I’ve been thinking off and on lately about sacred spaces.
Some tend to be spontaneous and only last a short time - while others are tended and cared for and can last for generations.
I remember living in Germany and seeing, on occasion, a shrine along a road or at a cross roads.
Far too often the spontaneous sacred spots we see here in America are roadside memorials dedicated to those who suddenly lost their lives in a car crash.
I believe there are a couple of scenes in the movie Under the Tuscan Sun too where a gentleman leaves flowers at a shrine.
Anyway, there is no conclusion or “A-HA” moment coming from this… just things I’m thinking about off and on.
Things I’m thinking about that lead me to create something.
I had this very large wooden birdcage that I got on SERIOUS clearance a while back (It was originaly around $100 but I got it for less than $10) and a Buddha statue I picked up somewhere.
I put Buddha inside the birdcage and the combo sat around for quite a while. And then I started thinking about sacred spaces, holy spots, memorials, shrines and the like and decided to create my own shrine. Not because I’m a practicing Buddhist – I’m not a practicing ANYTHING really – but I do think that Buddhism is a beautiful school of thought.
I also had on hand a pair of great wooden elephants I found at a thirft store (Read about my Thrifting Thursday Haul) along with an ornately engraved chalice/cup sort of thing and those great Chinese papers are from my friend Jenny of CraftTestDummies.com, sea shells, silk flowers, a string of outdoor lights with the lights inside of flowers and all sorts of other goodies.
So I combined them all to make a little shrine in my living room. It’s all sitting on my grandmothers trunk (you can read my Thrifting Thursday – Family History post) with an amazing tablecloth I had also picked up at a thrift store.
Oh! I almost forgot. I added in the back there above Buddhas head a mirror I made a while ago. It’s made with wooden ice cream spoons and painted gold. You can see how it’s made in my post here: Wooden Ice Cream Spoon Mirror
There are lots of little fun things included in this vignette and all of them are either gifts, thrifted or purchased on clearance.
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I love this idea! And I happen to have a birdcage that I bought off of craigslist, years ago, just waiting to be adorned!
What a neat idea, thanks for the inspiration!
I’m so glad I’m not the only one who buys things KNOWING I have a use for it only to not have that use become known to me for a long time. (Just a nice way of saying I buy stuff I like knowing I’ll do something with it!) I hope you’ll share photos when you create your birdcage project.