Thought of the Day

[haptalaon]

How - if the Commonplace book serves as a sacred site, then a bookcase (or library) must be also. I have a little Fenbookcase right next to my bed - it is small, and has mostly books with some DVDs and CDs, and not all my witchcraft works either but a curated set. So there are a couple on mountain-climbing, an anthology of British saint stories, old English riddles, a re-released 70s library album of music and spooky poetry about the seasons, and so forth. It hadn't occurred to me that, in some sense, this WAS my altar.

I have an altar in the corner of my room and it is infinitely a clutter pile - at present it hosts jewellery, medicine, old phones, a doll I'm waiting for inspiration to DIY, candles I daren't light because when they burn down I can't replace them, notebooks, and a camera for snapping the mountains and sky whenever the colour is just right. I dream of getting it tidy; it will never happen.

How much better to think of the bookcase already made and filled with things as altar. What is an altar? A place where god dwells. In some paganisms, it's a kind of work table where you put down objects you're using during a process; or a focal point, a kind of decorative feature to reflect on on; or a place to murder goats. It seems right for me that the bookcase itself is the place of power, the dwelling-place of secrets.