Shrine
Family reunions memorials, picture albums, relics and tombstones. These are all forms of shrines and alters. On this show sister Phlyecia Tarael-ANU recaps her shrine and alter webinar. She gave valuable information about the proper way to setup, clean, and maintain your shrine.
The first thing she covered was bringing items into the home for the shrine or altar. She said make sure that you remove all tags and stickers from the item that you bought for your shrine. She said make sure as well that you clean them by removing all previous energy from the items.
You do this by washing it with salt water, Florida water, smudging, or all of the above. She also said that you can smudge yourself to remove any negative energies from yourself after work or coming in from a hostile environment.
She made the good point that it's not religion, but spirituality and there's no set way to really do it. But she did give the directional specifics on how to set the shrine up. She said start with the north and you can use a feather or incense to represent the north which speaks to the spirit realm or ideas. Next, go down south which represents earth. You can use dirt or soil or anything from the earth to represent the earth element. That's where the work for your ideas starts, then over to the west and the West is represented by water.
The West gives you the results of the work that you put in the south. The water on the shrine can be used to help you manifest ideas by speaking over it. She also mentioned not to put anything artificial on your shrine and she explained how distilled water is not natural and the way to make the water live by adding molasses to the water because molasses also represents melanin.
What to put on the shrine will come to you naturally. You divine to see what needs to go on the shrine. An attendee asked about alcohol and the relevance the alcohol has when it comes to shrines. Sister Phlyecia explained that alcohol helps loosen the tongue and takes the rigidity out of the divining or communicating.
Alcohol represents vitality, celebration, and fortune to the ancestors. She said you can drink it with them but don't get loaded. She said you can spray or you can drink with them, or you can leave it on the shrine with them as well.
She also said to speak normally to them as if they were sitting right there with you. You don't have to speak to them in a very Gothic or ceremonial way. You can speak to them as if they were alive sitting there with you.
Another attendee had a good question about the offerings. The offerings are to be placed in the middle of the shrine along with the things that they liked. After the offering has been used or begins to deteriorate, she said to not throw it in the trash. You can give it back to nature by burying it, or just giving it to the animals outside.
She said to just feel your way through the process and give them what they like. Don't try to make it religious, just do what you think that they would like.
She also said that the best way to start off with the Orisha shrine is by trying to find out which Orisha is your crowning Orisha. She said you can get a life path reading to find what which Orisha crowns you.
She gave valuable information on what to put on the Orisha shrines as well. She said you can go to the book Grasping the Root of Divine Power and see what Orisha likes what herbs, elements, numbers, and correspond that with the information out of the book. You also can divine and ask them through Obi divination with yes or no questions. You can also ask them what they want and just use your intuition after that on how to give it to them or if that's all they need or want.
She also gave a good reminder that the Orisha are indifferent to emotions. They don't work off of emotions ,you have to call on them to do a specific task. The ancestors on the other hand understand human emotion because they've been here before.
She also mentioned to don't always go to your ancestors asking for stuff. You can always just sit and talk to them and give them information. An attendee asked about reincarnation and she let her know that babies are the ancestors returned and that when you return your soul tries to teach you a lesson because your soul hasn't experienced the earthly elements of being human.
She also mentioned that you keep coming back until you learn whatever lesson your soul was trying to teach you or until you live out your life span that you agreed to in the celestial realm.
She finished off with some good do's and don'ts of proper shrine and altar maintenance. She said to make sure that you keep it clean and don't ignore them like a piece of furniture but to interact with them regularly.
She says to clean it at least once a week and not to let things like cobwebs, bugs or mold get on it. She also said its good to give them flowers and things they like but not to let things die or decay on the shrine. She also said let the shrine be just that, and not a bookcase or place to drop the keys or something that people use for anything other than a shrine.
She said you can have multiple shrines as well. You can have an ancestral shrine an Orisha shrine and just a meditative shrine that you go to meditate, divine, and just clear your thoughts. This is a very useful show that can be used as a reference when you're setting up, maintaining, and cleaning your shrine. Lots of valuable, useful, and practical information in this show that can be applied very easily.
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