Day 189-190-A Sacred Place

Namaste, my dear friends and welcome to the beginnings of a sacred place, a quiet corner devoted to meditation and spiritual contemplation. 

Sign for OM

It is typical for a Hindu home to set aside a space strictly for devotions, no matter their status. If a home is too small for a separate shrine room,  an altar in a corner of the kitchen or on a closet shelf is built. 

 

Present from Rosanna, Ganesha bracelet

In my tribal house, the quiet corner is in the living room. Here, a grotto houses Ganesha, the God of wisdom and the remover of obstacles, son of Shiva and Parvati. As the remover of obstacles. Ganesha is invoked when beginning worship or starting any new venture. It is said that almost every Hindu home has at least one statue of Ganesha, especially the homes of merchants, like our Rollas.

It was no walk in the park trying to figure out how to build such an important part of a home that has a severe space constraint.  It only became apparent to me when  I found this picture in Taschen's "Indian Interiors".

Picture from "Indian Interiors" published by Taschen

This is a picture of an old painted cupboard from Gujarat, placed under a niche housing earthern water pitchers and used as a household shrine. I knew then that here is my solution and so began  too, many nights of staring at this picture wondering how to start. 

I knew I did not want to build my cupboard from scratch mostly because I haven't the faintest idea how. Despite good suggestions from Rosanna, Cindy and Asuka, I knew I should really just bash something I already have. So out came this unfinished cupboard which was sitting collecting dust and spider web in the Alison Jr.  I think it was a S$2.00 hutch from Daiso. The scale is not 1:12 for a kitchen cupboard but it is perfectly sized for my shrine. I forgot to put the drawer back when I took the picture on  the left but it has one. 

I don't know why I wanted to modify the legs when I didn't have the tools but I guess I was so irked by the fact that it would not be realistic otherwise that I just threw caution to the wind. Anyway, this is how I cut the legs without a jigsaw. Chisel, saw and then break with brute force. I didn't even have the right chisel because I broke it after I finished cutting the holes for the alcoves.  In the left picture, you can see the one below was already done. That alone took me almost an hour.

As the cupboard will be displayed open, I am more concerned with the inside so I worked on that first. I fashioned the facade of the shrine from small laminate samples (top part and shelves) with spindles  and metal beads for the "columns". For those of you who have access to laminate samples especially if they come in small sizes, I strongly recommend working with them for realism and ease. I cut the pieces easily with scissors. I stopped for the day after I finished the parts. Everything else was done today.

This morning, I began with changing the knobs of the door and drawers. Here are the close up shots:

These are the same copper beads as the ones for the columns. Two of the knobs have additional metal pullers which are really sequins.

As you can see, I even painted the glass panes to look like old wood as glass was too expensive then to be used in a tribal home.  I added some pictures of Hindu gods on the 2 panels like how I imagine my gypsy would do to beautify her shrine. 

Here is the drawer with the paraphernalia necessary for some worship rituals. There are candles, incense sticks and dipa dishes for small oil lamps.

I laid some old floral papers on the shelves as liners and then placed an old stupa  that I bought in Chinatown a while back as the centerpiece on the top shelf. The Ganesha was from a broken temple bracelet. On the second shelf are 2 halves of a coconut placed as offerings  to the deities. A golden bowl made by Carolina sits in the last one.

And with the final placement of my goddesses of lights and a Carolina bowl of scented flowers,  I humbly present my household shrine. 

For some soul searching, gratitude and worship...

And some peace and quiet too...