Tips for altar-ing the spiritual balance of your home

(UNDATED) Covered with photos, to-do lists, notes to loved ones and the collected magnets of a dozen vacations, a refrigerator door may say more about your heart than any other spot. If that’s the case, you might want to think about creating an actual altar-a designated space where whatever you love can renew your spirit […]

(RNS1-JAN30) Pritam Khalsa, 4, stands in the doorway of a home altar constructed in the family's home by her father, author Jagatjoti Khalsa. For use with RNS-HOME-ALTARS, transmitted Jan. 30, 2009. Religion News Service photo by Doug Beghtel/The Oregonian.

(RNS1-JAN30) Pritam Khalsa, 4, stands in the doorway of a home altar constructed in the family’s home by her father, author Jagatjoti Khalsa. For use with RNS-HOME-ALTARS, transmitted Jan. 30, 2009. Religion News Service photo by Doug Beghtel/The Oregonian.

(UNDATED) Covered with photos, to-do lists, notes to loved ones and the collected magnets of a dozen vacations, a refrigerator door may say more about your heart than any other spot.

If that’s the case, you might want to think about creating an actual altar-a designated space where whatever you love can renew your spirit on a regular basis.


Jagatjoti Singh Khalsa, a Portland, Ore., designer and author of “Altar Your Space: A Guide to the Restorative Home” (Mandala Publishing, $29.95, 160 pages), thinks many people look for renewal in all the wrong places-outside of where they live, in places they visit, he said in a recent interview. “They’re not paying much attention to-or spending much time on-the one place where they have complete influence: influence over sound, sense, color and texture.”

Khalsa, who’s created restorative spaces in one home and an office since moving to Portland last summer, has also worked with celebrities, including Sharon Stone and Jeremy Piven, turning their homes into sanctuaries.

He offered three suggestions on how to start:

First, look inside. “Start within you,” he says. “The things that you hold dear, that’s what’s sacred.” It may be a painting that’s been in your family for years or a statue that reminds of you of truth, beauty or hope. “It could be a bonsai, family photos, books, anything that restores your own spirit,” Khalsa says. “Even report cards are great.”

Second, sort your stuff. Look through the closets, drawers and boxes where you’ve packed away the treasures you’ve gathered over the years: a stone from a beautiful beach; a string of beads. Choose a few of these personal artifacts and add them to your altar.

Third, choose a place. “Go back to your hearth,” Khalsa says. “It used to be the mantel was a gathering spot for the family. The hearth was sacred, the place where we broke bread, sang songs, communicated with each other.” Then came televisions and, now, home theaters. Often times, the refrigerator door “becomes the traffic center of a house.”

In his own modest bungalow house, Khalsa created a meditation space under the basement stairs.


“People ask me why my home is so energized, healing and soothing,” Khalsa says. “I try to live in one place, consciously and in the present. But for many people, a house winds up being a pit stop for the rest of life.”

(Nancy Haught writes for The Oregonian in Portland, Ore.)

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