One point I want to make clear is, I am no expert at home and garden decor. For example, when I go to the nursery to purchase a plant, I have no plan. I see something I like, I buy it and plant it. Sometimes the plant flourishes and will last many lifetimes in my garden, or sometimes I do something wrong and the plant withers and dies. It's all about trial and error and keeping a sense of humor. When we first moved into our house 17 years ago, I tried to keep fuchsias alive hanging in pots in my backyard in the shade. My neighbor Alice said they needed to be in the shade. I tried everything to keep the fuchsias alive, but they all died. My husband joked that he was going to start burying the fuchsias in yard and erect crosses. I decided that I am not a fuchsia type of girl.

Comments are always welcome on both of my blogs. Especially if you have any tips on gardening or home decor or recipes you'd like to share.

In Serenity and Joy
Andrea