A Shrine for my Mother

A while back, my friend, Jamie and I were prowling through antique stores in Boulder City and I found this

Kind of blurry - sorry

It was love at first sight and since it was only $35, I had to have it.  I immediately thought "ofrenda" for Dia de los Muertos. Well, that day is fast approaching and it's looking pretty bare. Meaning I need to stop procrastinating and get it together.

I have been thinking about making shrines for my parents for a long time.  That's all I've been doing. Thinking about it. For years. For some reason, I've had a really difficult time doing it.  The loss of my parents (my mom in 1985 and my dad in 1997) was nothing less than devastating. My mom, who was my best friend in so many ways, was only 48 when she died of complications due to multiple sclerosis. The older I get, the more I miss her. My father was 59 when he died. I am so grateful that I really got to know him during the last three years of his life.  He'd come out to visit and we'd stay up all night long talking about everything.  I've never thought, "Oh, I wish I'd said this, or told him that," because I did.  I just wish we'd had more time.

Today, I created my long-overdue shrine for my mother.

The lid of the box

I have been saving these crayon boxes for years (literally), thinking they'd make good shrines. They do.

Inside

I'm sure as the years go by, I'll find other things to put into and around the shrine.

It doesn't look quite so bare now.

Our Samhain/Dia de los Muertos altar has usually consisted of photographs: family, beloved pets, people who have influenced us in some way - artists, writers, musicians. I kind of like the idea of shrines, though. I'm already thinking about an accordion-type book to house all the pictures of our pets for next year's altar.

But first, I'll get to work on my father's shrine.

How do you honor your ancestors and loved ones at this time of year?

Wow.

I haven't blogged since February?  Really? Wow.  So much time gone by.  So much stuff happened. Foot surgery. Huge garden. Chickens. Viking chicken coop/run. Summer vacation.  Too much to talk about in one post.  So here's what I did today:

I reclaimed our fountain and this little corner bed that was awful to look at for too long.  Now it's a lovely goddess shrine.

I also cleaned off the courtyard altar, which had gotten pretty grungy and rededicated it to the element of fire (seems appropriate because we've been in the triple digits for the past two weeks. I mean, like 110 - 115 degrees kind of triple digits.  Awful!)

And since we've been feeding 2 or 3 stray cats who come to visit our yard, I made a nicer place for them to eat:

So that's pretty much what I've been up to today, aside from making popovers and sun tea and unloading some stuff through our local freecycle.com group.  I'll blog about the Viking chickens in the next few days...