Sacred Space
Today the girls and I went on a pilgrimage.
Technically, what we were doing wasn’t allowed—not the hike itself, but the reason for it—and so I appealed to a higher power: the trees themselves. It was a perfect fall day, sunny and windy and just cool enough for sweaters. We walked a mile down the reservoir listening to the lapping of what passes for waves on land-locked bodies of water, the trees whispering and squealing overhead in seeming delight at our daring. Or, perhaps that was my imagination. Brightly colored leaves dotted the trail and sailed through the brisk air, reminders of the season, and, by association, of our reason for coming. After a summer spent outdoors in the garden, the altar I set up on my desk last year is in sad disarray, which simply won’t do with Samhain just around the corner. Cleaning of sacred spaces require something more than ordinary household tools. I needed to make myself a besom, a ceremonial broom.
The first Wheel of the Year festival I celebrated was Beltane last year. The second was Samhain. It is oddly appropriate that I began with the liminal times of year, when the veil between worlds thins, shimmers. Appropriate for someone still grieving great losses, and for someone with a lifelong fascination with all things fae. Beltane and Samhain have long been associated with fairy mischief and the manifestation of spirits and otherworldly beings of all sorts and temperaments. My girls share my fascination and have been getting to know their own special places in the yard and the tiny guardians that inhabit it. This is their first exercise in creating a sacred space of their own. Rena named the bush by our early-bearing apple tree, Blush, and drew a picture of “the Queen of the Spider Fairies” who has sixteen arms and legs. Spider fairies! Who knew, right? Next week we will begin planning a tiny feast to set out on Samhain night for our local fae, I picked up several very nice acorn hats on our hike to use as bowls. There is no more magical time of year than this. I feel the tingle of it from my toes. It is a clarion call, like each flock of geese that passes overhead; it demands preparation.
Over a bridge, past the 1-mile marker, and through a miniature stand of pine trees, we finally saw the little willow beach. Horsetail grass marks the side trail that leads to the water’s edge. No sooner had I set down my backpack and reached my face up to the sun to ease my shoulders than the girls had their shoes and socks off. Wading is no more allowed than is picking plants, but is it really wading if you’re just walking along the edge? Where is the edge, exactly, when the water is constantly moving? We come in respect and do no harm; the spirit of the law if not the letter. While the girls squealed at the coldness of the water, I let my eyes drift over the nearby trees until I found her, the mother of the willows. She was flashing silver in the sunlight and knew that I came with a request. Trees always know when a human desires something of them. I asked leave to gather twigs for my besom, only the tiny saplings growing farthest out onto the beach where there is too much traffic for them to survive, and only as many as I needed. She weighed my offer and I watched her think about it, watched her watching me, waiting to see if I will wait for permission or just take what I want. Too many humans have come through these woods and left their marks on the trunks of trees, left their trash to poison the ground, walked with careless steps through her home. I have never been one of those, the woods are sacred ground to me; I waited. I waited until I felt it, a warmth emanating not from the sun at my back, but from her. My request had been granted.
When I first started exploring witchcraft last fall I read a lot about altars and sacred spaces. Most books I found had detailed suggestions for where to set up your altar, what to put on it, how to arrange the right items in the right order so they line up with the cardinal directions and the corresponding elements. Mostly, that just felt confusing. Did it really matter whether or not my candle was in the south quadrant? Should my pot of succulents represent earth or water? Was it disrespectful to move everything over so I could set my laptop up in its accustomed spot? After a while it started to feel like too many things to worry about, and I quit caring for, or about, my altar. Grandmother Maple became my sacred space, the place I entered in reverence and where I would go when I needed help or comfort. This was an important connection to make, but soon the weather will be more of an inconvenience. Samhain-tide is a good time to dust off my indoor sacred space (literally, I’m afraid), and decide how I want to set it up and how I see myself using this space. The kitchen is still where I do most of my crafting, sewing dream pillows and melting wax for candles while the girls do their schoolwork at the table, and that is something else to consider. Perhaps the mantle over the fireplace could be rearranged to reflect the work that I do there, or a small altar be set up on the windowsill above the sink. Sacred spaces are what you make of them, after all.
A sacred space does not have to be an altar of any kind. A sacred space could be the chair where you meditate, or the nook you like to read in, or the little table where you put your book and set your cup of tea. It can even be something that moves with you: a prayer shawl or beads, a Bible or other sacred writing, your journal, that tattered shirt your partner bought for you on that trip and you only still wear because it’s so comfortable and full of happiness; anything that creates in you a sense of expansion into your surroundings and connection with an Other—that is also sacred space. This season of inward turning is the perfect time to take stock of your idea of sacred space. What sense do those words convey to you? What is your internal reaction to them? Is there a place in your home, or a special item, that feels sacred to you? Is there a place or thing not in your home that feels sacred? Why or why not? If you have a sacred space already, think about what is there and why. Are there any changes you would like to make, perhaps to reflect your present spiritual mindset? If you find that you haven’t been frequenting your sacred space as often in recent days (or weeks…months…nobody’s judging here), is there a reason for that? How could you make your space feel more inviting? Or, is it more about your mindset than the place? Sacred spaces can change, move, evolve into something else entirely; there is no right or wrong. I have decided that what I left behind when I quit religion was the need to follow a prescribed set of actions in order to achieve a desired result. I can put the candle wherever I damn well please, or not have one at all. That’s my choice. Spirituality is the house we build for our own souls. There is no blueprint.
Last year I felt like a kid celebrating Halloween for the first time (anyone who grew up being told that Halloween was “the devil’s holiday” will know what I mean. Apparently, only children whose parents are leading them down the highway to hell get to eat themselves ill on candy once a year). I wasn’t yet owning my craft, I was parading around in a costume and grinning with the giddiness of my own daring. On Samhain (or, on the day that was dry enough to light a fire), I knelt beside my own small bonfire and braided pine twigs and flowers into my first wand, then stripped to the skin and stood tingling with my front too hot and my back too cold and trying not to wonder uneasily if the neighbors could possibly see me. It was wonderful, and frightening, like anything new and forbidden. These weeks before Samhain mark my first full turn of the Wheel, and all that I have learned in that time. It is fitting that I should be making my first ceremonial broom to commemorate the occasion.
In that spot above the sink where the sun shines in, I place the willow saplings for my besom. Later, I will find a length of apple wood to polish for the handle, and choose a color of hemp cord to bind it together with a sprig of dried sage. Then, I will get to work. This broom will be far too small to ride, of course, but it will be perfect for getting my spiritual house in order before the coming of the snow.