12 Easy Steps to Creating Sacred Space

In these challenging times when so much of our external lives is stressed and precarious, it is more than ever essential to make our homes into oases of joy, peace and sacred inspiration.

Ever since I was a child, where I have lived and how I have created the spaces around me have been of primal importance to me. I have found out for myself that you do not have to be wealthy or have a large house to create a space that constantly reminds you of your own deepest values and hopes and inspires you to realize them. For example, the house I live in now has been furnished on a shoestring. The most expensive feature in my whole home was a gift of an Indian poster. Everything else I own was either picked up while traveling, discovered in thrift stores or garage sales – even back alleys on garbage days and from wonderful reasonable stores like Pier One. My night stands come from a hospital in Wyoming and were given to me by a great friend who delivered babies there. The coffee table in my living room is an old wooden, hand whittled chicken coop that is 75 years old. I am saying this to make it clear that what is needed for the creation of sacred space is NOT money, but what we all do have already, guidance, imagination and inspiration.

What I have discovered on my own journey is that it is wise to draw on different sources of direction. For example, I very much admire the philosophy of Feng Shui, but I don’t use it exclusively. I mix it up in a personal exploratory way with Vastu (the Eastern Indian philosophy of harmony) and my favorite, the Japanese vision of Wabi Sabi, which simply stated is the perfection in the imperfection or the peculiar attraction of worn and abraded surfaces that are timeless. Some of my clients become too literal in the ways they follow the philosophies and instructions of so called "experts". What I am hoping to do in this course is to awaken your own sacred creativity and imagination with everything that is already inside of your home and in your own deepest dreams, hopes and inner experiences. There is nothing that I am going to suggest you do in the following 12 steps that you don’t already either have already or have access to.

The 12 STEPS that I have created are designed as an easy and complete initiation that unfolds in a specific order to provide you with all that you will need inwardly and outwardly to turn your house into a home of sacred space. As Joseph Campbell said, "Sacred Space is where wonder can be revealed." In these 12 steps, I have carefully balanced the need for awakening your own inner connection with the divine and awakening your sacred imagination. In each step a series of contemplative questions has been provided that will help you honestly and richly explore the vision I am inviting you into. These questions will help you become brutally candid with yourself and help you develop the kinds of discipline and courage that you will need to not only turn your home into the most creative and invigorating version of yourself, but also provide you with wonder-filled inspiration for your future.

I continually use these same 12 steps throughout my own home and include recent photos as examples.

Take this journey with me and reinvent the Space of Grace that is your home and the foundation of everything you are and want to be.

TOPICS COVERED

• Transform your current living space to one that's peaceful and comfortable
• Gain a greater understanding of how a small change in your external world will create a big change in your internal one
• Learn the 12 essential tools already present in your home that will help you create a Sacred Space
• Realize the powerful influences that the physical environment in which you live and work has on you.
• Explore contemplations and suggestions that help you dig deeper to identify changes you need to make in your current living environment