What Is a Living Altar? The Beauty of Becoming Fully Alive

The Sacred Audacity of Beginning

You know starting this brand has made me feel pretty blissfully delusional. Like delusional in the way that the level of audacity and confidence in myself defies logic and has honestly surprised me. This is how I know it's from Spirit, this is how I can always tell. There's no way my brain could explain this. Nothing in the physical has directed this or pushed it forward. It's a deeper calling. One that directs without explanation.

This is how the heart speaks, what happens when the intuition has the space to direct us toward our Soul's Calling. And we need only to have the courage to leap toward it. I have released the need to 'know how it all works out' and laugh in the face of the fear—and that makes me delusional by society's standards.

How Intuition Speaks

In my healing practice, when I'm exploring intuitive development with clients, I always tell them that the intuition doesn't need to explain itself, the brain does. This is how you know the difference between the two. When it's from your heart, your intuition, it's clear and direct—'go left'. But then your brain comes in and wants to rationalize and explain, 'No actually you should go right because you've traveled that way before and it was safe and efficient, going left could be slower or dangerous.' See the difference?

The intuition doesn't argue, or justify, it simply states the fact and moves on. We listen or we don't. Our soul takes us to the door but we have to be courageous enough to open it and walk through. When we're not feeling safe in our receiving/creative energy (our feminine) we rely on the brain/intellect (our masculine) to keep us safe.

When really the brain is made to support the intuition. Providing structure and fire to propel you forward in a direction dictated by the heart. To bring in logic to support the aligned movement, to ground it in reality, not to invalidate it and steer the ship elsewhere. The masculine supports the feminine. Even Albert Einstein said, "The intuitive mind is a sacred gift and the rational mind is a faithful servant. We have created a society that honors the servant and has forgotten the gift."

So What Is a Living Altar?

Now what does this have to do with a living altar? Well in all of the spiritual work I have done, beneath all of the teachings, modalities, and practices this part feels like the core. How do we remember who we are, our soul's calling, our inherent Divinity and that of all of life? And how do we maintain that state of remembrance? If we are running from ourselves, hiding under the intellect and spiritual practices, trapping ourselves in a box of perceived safety, its because we see the world as something we need to be protected from. Something separate from us and dangerous.

Therefore, we're walking through life with fear and casual low-grade (or higher?) levels of anxiety and surrounded by all of the new age spiritual talk of protection rituals, evil eye, low vibes, etc. Which can make us fee like there is something wrong with us if we cannot maintain a certain level of 'love and light', so we abandon those parts of ourselves. We shove them down and hope no one ever sees them.

What “We Are One” Really Means

In spiritual spaces there is such little embodiment of what the Law of One actually is—what 'we are one' actually means, as more than love and light rhetoric. It means that we are entangled in an inescapable web of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny (said by the Honorable, MLK Jr., Rest in Power).

It means that all of life is communicating with us desperately trying to call us back home to ourselves if we could slow down enough to hear it. It means that every time you are triggered by someone or they strike aversion in you or you feel attraction toward them, you are staring at an aspect of yourself that is begging to be seen, loved, and integrated. It means that all of the collective demons we see in others live in our own closets.

But my love, everything has to do with the state of our internal and external world. It's so simple. Once, my guides literally said to me, "stop trying to plant roots in shit soil." We only feel courageous and devoted enough to protect our home when we love and value it. We would be willing to risk our lives for the things and ones we love, go into the fire for them, why can't that person be ourselves?

When did we forget that we are the Divine being that we seek through the spiritual and self-help texts that we read? That all of the Prophets were trying to show us, through embodiment, the heights we are capable of reaching within our own lifetime?

In this society that encourages looking outside ourselves for answers, externalizing our power, and consuming mindlessly we move in attempts to fill the God-sized hole in our hearts (as a Christian Nun I met, once put it). The gaping hole within, housing our seemingly insatiable longing for connection and remembrance of who we are, our Divinity, our purpose in this life, and where we've come from. And well, personally, I've decided to say no to all of this quiet suffering.

Beauty Creates Safety for Expansion

We must be in love with life, in love with ourselves, or all of the spiritual practices in the world will do nothing to help us feel safe enough to come out of that limiting box of perceived safety we've put ourselves in. I've learned this firsthand. We must have an environment that encourages that expansion and growth. We must surround ourselves with objects worthy of a King or a Queen because that's what we are.

There must be coherence with the internal and the external for it to stick and become our worldview. We can't just say we are Divine, if we don't experience life that way. If we don't speak to or treat ourselves that way, and we allow the spaces we inhabit to remain hollow and stagnant. If we have clutter, we can't have a clear mind. If our home is filled with items that lack meaning and depth, we will lack meaning and depth in our lives. Our home is a reflection of us. As within so without.

If we bring in intentional items that are imbued with a specific energy (a feeling, a memory, a vision for the future, etc.) and not hollow items to fill a space, they can serve to grow us, to expand us.

We devalue the impact that beauty and what we see every day has on our moods and our lives. The way we adorn our body and our space, honoring our Temple in every moment, can shift our entire perception of the world we live in. It can make it so you begin to love and value yourself so much that the healing and shadow work becomes easy and joyful.

This is how we can be joyful warriors. The ones that are ready to accept the light. True light, not the one that comes from running away from the darkness, the one that travels into every dark corner until there's nothing left.

VESSELA LUMINA as an Offering

VESSELA LUMINA is my simple offering to the world: beauty and intention. Every piece here comes from original artwork I painted, each with a very specific intention and curated to walk with you on your path to becoming the altar space. To being that regal presence in your own life. To becoming the one that you have pined after. To make your life an altar.

These pieces, the journals, blankets, and other textiles, originate from a painting done in ritual prayer. In communication with Spirit, while holding the intention for these to be the item that sparks remembrance within you.

For everyone who feels aligned with bringing these into their home to be that much closer to their own blissful delusion. Which in actuality is simply their ultimate freedom and soul awakening bliss.

Watch the Visual Essay on YouTube

If these words stirred something in you, you’re invited to experience the full reflection as a cinematic visual meditation from VESSELA LUMINA.